PS Audio Directstream DSD DAC, Pike's Peak plus UPGRADES WOW .Trades considered.

I'm sure you already know how good this DAC is but what is really wonderful is that it will take a regular CD and transform it into what you would swear is a native high resolution file. This Directstream excels with Redbook and going direct.

This unit has the following upgrades:

1. HiFi Tuning fuse (silver) installed

2. Copper RFI shielding applied to wiring (today's environment is so polluted with wifi and radio frequencies that shielding becomes important)

3. New Rhodium IEC inlet socket installed.

This unit now sounds organic, dynamic, musical, pure and quiet. Best DAC I have heard. Much better than PWD MKII or anything else that I am aware of at this price point.

The PWD MKI came back from PS Audio with full Directstream installation. This thing just keeps getting better. It has the latest Pike's Peak software upgrade. Beautiful condition. Incredible sound. This is the only DSD DAC that I would say doesn't need a preamp. (Most DACs do sound a little better through a high end preamp--this one sounds like it is going through a $10,000 preamp even when it is connected directly to a power amp). Volume control on the remote is very convenient.

Paypal adds 3%. Checks welcome. Will consider trades.
I am also an authorized dealer for Legacy Speakers, Auralic, Oracle, Resonessence Labs, and Triangle Art. Coincident, and NAT Audio.

Just rated Class A+ in the latest Stereophile and PRODUCT of the YEAR. It was also Product of the Year in The Absolute Sound. This is before the latest software upgrade as it is clearly better now.

In the Absolute Sound review they said:

“DirectStream’s easily the best DAC I’ve ever heard in my system, making digitally-recorded music sound better than I’ve ever heard it.”

The new Stereotimes review ended with:

After listening to the PS Audio PerfectWave DirectStream DAC for the past few months it is my opinion that DirectStream represents a new benchmark in audio reproduction. Notice that I didn’t say “digital audio reproduction.” In other words, in my view the PS Audio DirectStream is the most musically and technically capable device of any type that I’ve ever had the pleasure to evaluate. My heartfelt congratulations go out to Paul McGowan, Ted Smith, and PS Audio’s excellent design team for making DirectStream a reality for those of us who truly love our music.
At nearly $6,000, DirectStream is not inexpensive, but by today’s standards for the wealth of musical improvement it offers, I consider it a bargain. Personally, I had to stretch my budget to buy the review sample, but frankly after hearing the immediacy, dynamic capability, and immense soundstage that DirectStream provides I couldn’t bear to send it back.

6 Moons:

"But what happened now was beyond our expectations. Maybe we had been lulled into a bit of been-there-done-that reviewer fatigue but the DirectStream’s handling of this CD became a rude wakeup call and put us back on edge to eat crow. Damn, the performances of the various groups and soloists were so real and at such dynamic range, it was hard to believe that the source material was a simple 16/44.1 Redbook CD."

Positive Reviews abound.

Audiophilia said:

"The DS is a game changer; I think it has caused the ‘war’ between DSD and PCM to be on hold or mute for most of us, and above all hold your horses before buying expensive high-resolution PCM files or DSD. That alone is a major accomplishment. McGowan, on one of his recent daily posts, stated in words the following as PS Audio’s core values/principles: ‘At our core we give the middle finger to the impossible. When someone tells me it’s impossible to make a $6K DAC sound better than a $30K DAC, or a $700 integrated as good as a multi-thousand dollar one, that’s the reaction I get; although I refrain from that gesture. The impossible becomes possible when someone achieves it.’ "

"PS Audio has perhaps achieved the impossible with the DS. Besides, one can now listen to a CD rip of War’s ‘Four Cornered Room’ without having to be high wearing bell-bottoms in order to appreciate it. The DS gets my highest recommendation; hats off and a bow to PS Audio."

The new PS DSD DAC is maybe the best DAC made, regardless of cost. It uses an FPGA, a field programmable gate array, which is basically a computer on a chip. It takes CD’s, downloads, high-resolution PCM or DSD based media and upsamples them to ten times DSD rate and outputs a pure analog signal directly into your amplifier or preamplifier. DirectStream converts any digital input format, such as PCM or DSD to a pure 10x DSD stream and outputs near-perfect analog directly to your power amplifier or preamplifier.

DirectStream has seven digital inputs which include: two I2S, one TOSLINK optical connector, one coaxial S/PDIF connector, one balanced XLR AES/EBU, one asynchronous USB input and one optional Network Streaming Bridge slot. DirectStream has both single ended coaxial and fully balanced XLR outputs.

Pure 100% DSD based D to A Converter

Resolution perfect volume and balance controls built in
Upsamples PCM and DSD to 10x DSD rate
Purely passive transformer coupled output
Improves imaging and soundstage
Simple, direct signal path with one master clock
Hand written filters, processors and upsamplers
Immune to incoming jitter problems from different sources
Increased digital headroom
No off-the-shelf IC DAC chips used
Uncovers musical details masked by typical PCM based processors
7 digital inputs
Fully balanced from input to output
Color touch screen