PS Audio launches Snowmass

[Weirdcuba]

I hate it for those that are having issues. It’s like a new DAC for me, and a much better one. Several of the updates (all of which have been FREE) have been incremental, but this one skips a few steps and is a material improvement. If I listened to the old and the new, I’d pay more money for the new one due to the improved SQ. Count me a happy customer (despite Paul’s hyperbole).

[timm]

Yes - as you can tell from my long post above - I agree!! . Just seems like I keep listening and listening to different albums in their entirety. There is something special in this release going on in the depth /soundstage dept. I find this easiest to pick out in the vocal but hear it through out. I’m just trying to figure out what to play next. It definitely draws me in..

[timm]

Originally Posted by doggiehowser

I started listening to RedCloud first. My go to album is Andrea Bocelli’s Amore MQA on TIDAL. Amapola the first song is a track I’ve listened to numerous times. And it still sounds sublime.

Then I popped in the SD card with Snowmass and upgraded the OS.

And hit my first snag - the Bridge disappeared as an input. Going into Setup, Bridge - Not installed.

Ran the update again - 2 minutes later, still no Bridge. Then on a hunch, because it kept defaulting to I2S - 1 input, which is where my memory transport was, I decided to turn the Memory Transport off, thinking the handshaking between the Transport/DSDAC may have tripped up the Bridge II initialization. Voila. Now Bridge has reappeared.

Then when I clicked Play, Amapola started and there’s this timbre in the horn at the beginning that I’d never noticed before. And the soundstage depth of Bocelli’s voice.

Same with Autumn Leaves (in French), wider soundstage and better resolution of the strings at the start. Instead of a "strings section", I am hearing more of the individual violins that make up the string section.

Then it’s off to DSD. No more clicks that I was encountering before.

And it's free!

This is a great point. You may want to post it on the ps audio site. It feels like when you get a computer software update - and it fails if for example - internet explorer is open - and you get prompted to shut it down. But good. Glad some people are hearing what I appear to be hearing.

[DVass13]

I finally solved the issue of my bricked DSD. After attempting to update to Snowmass a few nights ago my DSD was left in an unresponsive state where the blue light on the front logo would turn on when I powered on the unit but nothing else would happen. I reached out to PS Audio via email to try to troubleshoot the issue. They emailed me the files to drop onto my SD card but that did not fix the issue. We had some more back and forth this afternoon and they said they would ship me a brand new SD card pre-loaded with the files. I told them that I had already used the same SD card to successfully update my DMP after I ran into the issue with the DSD.

Finally, I came back to this thread and read doggiehowser's post about the I2S input possibly interfering with the unit recognizing his bridge after the update. I came home after work and unplugged the USB cable and both HDMI cables connected to my DSD. The SD card was still inserted in the back of the DSD so I flipped the power switch on and voila! The light on the logo flickered on for a moment and then began blinking as it should. A few minutes later and my DSD was back in business. I emailed the guy at PS Audio back letting him know this but haven't heard anything back. I haven't had much time yet to really listen to Snowmass; I'm just happy to have my music back in my life.

[doggiehowser]

Glad it worked for your Dan

[SL1800]

Originally Posted by DVass13

I finally solved the issue of my bricked DSD. After attempting to update to Snowmass a few nights ago my DSD was left in an unresponsive state where the blue light on the front logo would turn on when I powered on the unit but nothing else would happen. I reached out to PS Audio via email to try to troubleshoot the issue. They emailed me the files to drop onto my SD card but that did not fix the issue. We had some more back and forth this afternoon and they said they would ship me a brand new SD card pre-loaded with the files. I told them that I had already used the same SD card to successfully update my DMP after I ran into the issue with the DSD.

Finally, I came back to this thread and read doggiehowser's post about the I2S input possibly interfering with the unit recognizing his bridge after the update. I came home after work and unplugged the USB cable and both HDMI cables connected to my DSD. The SD card was still inserted in the back of the DSD so I flipped the power switch on and voila! The light on the logo flickered on for a moment and then began blinking as it should. A few minutes later and my DSD was back in business. I emailed the guy at PS Audio back letting him know this but haven't heard anything back. I haven't had much time yet to really listen to Snowmass; I'm just happy to have my music back in my life.

Glad to know you found a solution.

[Poppyhome]

Well my DS is still turning on my itself.
So many other people are reporting this that I find it hard to believe PS Audio did not know about this.

I don't believe they have ever issued patches for bugs like this.................hopefully that changes.

By the way.....................Snowmass still sounds awesome.

Ron

[Poppyhome]

Originally Posted by Poppyhome

Well my DS is still turning on my itself.
So many other people are reporting this that I find it hard to believe PS Audio did not know about this.

I don't believe they have ever issued patches for bugs like this.................hopefully that changes.

By the way.....................Snowmass still sounds awesome.

Ron

Maybe its only related to Roon?

It does not appear to happen if you pause/stop the song and exit Roon from iPhone app before you turn off.
I will test further.

Ron

[JMD]

Ron

I suspect you may be right in that it's Roon related somehow.

[timm]

Originally Posted by Poppyhome

Maybe its only related to Roon?

It does not appear to happen if you pause/stop the song and exit Roon from iPhone app before you turn off.
I will test further.

Ron

was

So when it comes on is it playing the last song you played? Or something in a playlist or is it just on and comes out of standby.?

Mine hasn’t done this yet. But again I am JRiver to usb ... no bridge.

Really odd. Seems like the bridge and interface cause more issues. Ted handles the sound of it and fpga coding. They had a guy - Dennis - that seemed to be wrestling bridge bugs to the ground - but he was let go or left abruptly. That was too bad. Seems like they have been fighting it ever since.