September 2009 Newsletter

• Yikes!
• Audio Clubs
• RMAF and PWA
• Premier price reductions
• We need your help
• Building a library part 2.5

Yikes!

I have been running around the country so much I completely spaced out writing the newsletter, so here I am writing on the day it has to release.  Many have warned me about creeping memory loss as I age.  Jack Bybee summed it up pretty well “I have a great memory, it’s just short”.

In this month’s newsletter we have some really interesting subjects to cover including a call to help from our newsletter readers.  I think the help we need opens the door for a lot of fun and at the end of the process, a really great product.  Please see below.

Audio Clubs

If my recent memory lapse isn’t age then it most certainly can be blamed on too much travel.  I can’t remember a month where I traveled as much as this one.  I have crisscrossed the US multiple times, including the CEDIA show in Atlanta, a visit to Orlando, presentations to the Philadelphia and New Jersey Audio Societies as well as the Bay Area Audio Society.  No sooner do I catch my breath and it’s the Rocky Mountain Audio fest this week and the Japan High End show next week.

Check out this shot of the BAAS group at our dealer’s showroom.  We held this event at one of the nicest audio showrooms in the country, Audio High in Mountain View California.  Run by a great guy, Michael Silver (pictured with the headphones), this was one of the best sounding system we’ve had the privledge to work with.  If you’re ever in the Bay Area you owe it to yourself to visit this showroom.

I really love speaking in front of these groups and if you would like me to pay a visit to yours, just let us know.  One thing I find when I am visiting with people is a lot of questions about the health of our industry.  Folks ask me how I think we’re doing because it seems everyone is a bit concerned with all the negative stories they hear and read.  They are concerned because the last thing anyone wants is a shrinking high-end community.

So let me share with you what I tell people and what I believe to be true.  High-end audio is alive and well and of great interest to a lot of folks.   I do not believe the industry is shrinking I believe it is simply changing.

In my travels and phone conversations with customers the level of excitement over the future of connected media, high end audio, music servers, high resolution media and all things related is extremely high; bubbling over in fact.  The folks I communicate with are hungry for knowledge and excited about the prospects of building a high-performance connected home audio system.

I think a lot of what you read about our declining industry is in fact a viewpoint held by some journalists and manufacturers that seem to want to cling to “the way things were” - which seems less interesting to many Audiophiles and potential customers. 

Put another way: if you are in the business of selling something people are losing interest in, then from your vantage point the industry is shrinking.  The reality is the interests of people are simply shifting in another direction than yours.  There’s a great book about this phenomena you may have read “Who moved my cheese” if you’re interested.  It’s a good short read.

All I feel when I am communicating with people is a genuine excitement and a refreshing eagerness to learn and participate in this terrific new direction we’re heading.

I can’t express in words how gratifying it is for me to see the light in people’s eyes when they start to grasp the significance of where audio is headed and how bright the future is.  To me, this is just the beginning of one of the most exciting eras is high-end music.  I am delighted we are a part of it.

RMAF and PWA

Starting this Friday, October 2nd , the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest begins and PS will be there on the top floor (room 1107) where we have been every year.  We’re excited about going and we’re delighted to see the show attendance growing every year.  What’s interesting is the growth is from people flying in from all parts of the country (even from other countries).  This is an exciting trend and on my travels I have spoken with a lot of you that love this show.

The RMAF is one of the last and best of the pure consumer high-end shows in the US.  A chance to meet the companies in our industry, see what’s new, talk with the designers and movers and shakers.  How cool is that?  We love it because we get to see all of you and show off our products.

We will be demonstrating with a full PerfectWave system playing on a pair of Focus Audio Master 2.5 loudspeakers and then I am dragging my pair of Martin Logan Descent servo subwoofers along as well.  Should be a pretty killer system wired up with AC12 power cables, a Power Plant Premier, solid silver HDMI cable etc.

We’ll be doing regular demonstrations of the difference between red book CD and high-resolution audio, the differences between using the sample rate converter and going native and so forth.  It’s plenty of show and tell.

So, what will we use for a power amplifier?  Why, a prototype of the PerfectWave Power Amp of course!  I know many of you have been asking when we will release the matching PerfectWave power amp and while I can’t say yet - I can tell you what we’ll have at the show represents a sneak peek at what we’ll be doing.

I hope you can make the show.  It’s a lot of fun; it’s not rushed and crazy like some shows of old.  Instead, it’s a very relaxed Rocky Mountain experience that we think you’ll enjoy.   If we can get Terri to agree, we plan on having a keg of good beer in our room, so come on by!  See you there.

Premier price reductions

We have reduced the price on the Power Plant Premier from $2195 to $1695 for a few months.  This is a huge price reduction.  If you’ve ever wanted a Power Plant Premier in your system (and who wouldn’t?) this is absolutely the time to snag one at this incredible price.  Really.

Most of our dealers have these in stock and waiting for you.  So, contact your local PS dealer and get your power up to the standards it should be and start enjoying everything in your system at a level you’ve not had.

We need your help

If you’ve been following the PerfectWave developments and are aware of the upcoming network Bridge (a plug in network card for the PerfectWave DAC) you will quickly get what we’re doing here.  If not, please allow me to explain.

