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Similar experience

64.20.202.199

Posted by Charlie_L on January 7, 2001 at 05:15:38

In Reply to: P-1A not making P-3A sound better posted by sboje on January 7, 2001 at 00:51:24:

Hi Scott,

I received the P-1A an P-3A a week ago Wednsday and have been running it continuously since then (over 250 hrs.) I don't have the Monolithic PS yet.

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Some info that may be related: I set the P-1A to 24/96k and set the P-3A to I2s direct. When I do this, program light on the P-3A toggles between green and orange. I thought it should be green only. Orange seems to flash every 4 seconds or so.
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The same thing happens with mine, but I don't get the flashing (it stays orange.) I have the same results if I set the P-1A to 24/44.1k. I was expecting the LED on the P-3A to turn red. It didn't.

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More info. The manual states that the second light on the P-3A will indicate the input clock rate, but my light is always green, even if I set the P-1a to output at other rates. The only exception to this is in I2s direct mode. In this mode, I can see the corresponding LED color on the P-3A (with 96k having the strange orange flashing).
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Same thing, but without the flashing.

I didn't see the diagnostic display that you mentioned.

I haven't had enough free time lately to determine if the P-1A is making a difference, but I briefly took the P-1A out of the loop to see if the LED's seemed right on the P-3A. I was expecting the P-3A to indicate 44.1k, but the LED was green instead of red. I hope to play around a bit more today.

I currently have the P-1A set to 24/96k and the P-3A to I2S-direct. Another odd thing is that when I hold the program button on the P-1A to select the output sampling rate, the LED on the right or bottom is red instead of green which is indicated in the manual. When I release this button to select the output bit rate, the LED is green as expected.

I have spent some time listening to a wide variety of stuff, but I don't know if the LED's are telling me what's realing going on. Anyways, here are some of my initial thoughts.

In general, I've noticed similar improvements. The improvements to the bass are especially noticeable; much more rich and tuneful. While I haven't noticed a substantial increase in soundstage size, the content of the stage seems better defined. The illusion of a real person playing a real instrument is more vivid. Like the interaction between the musician and mouth piece or musician and strings. The interaction between the variuous instuments and voices also seems significantly better to me. Crosby, Stills and Nash have never sounded more glorious. The play between Jerry Garcia and David Grisman on their acoustic disks is so intricate, subtle and in general, beautiful. The interplay between the violins and the oboes in some of Bach's concertos is stunning. In some reviews that I've read, people have mentioned a slight sibilance with female vocalists. I didn't experience any of this. The most important thing is that all of the stuff I've listened to so far is more involving. I'm tapping my toes more; I'm dancing more; I'm smiling more; I'm crying more. And for me, listening to music is about emotional involvement. This involvement could, of course, be some kind of placeabo thing or I just might be in more of a music listening mode right now. Time will tell.

I think these products have tremendous potential and I plan on giving Perpetual every chance to iron out the glitches. I spoke with Jon Lang from Perpetual briefly about the problems I was having and he seemed very eager to help. I decided to hold on to the P-1A and P-3A until after the CES. I'll call Jon again on Thursday and work things out.

Although I'm somewhat dissapointed that things aren't exactly perfect, I realize that this is a fairly new company working with complex new technology and offering products at reasonable prices.

I'll post further impressions as they arrive.

- Charlie

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