Perfect Wave Transport

[BlueKnight]

http://www.psaudio.com/ps/products/description/perfectwave-transport?cat=audio

Any experience or opinions?

Is this something Blue Circle could built?
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Mike

[minimus]

The PS Audio Perfect Wave Transport is a terrific sounding component. I own it and love it. You also need to buy the Perfect Wave DAC and an HDMI cable to connect the transport to the DAC. My impression is that Blue Circle does not make CD players, so I doubt Gilbert wants to make a transport. In any case the PS Audio Perfect Wave components, in my experience, are top notch digital sources that would be tough to improve upon. Not that I doubt Gilbert's skills as a designer.

[Bob Neill]

Likely he sees no need to build a transport...or anything else with moving parts. Dacs, on the other hand, have become a Gilbert specialty. I know no better dac than his best and his least are probably the best value in the audio universe. On the other hand, if demand for BC gear ever slackened so he could catch up on his nearly infinitely long list of orders, you never know what he might do to keep himself amused.

[BlueKnight]

Thanks for your input Minimus and welcome to the Forum. What else do you have in your system? Any BC gear?

And like Uncle Bob said, a BC DAC will complement any transport regardless of price.
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Mike

[Raven]

Thanks for the heads up minimus.

It would appear from the PS Audio literature that the transport will work well with a non PS DAC through traditional S/PDIF / AES /EBU connections.

I wonder if the HDMI input can be added to Blue Circle DACs? Is there heavy duty tech at the receiving end?

[minimus]

Sorry for the belated reply.

The only Blue Circle gear I own is the Hat Peed Thingee headphone amp with the Biggie Pipe power supply. I have owned a lot of headphone amps and headphones, and think this headphone amp is really underappreciated (mostly because of its looks). I owned a Luxman P1-u headphone amp, which retails for $3,000, and I honestly thought the Hat Peed Thingee sounds better. The Luxman has found a new home.

My other equipment is an Aesthetix Calypso preamp and a McIntosh MC275 power amp. I would love to find a better amp than the McIntosh, which offers only mediocre bass performance and really limited soundstage width, but have kept it because I have severe space constraints in my New York apartment and the McIntosh is an extremely compact amp. I would love to buy one of Gilbert BC200 series amps, but could only get away with that purchase if I could convince my wife that it is actually a side table or coffee table.

As far as the PS Audio digital gear, I would definitely not buy the Perfect Wave Transport if I just needed a transport to use with another DAC. The Perfect Wave Transport really does work synergistically and sound great connected via an HDMI cable to the Perfect Wave DAC. (It has made me a believer in the benefits of eliminating "jitter".) If you are going to use another DAC, I would look for a less expensive CD player with an S/PDIF digital out...the new Oppo player might be a good choice.

[Gilbert Y]

minimus

When you are ready to do something abooooot your power amp, send me a PM at gilbert@bluecircle.com. I may have some surprise for you.

[Raven]

Last week Totemman and I made a road trip to Toronto Home of Audiophile to hear the PS transport. PS Audio stated they were the closest dealer to me. Fortunately they carry the Gershman speakers I use so I packed up my BC6000, BC507, BmPH and cables to test the unit in a familiar set up.

First question I asked was if the PS transport had to mate with the PS DAC for the best sound output and the answer was not particularly. The real magic is the clock/jitter issues eliminated by the transport.

We let the gear warm up for an hour and in went my cd's. Jim and I agreed that the PS transport was as good as advertised. Frankly it was so good that when I returned home I was very shocked at the difference when I hooked up my regular transport. In the past I have auditioned all my BC gear and had to return it for a while before my order was ready and at no time did I miss a component as much. Close on the 507 but the PS really was that good.

Francis Chung at Toronto Home of Audiophile knows BC product and was very complimentary of the sound though he had trouble believing there were no tubes in any of my gear. He and his staff were extremely accommodating to our testing even when he knew that I was not in a position to purchase anytime soon. Great experience.

This test was partly curiosity, fun, and my little attempt to give back to the BC community that has helped me along my oddiophile (sic) journey. Remember it is just an opinion and my main driver for liking what I hear is that it sounds closer to LIVE music.

Thanks Blue Knight, this hobby is really cutting into my booze fund.

[BlueKnight]

[BlueKnight]

I decided that I would give the product a try. Just waiting for PS Audio to give me the name of a dealer nearest me. Stay tuned.
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Mike

[BlueKnight]

Well... It's not going to happen. I was in contact with Paul McGowan, CEO at PS Audio and he informed me that the PWT will not decode SACD.

I don't have a million of them but enough to make the purchase a no-go. Some releases were only made on SACD and are an integral part of an artist discography.

Back to square one.
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Mike

[BlueKnight]

Wax on. Wax off....

I just finished the inventory of all my SACDs and they are all dual layered. And I just ordered a PWT. Should be interesting.
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Mike

[Zero]

Cool! Looking forward to the report....

[BlueKnight]