has anyone tried PS Audio perfect wave duo

Actually, the Duet will support up to 24/48 natively. I'm not sure about the DL-III (I know it up-samples – not sure about native though)?? I do know that the 24/96 files that I feed my Cullen-modded DL-III via the Duet all sound superior to my Redbook.

How are you feeding 24/96 files to the DAC? Are you using a software player that downsamples them to 16/44? Tell me how so I can try it!

Thanks.

Kartracer:

Since you have the SB Duet, you are undoubtedly running the SqueezeCenter software, which will down-convert 24/96, or anything higher, to the Duet's native 24/48 output. I’m not sure if SqueezeCenter up-converts 16/44 to 24/48, or if it simply streams the 16/44…anyone?? Now, what I don't know is what the DL-III does with the 24/48 signal. It will depend on what it supports natively (maybe the PS Audio website has this information available), but remember it is an up-sampling DAC. So, if you have the DAC set on 24/96, it probably takes the 24/48 signal (and/or 16/44) and up-samples it to 24/96 (I assume this is the protocol). In native mode, the PWD will support up to 24/192 without any up-sampling (i.e.: it will support the Duet's 24/48 "signal" natively).

PS says that the USB on the PWD, which supports 24/96, runs straight to I2S and is one of the best USB interfaces available, but the Duet doesn’t support USB – so you and I will have to run S/PDIF. Once the Bridge arrives, the best interface between it and the NAS will be Ethernet (or wireless – if they go that route, but it sounds like they’re still undecided), effectively eliminating the need for USB or S/PDIF. The Bridge will also go directly to I2S (the PS protocol is to place the Bridge/Lens in the chain prior to the analog conversion, at which point it is output to I2S with asynchronous clocking).

I'm 99% sure the DL3 only takes in straight Redbook on the SPDIF inputs (16/44.1) USB is a different story, but I'm not interested in using USB. I want to have some higher than Redbook FLAC files on my laptop ready to feed the PWD when it arrives, so I'm still trying to figure out how to do that (besides USB. But if that's the only way, oh well.) I'm thinking of buying a couple 24/96 albums from HDTracks to use. I'll post this question on the PS Audio forum.

Kartracer,

Since the DL-III is an up-sampling DAC (with the choice of either 24/96 or 24/192) I assume that when the SB Duet feeds it a 24/48 signal (from 24/96 files which SqueezeCenter down-converts to 24/48), that signal is automatically up-sampled it to either 24/96 or 24/192 depending on the setting you choose? In other words, we're not really hearing what 24/48 sounds like natively, we're hearing it up-sampled to 96 or 192 kHz. Therefore, via the Duet and DL-III you and I cannot hear what native 24/96 really sounds like. I (think) what we get is a weird hybrid (24/96 converted to 24/48 and then reconverted back to 24/96)??

Once you and I receive our PWDs we can feed them up to 24/48 natively via our Duets, but that's the limit. We'll have to wait for the confounded Bridge to realize native 24/96 and higher.