Torben_Rick
(Torben - A Dane living in Hamburg - Roon Lifer)
1
Some say that noise generated by computers, routers, NAS, local networks is a problem for a DAC. Other says it is not a problem.
Now AirLens from PS Audio has entered the market:
“Streaming audio via Roon or other services like Qobuz, Tidal, and Spotify offers millions of titles at the touch of a finger. Unfortunately, connecting your sensitive DAC to the noise generated by computers, routers, NAS, local networks, and modems via either WiFi or Ethernet cable is not a great-sounding solution to bringing high-performance audio into your listening environment.”
“The PS Audio AirLens has both an input stage and a galvanically isolated reclocking output stage. The two are connected only “through the air.” By using separate power supplies, there are no physical ground or signal connections, ensuring 100% isolation and noise-free delivery of perfect digital audio signals”
It would be interesting to have your thoughts about that? Noise?
Torben
PS: Just for the record: I have no need to buy this product.
Good modern DACs do this work internally in their USB or Ethernet receivers. If you need to go I2S or S/PDIF for your DAC because its asynchronous (USB or Ethernet) receivers are absent or mediocre, there are many streamers and DDCs out there that are considerably cheaper than this. If your system is so resolving that this would be an audible benefit over for example a Holo Red, time to get a better DAC.
Just look at some of the measurements of even cheaper DACs to realize that with current state of the art technology, artifacts are well below audibility and in almost all cases would be swamped by the noise and distortion of the power amps, anyway.
You will very likely also get comments by proponents of the belief that what counts for our perception can’t be measured and thus these unproven theories are valid nonetheless…
Take from it what you want, but this thread will degenerate into a partisan war quickly.
“PS Audio - manufacturing and selling solutions to imaginary problems since the beginning of the digital audio age”…
On a more serious note, I have a very utilitarian network serving PoE powered RPis. My main rig can pull a -120dBFS audio signal up to audibility, so claims of noise with less than “audiophile” network setups are vastly over-exaggerated. Considering I normally listen at ~ 80dBA, the noise floor is some 40 dB below audibility.
I think they missed a few source of noise: all electrical appliances in your and your neighbors’ homes, solar wind, lightning, taking off synthetic clothing etc. The list of reasons to keep audiophiles up at night is practically unlimited, so this can be monetized for the foreseeable future.
The discussion of electrical noise just triggered a childhood memory of mine from the 60s. I used to have an HO slot car race track down in the basement. When I used it, those car’s pickup shoes sparking around the track would seriously distort the TV picture. I would hear my Dad yelling at me to turn the transformer plug around and if that doesn’t work turn it off until he is done watching TV!
I could try to convince some of you this PS product is not snake oil, but seems some of your minds are made up having NEVER EVEN HEARD IT.
To accuse or assume that PS Audio is in the business of snake oil, is interesting. I can’t afford or justify the cost of their products, but I know some who can/do, and I trust my own ears and my friends judgement.
I have a great DAC, it has a “Steady Clock” low jitter USB implementation the RME-ADI-2. The difference between the USB input and the COAX fed by a low noise high end power supply coming from an Allo Digione Signature is significant in my system.
For those of you that can’t hear the difference, I’m sorry for you. Maybe get a more resolving system.
Everyone else do yourself a favor and try a low noise, galvanically isolated streamer (same applies to any product) let your own ears be the judge. Don’t believe the “schnake oil” comments especially from those that have not heard the product in question.
OK, if we’re talking noise and its effects on music playback, start with this:
It’s a -120 dBFS 1kHz 50% square wave test tone. If you can make it loud enough to hear, then bravo, you have a very low noise system with plenty of gain.
If all you can hear is hiss, then your noise floor is above -120 dB.
I can add enough clean gain on my system to easily bring it into audibility above the noise floor. Considering I limit my listening to about 80 dB SPL, the noise floor during normal listening is at keast 40 dB below audibility.
More resolving system? Nope, already got one of the most resolving systems you can buy and I didn’t have to sell a kidney to buy it.
Streamer is an RPi4 by the way, powered via PoE.
If a “high-end” streamer improves the sound of your system, you need a better DAC.
Any DAC whose USB input is inferior to synchronous inputs like S/PDIF is under-designed. There’s no technical reason for a USB receiver to perform worse, given that it is asynchronous, so the receiver can buffer and reclock to a very high-quality synchronous stream.
As a technical person, I used to think the same, bits are just bits, right?
Listen for yourself, decide, enjoy. Not everything in this hobby can be explained with 1s and 0s or measurements, and for the record the RME-ADI 2 DAC is considered by many to be an excellent performing DAC. I’ve had DACs 4X the cost that I returned because they didn’t improve my sound.
Until you’ve tried a product is best not to comment on it because you read something someplace and you think you’ve got it all figured out. What I know is the more I learn the more I know there is more to learn.
I didn’t read anything about that DAC. I’ve worked closely on a wide variety of digital and analog gear over a long career, including collaborations with audio and digital hardware designers at leading companies. There is no technical reason that a DAC cannot take the USB stream that an average current PC puts out and map it to as close to ideal a synchronous input to the D2A circuitry as can be measured or heard. It’s just a matter of design and implementation cost. Supplementing a DAC with outside DDCs and reclockers can make sense if the DAC has other desirable objective or subjective attributes, but let’s not pretend that the USB input problem has not been fully solved.
And just exactly what benefit would PS Audio’s AirLens bring when my system’s noise floor is already 40 dB below hearing threshold?
PS Audio is very good at marketing, in fact Paul McGowan freely admits that marketing is where it’s at for him.
He makes all sorts of claims in his grandfatherly chat style YouTube videos, many of which can’t be substantiated by science or measurement.
So, the AirLens offers galvanic isolation. Any half-way decent DAC does that internally.
AirLens only offers coax and I²S outputs. Coax is limited to 192/24, so if you want to leverage its full capability, you have to use I²S.
I²S is an internal protocol for transmission of data inside a DAC. There isn’t even a unified standard for external I²S!
Claims of its superiority over USB are.wildly exaggerated and don’t stack up when measured:
Digital audio over USB has been long-solved.
You claim to hear differences with and without the AirLens.
Your listening comparisons were done blind, right?
So you couldn’t tell when you were listening to the AirLens and when you were listening without it, and you could pick the right source at least 8 out of 10 times, yes?
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Torben_Rick
(Torben - A Dane living in Hamburg - Roon Lifer)
21
