Article: PS Audio DirectStream DAC (Snowmass) Full Review

[ednaz]

Bravo on posting your playlist. I think that the music used to make judgments can influence the results. Not a negative - it influences the results to match YOUR preferred music.

 

A long time ago, I moved to Singapore for a bit and left my audio gear in the US so I needed to buy a whole system. They had a wonderful mall that was four floors of high end audio gear. Most of the shops small, four or five brands. I had a handful of CDs that were my playlist. I had a written guide - this disk, these two tracks, that disk, this one track. I always let the shop use their playlist initially, but once I heard how different my playlist made the gear sound, I realized that the shops' playlists were selected to show off their gear best. After a half dozen shops, my rule was, my playlist only.

 

Interesting results. A few shops, the owner went downcast seeing my CDs. In one case, he said "you won't like anything here, I know this". In a couple of shops, the owners broke into huge grins. In a couple of cases, they whipped out disks of music I love, that could well have been on my playlist. Guess what? Everything I bought came from those shops.

 

Since then, I've kept track of what reviewers say they listened to. Funny... those who did rave reviews of gear I owned called out music that I enjoyed. Most reviews you get piecemeal info. Posting the playlist ROCKS because it simplifies things.

Unfortunately, I think I'm going to love your playlist, and a new DAC at this price range is not likely in my immediate future...

[ednaz]

5 hours ago, chrille said:

 

Like you I always bring my own reference tracks for any serious auditions of HIFI equipment of any kind.

Regarding Singapore and the Adelphi which I guess must have been the shopping  mall you are referring to,unfortunately it is not quite what it used to be any longer. But there are at least  still some serious high quality shops left.

One  of the so called "dedicated headphone shops"Jaben, even has a desk selling gold watches . And others have noisy coffe machines next to very highend equipment. And only a couple have rooms  big  and good enough to demo big speakers and an environment suitable for serious listening comparisons.

The open doors onto a noisy mall policy, has hit the Adelphi too.

 

Yep, it was the Adelphi. Damn, sad to hear it's drifted, although that's consistent with the path of high end audio in the US. Hardly any good specialist shops left except in the largest cities, and a fraction of what there used to be.  I do remember that many of the shops were too small for the speakers they had even then (1998). 

[ednaz]

17 hours ago, austinpop said:

I used to feel self-conscious about revealing my music tastes, but in fact I find it's one of the most interesting things about a person. My daughters are in their early 20s, and they both have an evolving playlist called "Music for Dad" that they keep updating with their current top 20-30 songs. It's been a tremendous bonding experience for us, as I get to hear what they like.

 

I've had people scroll through my library (or back in the physical media world, my shelves of LPs and CDs) and in frustration ask me whether it's a library for multiple people. About the only thing I don't listen to is opera, and that's not even a hard and fast rule.