PS AUDIO PERFECTWAVE STREAM DAC

PS AUDIO PERFECTWAVE STREAM DAC

All incoming data, PCM and DSD, are upsampled to 30 bits running at ten times the standard DSD rate and then back down again to double DSD for noise-shaping. The ten-times DSD sampling rate was the lowest common rate attainable through integer upsampling of 176.4 and 192kHz PCM files. An internal volume control maintains complete precision. Except for the sigma-delta modulation process itself there is no rounding; a full 50 bits are used. Consequently, there is no degradation from using the digital volume control. After the volume control, the signal is converted to DSD and downsampled to double-speed DSD (often referred to as DSD128). The double-speed DSD rate allows the low-pass filter to begin rolling off at 80kHz. A higher output rate would would have increased jitter.

Off-the-shelf DAC chips can’t perform the functions described above, so Ted used a Xilinx Spartan 6 field-programmable gate array (FPGA) chip instead. An FPGA is a computer chip that’s a blank slate; you can program it to do whatever you want, and that’s what Ted did. A single master clock is used, but it’s unrelated to the input sampling rate.

I don’t usually spend this much space describing the design and functions of gear I review, but since the DirectStream DAC is such an innovative design I thought it would be worthwhile; if you’re interested in learning more about it, I highly recommend a visit to PS Audio’s Web site. Suffice it to say that Ted Smith has completely rethought how a DAC should operate and has designed a unique and innovative DAC.