Phasure NOS1 Feedback Wanted

jtwrace · « **on:** 1 Oct 2012, 10:03 pm »

Does anyone here use one? Any info you can share?

http://www.phasure.com/index.php?board=9.0

jtwrace · « **Reply #1 on:** 2 Oct 2012, 01:58 pm »

Nobody?

ted_b · « **Reply #2 on:** 2 Oct 2012, 02:18 pm »

Jason,
Way more info on the CA threads, as Peter posts there.

jtwrace · « **Reply #3 on:** 2 Oct 2012, 02:31 pm »

Quote from: ted_b on 2 Oct 2012, 02:18 pm

Way more info on the CA threads, as Peter posts there.

Yeah, I was hoping to hear from other people that may own the NOS1.

ted_b · « **Reply #4 on:** 2 Oct 2012, 02:52 pm »

I fully realize that (hence the bolded "here" in your first post) but Peter does not have a significant distribution of this DAC. It is slightly more than DIY, and mainly amongst his XXXHighend player fans. Mani is a good reference, as he owns the vaunted Pacific Microsonics DAC2 as well..(and a Mytek for DSD).

jtwrace · « **Reply #5 on:** 2 Oct 2012, 03:02 pm »

Quote from: ted_b on 2 Oct 2012, 02:52 pm

Mani is a good reference, as he owns the vaunted Pacific Microsonics DAC2 as well..(and a Mytek for DSD).

Yes and he is very happy with it. That's an understatement as you know.

julcat · « **Reply #6 on:** 2 Oct 2012, 03:52 pm »

6moons is preparing a review..

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/audioreviews.html

check current previews

ted_b · « **Reply #7 on:** 2 Oct 2012, 04:02 pm »

Quote from: julcat on 2 Oct 2012, 03:52 pm

6moons is preparing a review..

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/audioreviews.html

check current previews

I'll ask Srajan if it is near term. Often unless the actual preview shows up these "coming attractions" never make it to print.

jtwrace · « **Reply #8 on:** 2 Oct 2012, 06:57 pm »

Quote from: ted_b on 2 Oct 2012, 04:02 pm

I'll ask Srajan if it is near term. Often unless the actual preview shows up these "coming attractions" never make it to print.

ted_b · « **Reply #9 on:** 2 Oct 2012, 09:03 pm »

Yes, Marja and Henk have it in their hands, so this one's a go, says Srajan.

geofstro · « **Reply #10 on:** 2 Oct 2012, 09:40 pm »

I own a Phasure NOS1 USB and I'm getting very impressive results with it used in combination with XXHighEnd. If you get XXHighEnd set up just right on your PC, you can achieve a rich/full bodied sound, with detail/High-Resolution at the same time. Too often these two qualities seem to be mutually exclusive. It all hangs on the ability to draw out the best from CD by upsampling standard CD rips all the way up to 705.6 or 768khz using his "Arc Predict" upsampling/interpolation filter.

Unfortunately this "Arc Predict" filter is only available as part of XXHighEnd along with numerous settings that allow you to tweak the sound in an almost infinite number of ways until you achieve nirvana. That sound is also dependent on turning off various windows services which can hurt sound quality if they're running. WiFi is considered one major culprit. Fortunately these services can easily be turned off from within XXHighEnd and restarted again at another time when needed. This is about the most convenient option within XXHighEnd.

Peter is always innovating to improve SQ and his latest feature, Phase Alignment takes the SQ even further, as long as you follow the advised precautions.

SQ can also depend on exactly which version of Windows you're running and which updates you've applied. In short, XXHighEnd really puts the inconvenience back into digital.

Unfortunately XXHighEnd is singularly the most frustrating piece of software it has ever been my displeasure to use

Put one foot wrong and it'll have you tearing your hair out, as you'll be confronted with endless error messages which are of little help.

Although there are highly cryptic, essay length tooltips which you won't often manage to read before they disappear.

