November 2009 PS Newsletter

• Catching up
• Hats off to Linn
• USB
• An idea
• Chairs
• The fate of the internet
• Last chance for a Power Plant
• December’s warehouse clearance

Catching up
Hope everyone is well and thanks for taking a moment to read up on what’s happening with us, music and all things of interest to Audiophiles and music lovers the world over.

In this month’s edition of the newsletter we catch up on the latest news, salute a brave decision by UK manufacturer Linn, revisit last month’s USB comments, talk about the importance of a great chair in the listening room, get political and finally touch on a couple of product related issues.  Let’s get started by catching up on the news.

Celebration.  At PS Audio’s headquarters in Boulder we had a small ceremony (of donuts) to celebrate the first pallet load of CE approved PerfectWaves loading onto the truck to wing their way to Europe!  This has to be great news for our European friends to know that the CE approved PerfectWave units are en route and production will now start to flow in earnest.  Thanks again for your patience.  Hats off to the PS Engineering team!

iPhone controller. Work on our iPhone controller for the PerfectWave system marches on with great speed now. Here’s a screenshot of the first sketch of the Now Playing screen. This isn’t finalized but we’re getting close, really close and extremely excited! 

CES.  We’ll be demonstrating the full working app at the January CES in Las Vegas around the first of January (along with a bunch of surprises).  We’ll be demonstrating (for the first time) the completed PS streaming audio system through the PerfectWave, the Bridge, the NAS and the controller all demonstrated on a set of Magneplanar’s 3.6R’s playing on a new amp.  Should be fun!  Hope you’ll be there.

New firmware.  A new firmware release for the PWT is imminent.  Sometime in December we’ll be releasing the first firmware upgrade to the PWT which I’ll let you know about in December’s newsletter.  It includes some bug fixes that cleanup the track reading issues a few of you have had, the memory card issues for cover art and a few new things we’ve been hinting at and promising all in one package.  The firmware takes about 1 minute to load, we can send it to you via email and it’s of course free. Get ready.

Hats off to Linn
I will never forget the one brief encounter I had many years ago with Ivor Tiefenbrun, the founder of Linn, famous for the Linn turntable and later Linn electronics.  Ivor’s quite a character and highly respected by both myself and those that know him.  In fact, he was awarded an MBE (Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) by the queen of England!  Pretty lofty stuff and I will never forget the idea that he ingrained in me as well as many others who attended his talk that day.

Ivor’s message was that the most important element in the entire audio chain was the phono cartridge because it was the beginning of the audio chain: “if you can’t get it off the disc properly, then everything else you do down the chain of electronics and speakers is unimportant”. 

Granted he was selling turntables, but this same logic is what helped us form the Power Plant and its philosophy of “everything starts at the AC wall socket and if you can’t get that right, everything else down the chain is compromised”.

As times changed so too did Linn coming out with great and forward thinking electronics and eventually they entered the digital age with CD products that anyone would be proud to own (although Ivor always said CD was a passing phase).  Linn’s announcement last week that they will cease production of all CD players was a bit of a shock to our industry and generated a lot of buzz (which is what they intended).

While we don’t completely agree with their decision we do applaud their bold and forward stance.  We also applaud their streaming music device which is capable of high resolution audio and was, to my knowledge, the first on the block to do so (and it sounds great).

We at PS Audio are 100% behind them and their forward thinking and bold moves in high-end audio.  What Linn is doing benefits us all.

For the record, we view CD’s and DVD’s as simply optical storage mediums that need not yet be abandoned - and we will continue to build forward thinking devices to remove their stored data.  Used properly they are no better or worse than magnetic storage devices (like hard drives) as the PWT transport proves.  But Linn’s real point is that relying on these optical storage mediums as the basis of your system is misguided; and we agree with that.

As most of you know we believe in network audio with all our hearts and collective intellect and have been long time advocates of embracing change.  Too many in our industry are either ignoring this direction, hoping it will go away, just dipping their toes in the water, or clueless as to how to react.  I am reminded of the changeover from tubes to solid state and again from turntables to CD’s.  We are again at the edge of the next curve and we should embrace it with all we have.

This is a great and bold move by a forward thinking company in our industry and more power to them.  You may be sick of hearing me go on about this, but I truly love our industry and there’s no reason we shouldn’t be on top of this new wave in every way possible.

An idea

One of our customers wrote to me and said “this digital audio stuff makes my head hurt!  Isn’t there anywhere we can keep up to date with it?  I hate computers and don’t want to go to those sites that write about computers and audio.”  Then it occured to me, wouldn’t it be cool if our two main publications really started focusing on this - yet at the same time maintained their coverage of legacy products?  And not just this latest “trend” in audio, but future proofed themselves?

