My 2019 Update Thread - My final system I think.

[Gazjam]

Next thing I was wanting to do was finalise my vinyl setup.
Had one of Alan Firebottle's terrific valve output phono stages, but I had a "cunning plan" for my LP playback...

My Dac has two i2s inputs, one of which was being used by the Oppo bluray player.
So one spare.

Why is this relevant to a phonostage?
I sold the Firebottle phonostage here on AOS and put the proceeds towards a rather unique (I think) product from, again, PS Audio.

They stopped production of these, but with my matching dac it was a no brainer to try and pick one up.
Was lucky enough to get one from the last shipment sent to the UK, phew!

The Nuwave Phono converter.

Heavy solid thing, about the width of a Cyrus box but half the height.
Sits quite inconspicuous on the rack, quite small in front profile but very deep:


Nice bit of kit this, some proper caps in there and a toroid transformer for the power supply:

As well as a standard phonostage analogue out to your amp, it has a few extra tricks up its sleeve, or rather on its back panel:


Digital Outputs.
As well as the normal analogue out to your amp it can convert your analogue to digital 'on the fly' and send it to the Dac from it's digital outputs. In my case I take advantage of the i2s connection as my dac has the matching input.
You'll notice it has a set of Phono inputs AND a second analogue input?
That means anything you plug into it, FM Tuner, cassette deck or even a Reel to Reel, can be digitised and sent to the Dac, OR (from the USB output) sent to your laptop/pc as a digital file copy.
Pretty cool.

You have a lot of control over the digital side of things through its menu system, where you can output the digital as 24/192 PCM or single/double rate DSD.

So double rate DSD file copies of your records, nice.
PS Audio recommends 24/96, but haven't had a chance to play with this feature yet.

From the Menu you can:
Set playback to mono/stereo and flip the phase, for those odd recordings that don't sound right to you.


Set the digital output - DSD or PCM as well as toggle the USB output on or off (reduces electrical noise apparently)


Further tweak the output settings:


You can adjust the gain to suit your vinyl setup (there are also dipswitches on the back panel for cartridge loading)


Theres other things in the menu, like adjust brightness, check firmware version, set display timeout and some other stuff.
One thing I'd like to be able to do is dim the PS Audio logo like you can do with the dac, its very bright!

Sits quite neat next to the turntables PSU and under the deck itself, matches the Dac of course.


Chuffed I was able to get one before they were gone for good, don't see them up for grabs 2nd hand much.
A no brainer with the i2s connection to the dac, (which sounds really really good) as well as the facility to digitise my LP collection, which is a project I'll get into when I have the time.

Its well reviewed too, so don't need to look elsewhere and can call vinyl done.
https://darko.audio/2013/11/ps-audio...pre-amplifier/
https://darko.audio/2014/01/ps-audio...ital-playback/

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/arti...ono-converter/

All good stuff.

[Firebottle]

..... and bought a PS Audio Directstream, great sounding bit of kit and unusual in that it runs from an FPGA, not a traditional Dac chip.
As such, its software programmable and its creator Ted Smith writes new improved firmware which PS Audio gives away for free.

Now that is a brilliant choice Gaz, another manufacturer going down the FPGA route with unique software and filtering.
Even more reason to get up to yours for a listen

[struth]

going for an all in one myself soon...so there

[jandl100]

Nice looking DAC but it does annoy me when DACs only have one example of each type of digital input.
I want multiple co-ax and TOSLINK inputs!! What's so hard about that?

[Firebottle]

I want multiple co-ax and TOSLINK inputs!! What's so hard about that?

Buy a Bel Canto, at least they have two SPDIF inputs.
On the other hand just buy another Topping and select inputs on the RVC, much cheaper

[struth]

Trust gaz to go left field. I bravo

[Barry]

Trust gaz to go left field. I bravo

Agree it's 'left field' and it does look like a fine piece of kit. But I can't see the point in digitising an analogue signal for it to be immediately converted again back to analogue. No doubt I am missing something here.

[Macca]

Agree it's 'left field' and it does look like a fine piece of kit. But I can't see the point in digitising an analogue signal for it to be immediately converted again back to analogue. No doubt I am missing something here.

Does it not do all the RIAA EQ in the digital domain then? I thought that was the point? If not then I don't know either.

[Barry]

Does it not do all the RIAA EQ in the digital domain then? I thought that was the point? If not then I don't know either.

Ah - I thought the equalisation was being done in the analogue domain.

If the equalisation is done in the digital domain then I can believe the equalisation could adhere more closely/accurately to the RIAA curve, and the two channels could be more closely matched/balanced. But even if an analogue output is used, one is still converting to digital, doing the equalisation and then converting back to analogue.

I can see advantages and disadvantages.

[DSJR]

Extra boxes over this neat solution, but decent A-D converters must be around, for the pro market if little else, that the phono stage could be plugged into? Meridian used to make one and a friend uses one from his beloved Luxman tuner to his digital preamp - he went mad on interconnects from Transparent though