Digital Drive

Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it.

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RE: The PS Audio NuWave DSD Dac

Posted by AbeCollins on December 20, 2016 at 05:47:30:

Hi John,

By downsizing my vinyl setup I was speaking mostly in terms of dollars but size was a factor too.

No, the PS Audio GCPH does not sound better than ALL the others but to my ears it sounds better than MANY of the others and it's reasonably priced and flexible. Some of the ones that I think sound a little better include the Rogue Ares (probably my favorite), and the Graham Slee Era Gold V by a very slight margin (on MM cartridges of course as this Slee does MM only).

I prefer the sound of the PS Audio GCPH over the E.A.R. 834P and the Aesthetix Rhea. I also like it better than the battery powered Musical Surroundings Phonomena II.

The Aesthetix Rhea is very versatile with multiple inputs, independent gain and loading for each input, digital display, and a remote to control it all. I thought it sounded a bit on the dark side. I couldn't get past that even with some tube rolling.

The E.A.R 834P was entertaining, exciting, and intoxicating. It makes you say "wow"! And then you get tired of that sweet sugar high and realize you need a more balanced diet of phono amplification. The EAR was very rich and robust sounding especially in the mids, and sweet. But it wasn't very detailed or extended up top. I also didn't think it's internal SUT was very good on MC cartridges. It was much more transparent sounding running the EAR in MM mode with a good external SUT (Bob's Devices).

The Musical Surroundings was good on MM cartridges but sounded compressed (or lacking dynamics) when used with MC cartridges.

I've owned some other phono preamps but when I think back to the ones that sounded great and offered great value and flexibility, I had to go back to the PS Audio GCPH.