Piano M1 Discussion

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PSB Guy

Re: Piano M1 Discussion
« Reply #20 on: 9 May 2010, 02:57 am »
psb guy, try the piano m1 cd player :drool:
Just pulled the trigger on an M1. The fact that it uses the same chip (TDA 1543) as the DAC I have (Valab), which is awesome, intrigued me. Plus, I now have an unused Virtue One and set of PSB speakers and sub just sitting around not making music, which is a huge waste. Can't wait... :drool:

PSB Guy

Re: Piano M1 Discussion
« Reply #21 on: 28 May 2010, 07:26 pm »
A picture of my new Piano M1. It's used as the source for my original Virtue One, playing through PSB Image B5 speakers. These are the best speakers I've heard for $400 or less, and paired with a sub, in this case a PSB Subseries One, they are amazing. Thanks Seth for putting the red label on the Piano, looks good paired with my One.


PSB Guy

Re: Piano M1 Discussion
« Reply #22 on: 14 Jun 2010, 12:45 pm »
Okay, so I've had the Piano M1 here for a few weeks, and I can honestly say I don't think I've ever heard a better CD based system, and I've had quite a few since my first in 1984.
Some background. I was an early adopter, I just couldn't get into LPs because of all the pops, clicks and distortion that you get when you don't take the time to set up a properly tuned analog system. I was 16 and had neither the money or the patience for such an undertaking. Besides, the equipment I had at the time was decidedly "mid-to-lo-fi" (JVC reciever, borrowed el-cheapo speakers), so the Sanyo CD player (with CORDED remote) was a huge step up in sound quality. As time went on, I steadily bought better and better quality equipment, but rather than bringing me more enjoyment of the music, the opposite happened - I started to hear what people were saying was wrong with CDs. The harshness in the treble had my ears ringing, I couldn't listen for much more than half an hour, it eventually drove me away from listening regularly, and the amount of music I purchased (remember CD stores?) fell drastically. That was around 1989-90.
Cut to around two years ago, surfing around the interwebs (thanks for the invention, Al Gore), I came across a site called Computer Audiophile which got me hooked on the idea of computer-based music system. You mean I can load all my tunes onto my PC, and it can sound BETTER than a CD-based system? Wow, sign be up! That led me to a company called Devilsound, which through Positive Feedback magazine, which led me to a little company called Virtue Audio, and here we are.
Anyhoo, back to the Piano M1. I suspect its tube-like, laid-back sound has a lot to do with the DAC it uses, the TDA 1543. The same chip powers the DAC I use in my computer set-up, a Valab, and the two set-ups I have sound very similar. Deep, effortless bass, liquid mids and accurate but never harsh highs. The word "organic" keeps coming to mind, it just sounds "right". I'm not a professional reviewer or a poet, that's just how I see it. And I'm back to buying music like a fiend, all the stuff I meant to get before I stopped in '89. So, if you still like to spin the little silver discs now and then, I can't recommend anyone's gear higher than Seth's.

Nuuk

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Re: Piano M1 Discussion
« Reply #23 on: 14 Jun 2010, 04:59 pm »
Quote
Cut to around two years ago, surfing around the interwebs (thanks for the invention, Al Gore),

What are interwebs?

Quote
Anyhoo, back to the Piano M1. I suspect its tube-like, laid-back sound has a lot to do with the DAC it uses, the TDA 1543.

Quote
The custom DAC circuit takes that stream and upsamples it to 176.4 Khz using a truly classic DAC, the TDA1542 chipset.

Who's right?  :scratch:


virtue

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Re: Piano M1 Discussion
« Reply #24 on: 14 Jun 2010, 05:01 pm »
We're actually using the TDA 1543 with upsampling.  It's my understanding that you can dial-in the upsampling with that chip.

PSB Guy

Re: Piano M1 Discussion
« Reply #25 on: 14 Jun 2010, 06:12 pm »
What are interwebs?
A series of tubes, everybody knows that  :wink:. Seriously, I really do think that the TDA 1543 has a lot to do with the similarity in sound that my two systems have. I've tried several DACs in my office system and with the Virtue amps I've used (original One and Sensation M901) along with my speakers (PSB Image B5), you can easily tell when the DAC is swapped. The Valab DAC uses eight of the 1543 chips in paralell in non-oversampling mode, and I think the M1 uses a single chip run at 176.4 kHz, but to my ears, they sound almost the same. FYI, here's a data sheet on the chip:
http://www.docethifi.com/TDA1543_.PDF