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Lon, I get it now. I thought you were talking generally, not about your particular situation. You have gotten the benefits of resolved jitter, error correction, resolution choices, memory play, and filter shaping without  losing discs or having to rip them. These data treatments were some of the reasons I went a computer and you did it without the change!


Beowulf.

My name is Will, but I get the quotes as I seem to have spelled it with a little w. That audiocircle thread is amazing in length and breadth, and with useful bits as you found. The jitter/uncompressed/error correction things all make a lot of sense, and the async helped my ZDAC. But interestingly, the basis of that thread, the Tranquility DAC, by many posters in several forums, bests many popular (and more expensive) async/upsampling  DACS and it is a NOS DAC without async. Just goes to show there are many ways to get there.

I have been working with Eric Hider at dBAudioLabs, and he is treasure of information from long years of very careful exploration, and very willing to go there. I have been auditioning a Tranquility for a while and ended up finding it better than my V-link/ZDAC in some ways, and mine better in some ways, so there was no clear winner. But we finally agreed that the V-caps in my Tranquility that were a special order for a guy who upgraded to their Signature DAC, might well be the culprit. The part I did not like about my sample was it was at times, perhaps too "smart" at resolving inner detail, sometimes seeming a little intellectual.

Then I got to playing with caps in my speakers and I realized, this is a cap sound in the Tranquility, which makes sense especially since it has a very simple circuit designed to let out the music as neutrally and in as uncolored a way as possible. In talking about it with Eric, he agreed this may be the case since the V-cap has a signature and the one they use stock "just gets out of the way." So he offered to give it a listen to find out for himself, put in the stock caps if he thinks it will help,  and report back. Amazingly helpful guy in advice and assistance all through this process! I hope he can get the DAC to where it is a notable upgrade for me, as it already is in many ways.


Donnie,

I agree with Lon. That Amphenol glass cable is nice! Interesting that the iphone/wadia beat your laptop so handily, and perhaps relevant to computers not being equal with sound. But the wadia probably has some signature stuff going on to. Hmmm. I wonder....were you playing uncompressed files from both or did the iphone setup also have the handicap of MPEG?

LOL

Lon and Will,
The only thing I have with a optical output is my Onkyo DVD player and all it does is sit on it's stand quietly.
Will, I compared "Sometimes Salvation" from " The Southern Harmony And Musical Companion" by The Black Crowes by ripping a copy off of the CD onto my hard drive as a WAV. file. I then copied it onto my Ipod through Itunes as a WAV. I used Winamp to output the file from my computer into my ZDAC-1 and switched between the Wadia and the computer with the ZDAC. I'm wondering if my USB cable was upgraded from the one I found in the back of my closet things would change things.
I'm now wondering on how "Cloud Computing" can fit into all of this? If I store all of my music on a cloud do I download what strikes my fancy or is it streamed to a server? This whole business is starting to make my head hurt, I'm going back to humming to myself.

Sorry Donnie, I saw "USB" but somehow thought that was optical, Toslink.  Just my brain being fuzzy, that glass of blackberry Sangria my gal and I had may have been a contributing factor!

So I guess what I am figuring out is that the Ipod sounds better than my computer. It actully makes  some sense, the Ipod was designed as a music server, the computer as a all powerfull gizmo. The Wadia takes the files and hands them off to the ZDAC, something else designed from the ground up to play music.
Has anyone else did any serious listening with the Ipod/Wadia combo? Hey if the Apple Mini is the computer to use, maybe the Ipod is the real thing?
And also everyone should also take into consideration the fact that I have been around loud stuff all of my life, motorcycle racing, competitive handgun shooting, concerts of bands that play too loud and most of all working 60-70 hours a week in machine shops. I'm lucky that I can tell the difference between my clock radio and my Decware system. But I will say that at 4:10 AM that the clock radio dosen't sound good!

Hah! 4:10 a.m. There was a time I was rising about then!

I have the Wadia iTransport and an iPod and I used to use them together with a Peachtree Audio Decco via coaxial output. Sounded pretty good, very close to the cd sound from the same unit (integrated amp with DAC).
I now just use the audio out from the iTransport into a ZBox (I had Steve add a second input to mine and have my bedroom Blu-Ray player into the other input) and then into my SE35.2. Output is low from the audio outs as you know, but in my bedroom I get it loud enough with the iPod and the analog out into the ZBox sounds close to the digital out from the iTransport into the Peachtree Audio Decco, close enough for use in this room. I don't use the iPod that much, I just use it to hold lossless files of cds that my gal likes to listen to that I don't have on cd myself.

My PerfectWave Transport has a version of the digital lens enclosed.  So I have the Lens there. There's some talk of an "upcoming Digital Lens" in the PS Audio literature, it would be very cool if I could plug in one of those in the DAC though it doesn't seem lacking because of its absence. More than half of its use is with the Transport.

I don't think there will be any problem with the Ultra and the PW DAC. The CSP2 has no issues with it between a Torii, and I would be very very surprised if the Ultra doesn't act nearly identically. I wish I had rack space to have a CSP2 in the system right now, perhaps in the near future. Have to get some income coming in first.

I agree with you. But if say they produced a 3 or 4 hundred dollar pop in version of the Lens to fit inside the PW DAC, that may garner a few sales for the DAC. I don't know. I think it would be cool. I think there's going to be an increasing market for audiophiles who want the best possible sound from disc and cable sources and don't want to go computer-based. The Duo is a great product for these, and a non-Bridge Lens could be another selling point.

Anyway, I think you'll be impressed with the DAC after break-in. I'm really impressed with mine.