What if one (or both) of the magazines divided their content into separate robust sections devoted to: Cutting Edge products (whatever they may be), Legacy products, accessories and media?  To their credit both magazines certainly do a great job of bringing news and reviews of cutting edge products to the forefront but it’s not enough; I want more.  In fact, I am proposing at least 1/3 to 1/2 the magazine devoted to today and tomorrow’s technology.  I ask myself how many times do I need to read about some manufacturer’s new tweeter, lower feedback amplifier (even PS Audio’s), better coating on this or that or a new styling?  I pick up each month’s copy and thumb through them searching for something exciting, something new, something to learn. Am I off base here?

Many of you know I fear for the health of our industry because it is shrinking; while the market for home audio and video equipment is huge.  The disconnect is that many in our industry seem to view themselves in the past and I believe that is a mistake.  We should be the guys jumping on the bandwagon of change with both feet and making sure our cherished values of great performances in the home are upheld wherever technology goes.  That’s what this is all about!

PS Audio’s not in the amplifier business, or the power business or even the connected audio business.  No, we’re in the business of bringing high-end to the world of home entertainment.  Our customers are the top 10% of the people in the world who want something better in their lives and can appreciate the difference.  That doesn’t mean the top 10% by economic measure, but by matters of taste and appreciation.  These are the same people that want something better to eat, to read, to watch, to enjoy.  These customers are not tied to technology or hardware.  They are tied only to the desire to have a great experience and if our industry had the same goals as our customers we’d be future proof.

The publications, manufacturers, retailers, designers and installers that figure out their mission is to serve, educate and excite this core audience - regardless of where technology is going, wins.

Just an idea.

USB
Yikes!  I guess last newsletter’s mention of USB and its limitations (being tethered to a computer and can’t go over 96kHz) raised the hair on the back of a few necks.  Terrific, that’s one of this journal’s mission: getting people to talk and think about the issues even if they spark controversy.

One of the more pleasant outcomes of this dialog was a couple of very nice and informative notes: one from Gordon Rankin of Wavelength Audio and another from David Fair of Intel.  Gordon let me know I was wrong about USB limitations as did David who sent me this note.

“Just ain’t so.  The spec allows data rates and bit rates up to the point you saturate the USB bus itself - which you are not going to do with stereo audio.  What’s true is that, at least so far, semiconductor manufacturers apparently haven’t seen sufficient financial incentive to support clock rates higher than 96kHz. But that’s an economic, implementation issue.  Not a weakness in the USB specification.

While I was pinging some of my former USB colleagues, I learnt a little bit more about asynchronous USB.  It’s not easy, but when properly implemented will allow the DAC to control the data rate off a disc drive, allowing the DAC to own the master clock, obviating the asynchronous sample rate converter and other jitter reduction circuitry. However, if the PC/Mac is streaming audio, then asynch USB mode won’t work, and you are back where you started.  So it’s a great solution (assuming guys like Texas Instruments get with the program and support the higher clock rates) for what I care about most: playing back my own (high def from HD Tracks) music off my hard drive.  However, it isn’t a universal solution for USB computer-to-DAC connection.”

Gordon told me that he has an asynchronous implementation of USB working at 192kHz, 24 bit on his R and D bench and it sounds spectacular.  Wow, this is all so cool!  We really live in an exciting time and I believe we’re on the cutting edge of what’s possible.  Glad you’re along for the ride!

Chairs
I recently gave a seminar for the Bay Area Audio Society hosted by our dealer and good friend Michael Silver of Audio High in Palo Alto California.  While there I really liked the chairs Michael had in his showroom and asked where he got them: expecting them to be really expensive.  I was pleasantly surprised to learn the chairs were from Ikea!  I immediately went online and ordered up three really nice leather versions of these Poang chairs and you can see them here in our listening room.

Last week, good friend and customer Kent Tager suggested this chair, and then I got a note from another newsletter reader and customer Michael Klutz who has designed what he believe is the ultimate audio chair.  Check this beauty out.  It’s called the Ballerina Sweetspot and retails for $8k!

I am sure everyone has a favorite but I am equally certain that many of us don’t realize the importance of a proper chair in the listening room.  It’s not as valuable as room treatment but it sure is right up there.

For example, when I got my new chairs I realized they leaned back too far and weren’t at the proper height.  This changed the imaging of the system rather dramatically and forced me to prop up the legs of the chair to get just the right angle and height.  It’s not pretty (the adjusters are just wood) but it sure works.  These chairs changed the way the system performed and the perception of those that listen and enjoy our setup.

