I love my PS Audio Direct Stream with Red Cloud :)


Yesterday, PS Audio released the Red Cloud FPGA software written by MIT genius Ted Smith.

With immense delight, I auditioned all through the night.

The beauty exceeds what were my wildest expectations when I purchased the DAC several years ago, and reconfirmed that I had made another good choice (my previous good choices include Tannoy 15" DC speakers, Cary SLP05 preamp, Art Audio Jota HC monoblocks, Wavelength Cardinal monoblocks, Cardas Clear cables, Acoustic Zen reference cables, Wyred4Sound server, PS Audio Premier Power Plant, inexpensive HDMI cable, and ceramic corn dishes.

While I haven't heard a great many DACs, I have heard static-state Sabre DACs, which sound ear-bleeding mediocre IME, and R2R chips which were the thing 20+ years ago. I think that FPGA Red Cloud is superior, and the best thing aesthetically to have come from a scientist educated at MIT. Make music, not war.

Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with PS Audio, except as a happy customer. It's just a great company!


jburidan

Showing 1 response by deepgroove

I honestly felt the ps audio ds dac was soft in the bass, it also lacked some detail. When I pulled off the cover I found a pair of  m6 lamination edcor transformers doing, the current to voltage conversion, I would think. The difficulty with using a m6 lamination in a low level signal application is the core is has higher  hysteresis loss than nickel and is far less sensitive to small signals. Just because a dac has a FPGA doesn't make it a great dac. The analog section plays a key roll in sound reproduction. The Schiit Yaggasil was far superior in my system IE bass, information, sound stage width. Then I went to a gustard x20 pro which is an amazing dac. Tight bass, massive sound stage, all sorts of subtle detail. The output stage is filled with the evil op amps etc. 
Now I am running an audio gd 2 and the gustard x20 pro. The audio gd has a warmer sound but they are very close sonically over all.

FYI I have 4 systems in my house and I found basically the same result in 3 of the systems. My fourth system is av.