MQA COMING TO PS AUDIO
One thing PS Audio fans have enjoyed is the continued development from Ted Smith and the team in Boulder, Colorado, of their products.
Constant firmware revisions, each bringing another level of performance which PS Audio says, is “evolution”.
This week however, they’ve changed their tune – so to speak. It’s no longer evolution, but in fact, “revolution”.
PS Audio has released the Huron Operating System upgrade for the DirectStream and DSJ DACs.
Travis Townes, PS Audio’s International Sales Manager told StereoNET:
Since the release of the Torreys OS last year, digital guru Ted Smith has worked painstakingly to not just improve sonic and measured performance of both DACs, but to also prepare the Bridge II network card for MQA and Tidal. The Huron OS for the DS is available immediately, and will soon be followed by a new OS for the Bridge II.
That’s right – MQA. Quite possibly one of the biggest (argued) advancements in music and HiFi in recent times, though many are still on the fence. Then there’s Roon and Tidal too, which were already another two ticks for PS Audio’s Network Bridge II feature list.
Huron OS now upsamples all inputs to 20x DSD, up from the previous 10x which PS Audio says allows more extensive signal processing than ever before.
According to Ted Smith, the brains behind the DirectStream and DS Jnr DAC, Huron OS reduces jitter to the point where it is almost unmeasurable, lowers in-band noise by 3 dB, lowers ultrasonic noise by a staggering 18 dB; kept below the noise floor until 120 kHz, improves the perceived frequency response of both extremely low bass and very high treble, includes redesigned upsampling filters to improve resolution and noise-floors on both PCM and DSD.
So, it’s fair to say it’s no small update and arguably - revolutionary.
Huron OS was not simply an improvement upon the previous firmware releases – Torreys, Pikes Peak and Yale. Smith actually started from scratch this time around and after over a year in development, PS Audio have once again released their firmware free of cost to customers.
Directstream and DS Jnr owners can download the new firmware here.
For more information visit the PS Audio brand page.
Marc Rushton
StereoNET’s Founder and Publisher was born in England and raised on British Hi-Fi before moving to Australia. He developed an early love of music and playing bass guitar before discovering the studio and the other side of the mixing desk. After writing for print magazines, Marc saw the future in digital publishing and founded the first version of StereoNET in 1999.
Posted in: Hi-Fi
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