Peter is very forthcoming with advice on his forum; but unfortunately he is often patronizing to his users as a browse through some of the posts will clearly demonstrate. Personally, however good XXHighEnd and The NOS1 DAC are, I don't see any excuse for this behavior towards his customers.

There is currently no way to get the full potential out of the NOS1 other than by using XXHighEnd. It will only work at above 384khz for upsampling with XXHighEnd and the all important "Arc Predict" filter is only available in there.

If "Arc Predict" is really his own unique invention, along with some of the other features of XXHighEnd, I think it should be licensed out so it could be incorporated into user friendly and competently designed software such as J R Media Center and Peter would make a fortune. Someone else on CA has suggested this.

In the time I've had the NOS1 it has performed faultlessly; but then again I don't think it really needs to do that much apart from convert digital at the sample rate it receives to analog. There are no upsampling or oversampling filters or filters of any kind within it, apparently, because it relies on all this being done in software. It seems to be competently designed. Mind you I've also had pretty amazing results using XXHighEnd with the Altmann Attraction DAC connected to the PC via a USB to s/pdiff converter upsampling to 176.4 or 192 for the Altmann.

XXHighEnd is a major PIA to use; but I'm still soldiering on for now because of the SQ.

I've tried to be as objective as possible.

Hope it helps!

Geoff

ted_b · « **Reply #11 on:** 2 Oct 2012, 09:49 pm »

Geoff,
Very nicely done, and well put. Peter is a hoot, that's for sure. He often cannot be taken in large doses.

But those creative types seldom can I guess.

How do you browse a large catalog, etc if convenient remote devices like ipads, etc cant be used (with wifi turned off)? How does it sound without Peter's player, if one were to use JRMC instead?

geofstro · « **Reply #12 on:** 3 Oct 2012, 08:06 am »

If you want to connect with a network share over a LAN, you need to connect via Ethernet. XXHighEnd will work with files stored on a network drive such as a NAS. Although Peter feels this still compromises SQ, it's not nearly as bad as WiFi. He even does this himself from time to time. If your music PC is located far from your router, you may wish to use the home networking plugs, instead of a long run of ethernet cable. Be careful though as I've found these can introduce noise into some systems.

I know your question was more related to using iPads; etc as remotes; but I thought it would be useful to cover hard drive issues as well. Peter really wants you to use an HD connected directly to the PC and for all your files to be in WAV format. If not XXHighEND has to perform a conversion, which might also hurt the sound.

The hard drive(s) should also be formatted in a particular way; but this is all covered on his forum.

Regarding iPads for browsing and selecting music, this is also my prefered way. Unfortunately Peter's prefered solution to this is so awkward, I couldn't be bothered. It involves a blu-tooth dongle and drivers for your music PC which you have to obtain from him, and a second PC (e.g. Spare laptop) running Win 7. Your iPad talks to this second PC via WiFi, which in turn talks to your music PC via blu tooth. The whole idea being to isolate your music PC from WiFi and the lan and rely on a local blu tooth network, which apparently is OK.

This is all done using Remote Desktop Connection, RDC. If you accepted the relatively small sound quality hit, from running the normal lan on your music PC, I believe you could control that directly from the iPad and leave out that second PC. This will work as long as the music PC is on the same lan as the iPad, even though the iPad uses WiFi and the music PC uses ethernet. I haven't tried it because I don't feel RDC is nearly as elegant a solution as J R Remote or Apple's remote app for iTunes. This is because Peter hasn't implemented the same protocols in XXHighEnd as JRMC or Apple to allow remote apps to access their libraries.

This is probably because there is no standard database library as such implemented in XXHighEnd. Instead Peter relies on you to organize you music library in a particular way on your Hard Drive(s).

Relying on folder structures in this way has enabled him to implement a potentially cool feature which he (misleadingly I think) calls "galleries".

This feature recognizes that any single album could potentially belong to a number of different genres. Galleries basically allows you to create as many aliases as you like to a specific album. You might, for example create a "Gallery" for all albums produced by a particular producer or all albums on which a particular musician plays.