The upcoming network Bridge is a $500 add on card that slides into the back of the PWD.  Once inserted, the PWD is magically transformed into one of the very few high-end music servers available today.  The card permits network access of any stored media, whether it’s on your computer, or a network attached hard drive, or even the Internet.

Once the Bridge is installed, you can stream uncompromised high-resolution media (up to 192kHz 24 bit) right to the DAC and it’ll sound as good as if it were being played on the PerfectWave transport (because the Bridge has a built in Digital Lens). 

But, how do you select what you want to hear on the PWD?  How do you access the library and sort through it?  To manage this, you need a controller.

PS Audio will build two controllers to serve the Bridge and your library.  The first will be an iPod/iPhone app that you download and have full access to everything in your library.  It will allow you to build a playlist, select songs, search through your library, see cover art, control the volume, the equipment, etc.  It’s a really cool and low cost.

The second option will be a full bore 7” color touch screen tablet that will do even more but will not be available till sometime in 2010.  In the meantime, if you get a bridge, you’ll either control it through the front panel of the PWD or the iPod Touch interface.  Me?  I am going for the iPod Touch.

It is this Touch interface we need your help with.  Here’s the deal.  We have a basic platform we’re starting with for the controller.  You will download this basic platform and start playing with it and streaming music (we’ll show you how).  You will then start letting us know the weak points, the strong points and what you’d like to see when we release our final version of the controller.  You’ll be part of our panel of experts that will help us design this product.

To participate, please go here   http://perfectwave.psaudio.com/itouch_feedback.php fill out the form and we’ll let you know.  Those that are chosen will receive a $100 gift certificate from PS Audio (available only to US residents) and your status on the forums will be elevated to expert on a permanent basis.  While we can’t give the $100 gift certificate to those participants chosen outside the US, we certainly welcome any and all from all over the world.

To participate you’ll need to either have or get the following:

• An iPod Touch or iPhone
• A Windows or MAC computer or NAS
• A reasonable comfort level installing programs
• A desire to help us build the coolest music server on the planet

We hope as many of you as possible join up.  For those of you not participating, you’ll be able to read the ongoing debates, suggestions, problems, successes and opinions on our forum in real time as it happens.  You too can chime in, but you won’t have the status of the Experts who will really form the steering committee.

It’ll be a lot of fun, we’ll all learn a whole bunch and best of all, you can be a part of helping build the most awesome music server specifically tailored to high-end audio ever made.  That’s got to feel good.

Building a library part 2.5

As I am writing this on the last day of the month I am embarrassed to say that this section isn’t as complete and thorough as I would like.   So, I am calling it step 2.5 instead of step 3.  This is both good and bad news: good to those of you wading through these long newsletters, bad for those of you that eat up all the information we send you.

I did mention in last month’s newsletter that I would be choosing my NAS and that’s done.  If you’ll recall here was the list we narrowed it down to:

• HP MediaSmart Server LX195 . Up to 5 TB of storage, about $399

• Western Digital Share Space . Up to 8 TB of storage $799

• QNAP TS-409 Turbo NAS . Up to 8 TB of storage about $599

• Lacie 2 big network . Up to 4 TB of storage about $549

I went through a lot of exhaustive research and in the end chose the Lacie 4tb model.  I just picked this up for $700.  They have much cheaper models all the way down to 1tb.

So, let me run down the list of why I made this choice and I’ll start by letting you know what I didn’t like with the others.

HP Media Smart .  This is a beautifully built device and was actually my second choice.  What stopped me cold is that it has only one bay to load a hard drive into.  If you want additional storage, you attach USB hard drives.  This is slick in one sense because you can add as much as you want, but in the end is not the elegant simple solution I was looking for.

Western Digital Share Space .  Lots of good reports on this, but frankly it looks cheap and every Western Digital external hard drive product I have owned has failed at one time or another.  I gotta tell you, I want to build my library once and I sure as heck don’t want failure.

QNAP TS-409 .  I actually went to purchase this one after rejecting the HP.  The TS-409 seems to have been replaced by a newer one within one month of my first research.  I have also seen numerous bad reports from people on blogs and forums as to their quality.  It is a super slick device and appears to be the friendliest and easiest to use of them all but I got spooked by the rapid model change and bad press.

Lacie 2 big network .  I settled on this piece for a number of reasons, not the least of which because I have two lacie drives hooked up to the MAC right now and they have been flawless for three years of hard use.  I did have a power supply die on me but that was replaced easily (it’s external).

The Lacie is built like a tank, has 4tb of storage, appears bonehead easy to setup and use.  It’s UPnP and DLNA compatible.  It’s not cheap at $700 but I only need 2tb of real data for my library and the extra 2tb give me the backup I feel good about.

I just placed my order so next month we’ll walk through installing it, tell you how easy or hard it was and then show you how we manage to get the files onto it and make it sing.  I am looking forward to doing this.

Till October

This is fun!  We’re having a blast getting people up to speed in the digital media age.  PerfectWave transports and DACS remain backordered and demand is terrific.  We plan on finally shipping CE approved models to our friends in Europe next month so that’s a big relief!  We really appreciate the support and your patience.

Power Plants are on sale, the weather’s nice, people are excited, life’s terrific.

Enjoy and we’ll see you next month.

Paul McGowan

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