12-01-10: Slanski62
I hope the fans of the dac and bridge can help me understand something. I've followed the progress of the Bridge on PSAs site for a long time. It seems to me that most users are pretty pleased with the sound, but a lot of them are unhappy with the ease of use. Network freezes, inability of the network to find devices and store settings, and an unpolished software interface seem to be common concerns. So to me, it looks like the Bridge has a long way to go before it lives up to it's promise, and from purely a sound quality standpoint, I wonder if it is any better than other very low jitter hardware plus good player software like Pure Music. I am not knocking PSA here. I am very interested in the PWD and Bridge as a more refined and convenient alternative to my Mini/Pure Music/iTunes/DAC approach. So to my question -- are the proponents of the Bridge speaking of sound quality only or the entire user experience?
I personally am thrilled with the Bridge. I had a few issues playing hi-rez files at first, but PSA gave me the fix and now have flawless, bit perfect IS2 audio playing from a world class DAC. The sound I hear is the best I have heard in my system, not that I have had tons of gear. BTW- the DAC sounds great without the Bridge. But the Bridge does kick it up several notches and is well worth the $$$ ans effort to set up, at least in my case.
Paul from PSA let everyone know that the Bridge was (is) a work in progress. I bought mine knowing there would likely be some bugs. I know they have shipped over 1000 units and so if 15 people are posting on PSA's site with issues this seems well within reason IMO.
I use JRiver as a DNLA server and find this to be a GREAT interface. I also use tag-n-play and do not like it so much.
PSA is building their own DNLA server and it promises to be really good. And it is free. I do not know if it will be any good or not, but I am happy with JRiver so it is a non-issue for me.