I wish other developers would implement a similar feature; but more elegantly.

Finally I think your last question was really meant to be, how does the NOS1 sound with other software, such as JRMC? The answer in my opinion, is just fine; but so do many other DAC's. For that special sound XXHighEnd is needed; but you will probably want to run to the safer calmer waters of JRMC from time to time.

Personally, I'm waiting to try out the Meitner MA1. It's twice the price; but from Chris's descriptions on CA, I think it could sound close to the NOS1/XXXHighEnd combination; but with all the convenience and fun of computer audio, so I could have my cake and eat it

ted_b · « **Reply #13 on:** 3 Oct 2012, 01:38 pm »

Geoff,
I was a dac-aholic until I got the Meitner MA-1. I'm cured now.

Srajan Ebaen · « **Reply #14 on:** 3 Oct 2012, 02:01 pm »

Geofstro's feedback gels with what M&H are telling me. "More ways than to Rome to screw up the sound with endless adjustments" is how they put it in an informal email. They've had Peter help them build a music-centric computer front end to optimize XXHighEnd running off it. It's taken major break-in (like with Antelope's Zodiac DAC) and learning by error to optimize the setup but when things are right the sound seems to be very very good. I'm sure we'll learn all their findings in the forthcoming review but as of yet it doesn't seem to be for those faint of heart or not comfortable with computers beyond a shallow level... which is why it's best M&H handle this assignment and not me

Their take on it seems to be "still between DIY and commercial" somewhere, meaning not everything is as slick and user-friendly yet as it might have to become to see wider acceptance.

geofstro · « **Reply #15 on:** 3 Oct 2012, 02:24 pm »

Ted,
Thanks, I'm trying to wait patiently for one to arrive from the french distributor,

.

Srajan,
Thanks for your input. In case you didn't recognise me, I'm Geoff from Sound Galleries in Monaco. Really looking forward to M&H's review.

jtwrace · « **Reply #16 on:** 3 Oct 2012, 02:33 pm »

Quote from: geofstro on 3 Oct 2012, 08:06 am

Peter really wants you to use an HD connected directly to the PC and for all your files to be in WAV format. If not XXHighEND has to perform a conversion, which might also hurt the sound. The hard drive(s) should also be formatted in a particular way; but this is all covered on his forum.

AIFF isn't OK?

Also, my thought would be to have Peter build / setup the PC to ease the initial pain. Do you think that wouldn't help so one could be up and running easily?

geofstro · « **Reply #17 on:** 3 Oct 2012, 03:29 pm »

AIF is OK, except I did find a bug where AIF wouldn't play over a network connected drive. I sent Peter some sample files to help him fix it. It may be fixed now. AIF works with a directly connected HD. Flac is also supported. I still think WAV is considered ideal though, because I believe XXHighEnd doesn't need to to any work at all with WAV; but it internally converts everything else to WAV before playing.

To get the latest info on this you should probably check all this with the man himself.

jtwrace · « **Reply #18 on:** 3 Oct 2012, 03:40 pm »

Quote from: geofstro on 3 Oct 2012, 03:29 pm

AIF is OK, except I did find a bug where AIF wouldn't play over a network connected drive. I sent Peter some sample files to help him fix it. It may be fixed now. AIF works with a directly connected HD. Flac is also supported. I still think WAV is considered ideal though, because I believe XXHighEnd doesn't need to to any work at all with WAV; but it internally converts everything else to WAV before playing.

To get the latest info on this you should probably check all this with the man himself.

OK. Yes, I've sent Peter enough emails in the last few days.

jtwrace · « **Reply #19 on:** 3 Oct 2012, 07:12 pm »

Quote from: geofstro on 3 Oct 2012, 02:24 pm

Thanks, I'm trying to wait patiently for one to arrive from the french distributor, .

I look forward to your subjective review.