Phasure NOS1 vs. Pacific Microsonics Model Two - Round Two

[PeterSt]

Let's say that we did not experiment with such things, but this will be because it would be a sort of the horse behind the wagon. IOW, these things should not matter. But they sure can.

All is about the proper grounding scheme for the situation concerned and how currents flow. You can well say that it is about *where* currents flow if they need to anyway, and guide them through paths which don't harm (for sound). This is about shortest paths, but also about the thickest wire (where current flows through more easily), and -for example- a thicker mains cable may let flow current through there (the mains) where a normal cable may keep things inside (assuming the cable wires are more thin than the cabling inside).
So here you can already see how things could be influenced.

If a device (DAC, Amp) is created (designed) it may take into account how devices connected are grounded, or it may not. For example, when a transformer is used in the path, it acts as a decoupling device. So, there's no ground on the other side but a floating one, unless it is explicitly provided. However, when it is not provided, but the device it is connected to does this (like signal ground is connected to protective earth), there is no problem. The ground is there on the other side of the transformer. One problem, the current will flow through the signal wires.
If the ground (after the transformer) is provided anyway, it still can go through the signal wires, again because they are more thick.

Another example would be the startup sequence of things. Can be over devices - can be in-device; Once a current is flowing, it usually will keep on doing that, no matter later a shorter path or thicker path is provided. And so, switch off/on one device in the chain may let flow the current via a completely different path suddenly. And sound will change.

Personally I don't see the voodoo in a mains cable, but regarding the above it still can change current flows;
A mains cable will even have capacitance, and this is visible when the device is switched off per neutral and hot being cut, and no PE is connected. A current may keep on flowing through all for many minutes until the cable is discharged. You can have a cable with more and less capacitance. How this may influence things when the switches are On again ... hard to tell, although I have some ideas about it.
But here too, it should be so that the device (e.g. DAC) is self-contained, and it doesn't depend on anything outside, nor should it influence anything outside. Once that is so, I don't see how a mains cable can influence (apart from switching the phase (switch the poles in the outlet) like we can do here in Holland) - but which still isn't about the cable as such.
To what degree it really can be done to let the device be self contained indeed is another question, like that now *other* device incurring for a (heavy) current flow (it needs a ground which isn't in there). So, when all signal wires are grounded to the chassis (and that is connected to PE) this won't be much of a probem, unless we think all the mess from everything will be in our device for sure now. If, the opposite, our device is based on a floating ground (completely self contained "within itself") we can be sure to receive a heavy current from the connected device once this incurs for it.

All 'n all, grounding is very complex, especially when the other devices have to be taken into account (and this is a little different with a washing machine ). So, whether with my last situations described a mains cable can help out ? I would not know. Maybe it can, but it needs measuring to define so, and most probably can be solved by other means once the mains cable would help.

Not really snake oil maybe, but merely depending on coincidence.

In a later stadium I may refer to this post again. *If* I do, you will automatically understand why.
Peter

[manisandher]

I would be interested if anyone has tried the Phasure with different cable, receptacles, direct or non direct lines and how that affected the sound quality.

I'm hoping to do this in the near future. As well has hearing the affect it has on the sound, I would like to do some measurements. Does anyone know of a good-value-for-money oscilloscope I could buy?

Mani.

[manisandher]

I asked Paul a hypothetical question: He’s just walked into a hifi store which has a NOS1 and a Model Two for sale at exactly the same price. Which one would he buy? He said that he’d want to take the NOS1 home because he knows that his whole collection would sound totally different through it – he would finally be hearing what’s really on his recordings...

I've never seen a Model Two for sale on the typical used equipment sites. But right now, there are two of them for sale over at Audiogon.com!

They are $17.5K and $20K respectively. For around 1/4 of the price, you can have a brand new NOS1!

Mani.

[manisandher]

I've just spent the day with a fellow 'Nosser' Scroobius (Paul) listening to some great music from 2L and iTrax. He's a lovely guy and great company. Of course, I was interested in hearing Paul's thoughts on the NOS1 vs. the PMII and was totally unsurprised by his response - the NOS1 is better by quite a margin.

I've heard from another source that there is at least one PMII owner in the US that is very surprised with my finding that the NOS1 is bettering the PMII (as a DAC) in SQ. He is a high-end dealer and has access to pretty much everthing. Now, this guy uses the PMII with the highly-touted 'Merging Technologies Mykerinos' card and it could well be that with this card the PMII is taken to another level of performance. This may in fact be true - if I feed an analogue signal into the PMII and use its ADC and then DAC in series, then what comes out sounds pretty much exactly the same as what went in. There is no doubt in my mind that the PMII is an outstanding machine. But I think interfacing it with a computer is its Achilles' heel. If I had $6600 free, I would order the Mykerinos card and find out for myself whether the NOS1 remains the better DAC of the two. But I don't. So I'm hoping that this dealer will contact Peter and get hold of a NOS1 himself. I'd be very interested in his finding.

Mani.

[Scroobius]

Many, many thanks to Mani and his lovely and long suffering wife (exiled by music and hifi apologies from me!!) for a great day and great hospitality. What a lovely family and I  hope they will forgive me for stealing Mani for the day. Mani's son at 20 months is a budding music convert and a real cutie.

My first "proper" music system included Quad 57's the originals that were so old they were originally sold as mono speakers and then later pressed into stereo use. It was great to hear Quads after many years - and there was no mistaking the Quad sound oh that mid range lovely, lush and precise. Especially with NOS1 at the front end - what better way to hear the level of detail that NOS1 produces with such ease.

As Mani reports above we did compare NOS with the PMII. Certainly to my ears switching away from NOS1 the PMII had a slightly warmer "fatter" sound with a reduction in detail. For me NOS1 was the preferred source in Mani's set up (I just love the easy but precise detail of NOS1). Probably a longer listening would be needed for a final verdict but it seemed pretty clear which was my preferred source.