I would recommend that you evaluate your listening chair and make sure it’s up to par.  Perhaps you can’t afford the $8000 or so for Michaels Ballerina Sweetspot chair, but certainly think about the low cost of something like I got at Ikea, or the one Kent is suggesting. It’s worth the few extra bucks.

If you have a great suggestion for a chair, head over to the forum and share it with us!

The fate of the internet
The internet is “free”.....well, sort of.  In fact, ever since the internet took off there’s been folks trying to figure out how to manipulate it to their economic advantage and many of these people don’t have our best interests at heart.

Now there’s a serious threat to its freedom and I feel obliged to bring it to your attention.  I will tell you straight up that I have always avoided anything political in my newsletter journals - they are about audio after all - but this one’s going to get in because it may affect what we believe is the future of high-end music systems: connected audio and I am passionately against any attempts to mess up this indispensable resource. 

Let me give you a little background first.  The internet is a giant web of interconnected networks; an amazing collaboration between hundreds of companies throughout the world.  In the States it’s companies like Comcast, AT and T, Verison, Bell South and the big carriers you are familiar with.  These companies provide the infrastructure and the “pipes” for most of the communication that comes into your home: TV, phone, internet.  You pay a monthly fee to access these pipes - then you pay an additional fee to access the content they provide - well, you pay a content fee for cable TV and phone but not the internet and therein lies the rub. 

The big carriers are very worried about all this free access stuff, free movies (like through Hulu and YouTube), free music, free programs, free emails and soon free desktop applications.  To make matters worse for these carriers, companies like Apple and Google (among many others) are gearing up to be major content providers of music, movies, entertainment and phone services over - you guessed it - the internet.  You can imagine that this direction doesn’t sit well with the content providers who also happen to own and control all the pipes into your home and they are spending millions of dollars to fight this.  They don’t want you to have a legitimate choice of where and how you get your content and let the free marketplace sort this out to the consumer’s advantage.

Enter the FCC.  The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) is no friend of mine, believe me.  In my opinion they single handedly ruined AM/FM radio content in this country by removing the regulations against owning more than 7 stations and allowing big corporations (like Clear Channel) to buy most of the radio and TV properties in the country and homogenizing and controlling the news and content you receive to the point they are no longer worth listening to or watching. 

But this time the FCC is trying to get it right and saving the internet by passing legislation that would restrict what the big carriers can and cannot do and keep the internet free and open.  The big carriers have hit the panic button and I gotta tell you, the idea of these big corporations doing the same thing to the internet as they were allowed to do to radio and TV is downright scary and we should all be concerned.

I am going to end my tirade now before this gets too political.  Let me close by suggesting you do some research and be very careful about that research.  There’s a lot of misleading info out there like pending legislation called the Internet Freedom Act that is mislabeled and, in my opinion, misguided.  The big carriers support it for obvious reasons but I do not believe they have our best interests at heart.  Take the time to read it thoroughly.

IMHO the FCC has it right and I would urge you to support their efforts at placing a few restrictions on what the carriers can and cannot do so it doesn’t ruin the future of our connected homes and the freedoms we have now.  Whatever your opinion, let it be known.  This is a big issue.

Last chance for a Power Plant
Well, not really but it’s an eye catching headline, eh?  Actually, it’s the last chance at one of the remaining B Stocks that were on loan at RMAF and are on sale for cheap on our website.  As I mentioned in my note above in the Linn story, it’s critical to get the AC power right so everything else in the chain matters more.  There’s nothing better than a Power Plant AC Regenerator to do this and there’s no better chance to grab one from our website or the few remaining at a couple of our details.

If you’re interested, give us a call.

December’s warehouse clearance
Just a heads up for December; as we close the calendar year, our GM Jim Laib has instructed the sales team to clear out all the old stuff in the warehouse before December 31st.  There’s Transcendent cables, B stocks, trade-ins, a few G Series and who knows what else. We’re going to get a list published in the sales department and if you want a copy, email us at sales@psaudio.com and we’ll give it to you for consideration.

Why should you be interested?  We will have saving of up to 70% off on some items.  In other words, this is going to be a big blowout so give us a shout or an email.

Till December
There’s so much going on at PS right now it’s hard to catch ones breath and I apologize if I’ve been behind in the emails and forum posts.  I have been locked in meetings, going to the graphic artist folks, hiring programmers, approving this and rejecting that as we move closer to releasing everything promised for the upcoming connected audio setup. 

It’s truly invigorating but it’s all I can do to keep up with it.

Have a great holiday and drop me a note if you want; I always like hearing from you.

Paul McGowan

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