toning down the ps audio perfect wave dac

I have to agree with John (Jdoris). I had the PWD in Mk.I form before upgrading to Mk.II, and in neither case would I call it treble heavy. Relaxed but highly resolving (referring to the Mk.II).

'Treble heavy" emphasis and higher or improved resolution are`nt the same. True resolution improvement is desirable.Heavy treble is an unwanted coloration.The MK II upgrade seems the direction to go.
Regards,

the only time i've felt it was treble heavy/bright was when using 100% silver core ic's (acoustic zen silver ref 1 & 2 to be specific). not sure why?? as others use silver core ic's with the pwd and have different feeling/results.

what type of ic's are you using and have you tired different types??

agree with others who say the mk2 changes the game. more resolution but smoother in every way. great upgrade i highly recommend.

"the only time i've felt it was treble heavy/bright was when using 100% silver core ic's. not sure why?? as others use silver core ic's with the pwd and have different feeling/results."

Simple explanation: The silver is broken in these IC's.

Everyone ready to learn something? Now for the Technical Explanation:

I have been designing and manufacturing cables since 1996, but not anymore. My brother helped with the technology since he is a metallurgical engineer. I hold several patents on cables.

It turns out that the reason that one IC sounds good has nothing to do with the resistance of the conductors. In fact, some of the best sounding ICs have powdered carbon for the conductors, which has very high resistance. They obviously have their length limits...

The thing that makes or breaks a typical IC is the crystal-lattice in the metal conductors. The more uniform the lattice (less fractures) and the more pure the silver, the better the SQ. Polishing the outer surface is also beneficial. This is why gold and silver are both good choices for ICs. They are both ductile materials, indicating a well-organized crystal lattice. However silver is a lot more finiky than gold. This means that the silver drawing, casting and annealing processes must be correct and tightly controlled, or the silver wire is "broken" from the get-go. Also, the cable fabrication process must also be carefully planned in order not to further damage the crystal lattice and compromise the sound of it. The good news is that even "broken" cables can be somewhat repaired by doing a good slow cryo-treatment process on it. The best possible scenerio for silver is to do all of the conductor fabrication process correcly, then spool it on really large spools, then fabricate the cable with bending it a minimum amount, and finally cryo-treat the whole cable.

Just take a piece of "fine" silver and bend it a few times and you will feel it harden, indicating millions of fractures in the lattice. It should be "dead-soft" to be used in an audio cable.

Most high-volume cable manufacturers do not understand this. Even their silver right off the spool is broken. Usually, its only the knowledgeable boutique hand-fabricators that get this right IME. If you ask the right questions, you should be able to determine if the manufacturer knows what they are doing with silver.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

when i substitute another digital source in place of the ps audio combo, the "hot treble" or thinness in the highs disappears. thus, i would think that the problem is either the transport, dac or both. i have a variety of cables. one is gold, one is copper and one is continuous cast silver, the neotech nei-1002. i find using the gold ic as a coax digital cable, with the mojo audio copper ic helps.

incidentally, as i said, it was the technician who suggested that i replace the caps and use carbon fiber resistors, and discouraged me from upgrading to level two, with either firmware choices.

there exist caps which can alter the spectral balance.

i should also note that one of my cd players is a better transport for 16 bit discs than the ps audio transport. my settings for the dac include filter 5 , coax and native 44.1 sampling rate.