Opinions on PS Audio Direct Stream DAC (Mk 1)

@magon  Yes, I have Black Dragon and Silver Dragon cables. I go with whichever one sounds better with the particular headphones I'm using. Usually, that's the (copper) Black Dragon, but with the Susvara it's the Silver Dragon.

I found the Clear Mg to be preferable to the Og but boy, do we have disparate tastes! My opinion of them vs. the LCD-X is literally the opposite of yours. So much so that I can't imagine the cable making that much of a difference. Maybe explains why we also differ so much on the DAC.

Isn't it great that this "hobby" has so many choices?

We have upgraded many of these Directstream DAC’s to our Signature Series PLUS. 

This brings these DAC’s up to and beyond the level of DAC’s costing many times more. (over 10k)

We now have developed an upgrade for the Bridge II network card that fixed the problem with the poor sound quality when using these Bridge cards. They sound awesome now with the new upgrade.

@jk_richards So tell us more about the streamer.  Does it sound as good as with an external streamer?  What is the cost?

Most of the upgrade is done in the DAC itself. We noticed a common issue with DAC's being services here. All of them using the Bridge card had the over heated heat sinks (discolored) and the insulation on the power transformer wires were burnt and brittle.  You could see the insulation residue on the bottom of the lid. With the bridge card installed in a stock unit the power supply ends up being over worked.  That stock power supply is just not big enough.

We install two larger heat sinks along with several other mods to fix this issue.

The bridge card sounds as good as an external streamer if you have a good network.

Cost depends on the level of upgrade your DAC has.  Will be available the first of the year..