Thanks again to Mani for a great day and I look forward to returning the favour later in summer.

Paul

[manisandher]

Paul, thanks for your kind words. A lovely wife, lovely kid(s) and music with a lush mid-range - what more could a man ask for?

I'm really looking forward to reciprocating and hearing your setup sometime in August. As discussed, I'll bring my Berning Siegfried 300B OTL amp down with me - the NOS1/Siegfried/AN-E might prove very interesting indeed. We'll see...

Cheers,
Mani.

[Scroobius]

Hi Mani - I will post separately on this but I mentioned yesterday I was trying out a Ganclone amplifier and that it was a tad hard sounding but it had only been running a few hours. Well over the last 24 hours of burning in it has improved a lot. In fact I am really surprised that something so cheap could sound so good - I mean really very very good.

All the best

Paul

[PeterSt]

Unfortunately I think it is complicated, regardless.  It seems like electricity and it's conductors have a major influence on the sound.  So when a manufacturer is striving for ultimate transparency for their equipment; their tuning can be influenced by the electrical source, receptacles and cables they are also using.  And hence when people use that piece with different electrical source, receptacles, cables you get varied opinions/reviews on equipment.  I do believe the very high end manufacturers (like MBL) try and take out the dependency on the electrical source and somehow reshape the electrical signal to be always consistent.  Perhaps that is why their amps are so big and costly.

I would be interested if anyone has tried the Phasure with different cable, receptacles, direct or non direct lines and how that affected the sound quality. 

Peter when you did your development on the Phasure did you experiment with any of those things?  It would be nice to know if the Phasure is minimally affected by the things I mentioned.

Wow, this will be a strange story ...

You may look back in this topic and read my earlier response to the above ... which was from then;

One could say that right after the quoted post I wouldn't know better, but, we also started to work on this very subject at about that same time. Mind you, without having this post in mind at all.
I now ran into this post because of preparing an email to the poster (as an answer to some questions), just looking what he asked earlier ...

I can now tell that we started to work on this after finding the "non transparency" towards 110V systems vs. the 230V we used to test with here. And, in some 6 weeks time we got it under our control. This is where the relatively small upgrade came from, to be recognized by the internal meters which show that all is right for your environment. It also includes the procedure to actually *get* things right when they are not automatically and consists of another grounding scheme and a relais to properly connect to the mains (so to speak).

I am not sure whether this is 100% in the direction you meant, music33, but looking back at things I'd say it looks like it.
It seemed honest to me to at least "admit" that these kind of things for sure are needed in order to do it 100% well, while at first it didn't look like this at all. Also, in the whole "mains" area is much more going on than most people know, and that too has been discovered only after January 2011 and has been written about by me by now, spread over a few topics.

Thanks for the hints,
Peter

[music33]

Sounds like you have seen that different voltages can affect the sound quality of the Phasure. Although I wasn't thinking of voltages per se in my original post because all my equipment is 110v; but it does go back to my original point - that everything in the electrical path from the main line, to the circuit breaker, to the wire, to the receptacle, to the power cord has an effect on the component.  I've changed all of them except the main line and heard differences from subtle to dramatic in each component. 

Peter, discovering voltages and grounding scheme affect sound quality, really raises the point the more the Phasure spreads through out the world the more things that will be discovered on how electricity does affect the sound quality Phasure.  People always say system synergy when matching components and that is true you need system synergy, but I would also say you need electrical synergy. 

So I would end this post be re-asking the same question
How much do the things I mention affect the sound quality of the Phasure and how?  This question is for the whole board as Peter can only know what he has available to him.  We can all give insight so he can not only have an amazingly sounding DAC in his envionment, but be robust enough in all environments. 

Peter as always thank you for your dedication and your passion for your craft.

[PeterSt]

Ah, I am sorry. I thought to have implictly answered that.

No, it is totally immune to everything, but which very simply (put) is about grounding schemes which just won't allow anything to come in, and also doesn't spit anything out. But this already was the case ...

My reference to 110V was not about the voltage as such influencing, but about the different working of "phases" on the mains. This is something of which I can't find a single reference anywhere, but I know it by now. It also can't be explained in a few words, and besides that for 50% I'm not capable of that because of too many unknown factors. This doesn't mean, however, that it couldn't be solved. I can even let you measure it by means of those meters I mentioned.

Where the DAC is completely solved, sadly your amplifier is not (I leave out the preamp as an influencing factor !). Currently I am in the stage of "knowing" that no one rule exists for it, but I'm fairly confident that with the NOS1, a PC and a set of amps it can always be solved. The NOS1 is key in this (you will learn later how and why) because that's the independent one. But, with that being independent, your PC will just not be that.
All it really needs is measuring means, so you can check for what you cannot hear. And so ... so I plan to have those measuring means in the NOS1 ...
(as an option)

Peter

[manisandher]

I've just changed my signature, and thought I'd bring this thread to close also.

I'VE SOLD THE PACIFIC MICROSONICS MODEL TWO!!!

There were two reasons why I sold it:

1) It has probably the best ADC section ever created. But alas, I have nothing really worth recording with it!
2) It's DAC section is very, very good. But I'm afraid it just can't compete with the NOS1!

For the last 6 months or so, the Model Two has remained pretty much switched off. So it's gone. I just hope the new owner (who shall remain anonymous of course) is impressed with its ADC section, because for the same sort of money you can get pretty much whatever 2-channel ADC you want... brand new! Ah, but you won't get true multi-bit ADC chips (unless its a Lavry Gold), which as any NOS1 owner knows, is probably one of the key ingredients to great digital sound.

Mani.