Review: PS Audio DirectStream DAC MK2

Introduction

I have thoroughly enjoyed the PS Audio PerfectWave DirectStream DAC for the last three years. When I heard the company was releasing a new MK2 version, I looked forward to hearing it. There are two things I want to tell you right off the bat about the MK2. If you owned the original DirectStream DAC, it’s just as wonderful as it ever was. Secondly, the MK2 is not an update to the original DirectStream DAC; it is a completely new design.

I let the MK2 break in for about two weeks. After this, I was ready for some serious listening. I’m not going to get into technical or physical descriptions of the unit. There are plenty of specifications about the DirectStream DAC MK2 available on the PS Audio website. Instead, I am just going to let you know how musical this wonderful DAC sounded in my system.

After losing my eyesight five years ago, I spent two years looking for a digital system that I found acceptable. I ended up with the Innuos Statement Music Server and the PS Audio DirectStream DAC. During that search, I listened to DACs that cost as much as $20K. To my ears, the DirectStream DAC was my final choice.

Initial Impressions

I was shocked by how much better the MK2 is than the previous version. The MK2’s sound is faster, fuller, and has more texture than other DACs I’ve heard. However, the MK2 is about more than that. It allows my system to sound more like real music.

With the MK2, instruments were right in the room with me. When I played a beautiful piano recording, I was able to enjoy the emotions of the performance. You would have to be a hardcore audiophile to think about things like detail, speed, and soundstage when listening. Instead, I was much more likely to notice how the drums sounded or what a voice the singer had. 

Review System and Setup

For this review, I used my reference system. My system includes the Innuos Statement Music Server, the PS Audio DirectStream DAC, Linear Tube Audio’s microZOTL MZ3 Level Two, the Linear Tube Audio ZOTL40 Reference+ amplifier, and the DeVore Fidelity gibbon Super Nine Speakers. All of the cabling is Audience Front Row. Everything is plugged into an HB Cable Design PowerSlave Marble.

During setup, I unplugged the PS Audio DirectStream DAC and replaced it with the MK2. Then, I chose the USB input. After break in, I listened to this configuration for about a week. The MK2 is galvanically isolated which gives you a menu option to lift the ground on each input. So, I then tried it with the ground lifted on the USB input.

According to the DAC’s designer, Ted Smith, whether or not lifting the ground will improve the sound will vary from system to system. He says the only way to know is to listen both ways. I listened with the ground lifted for about a week, but it was easy to determine that my system sounded best without lifting the ground. This is probably because my system uses only one input and has balanced cables that go from the DAC to the preamp.

Listening to Music

With the MK2 in my system, recorded music is transformed in a completely natural way. The system seems to introduce fewer distractions in the space between me and the performers, and it does this better than anything I have heard to date. I’ll be honest, it’s a sensual and emotional experience that draws me into the performance. 

I’m going to write this review in a way that I’ve only done once or twice before. I’m going to talk about how my system sounds with the MK2 when playing a few important instruments. So, let’s get started with the percussion instruments.

Drums, Cymbals, and Percussion

I’m starting with percussion instruments because one of the special things about the MK2 is its ability to place these instruments in space with their proper scale. This is just amazing! It also enables these instruments to be heard with tonal correctness.

Nearly every drummer and drum kit sound different. Still, they all need to be able to carry the beat. I think that’s what we always have to consider when judging the abilities of a system, especially with drums. It’s easy to rob all the weight and substance from your system if you try to get every recording to have fast and tight bass.

The ability to carry the beat is the difference between a really good system and a very lifelike one. With both rock and jazz, this ability is so important if your system is going to bring a performance to life. While I like slam and dynamic rim shots as much as the next person, slam and rim shots are just exclamation points to the beat. This is where the MK2 is so exceptional.

I’ve mentioned in several reviews how it has always amazed me at the symphony when the percussionist strikes the little triangle, and I can hear it so clearly even with all of the other instruments playing. This is what a system with great detail should do for you. It’s not that everything should have its own etched-out space, but that you can hear everything distinctly as part of the whole. The more easily you can hear these little percussion instruments, the more natural music sounds.

In jazz, often the same instruments are played by the drummer and are much more forward in the performance. Then, there are the cymbals which can range in sound from a startling crash, a very brassy bright sound, or a very silvery shimmer. I had never heard a digital system that could match a vinyl LP’s performance of cymbals and triangles. With the MK2 in my system, however, I heard the most beautiful cymbals and triangles ever.

String Instruments

The MK2 has an incredible way with plucked strings. It makes no difference if it’s a blues guitar, a standup bass in a jazz group, or a harp in a classical ensemble. The MK2 extends my system’s ability to let me hear the leading edge first. It’s fast, quick, and dynamic. Then, you hear the decay and air inside and around the instrument.

This incredible sound quality is just as evident when listening to a great cello, bass, or guitar player. I find the sound of these instruments and musicians more mesmerizing than ever before. It makes no difference if I’m listening to Wes Montgomery, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton or even Chet Atkins: I have never heard them sound better. The amazing thing is that with each of their different styles they sound so alive, natural, and tonally correct.

These days I often find myself listening to bluegrass. Recorded dulcimers and dobroes sound so much like the real thing. I grew up hearing a lot of bluegrass. It’s a genre with lots of emotion, incredible dynamics, and quick finger work that contrasts from the different handmade small string instruments. The MK2 lets me experience bluegrass music the way I remember it sounding at live concerts.

When listening to classical music, the same traits I mentioned above make for some of the most enjoyable listening sessions that I can ever remember. Whether it’s solo or mass stringed instruments, the music comes to life. One of the traits I love the most about the MK2 is that when the volume of the orchestra gets really loud, the massed violins do not get bright and the standup basses and cellos don’t sound muddy.

Pianos and the Human Voice

Let’s end with my two most important instruments in the musical listening experience. The piano tells us more about our system than any other single instrument because it plays over such a large frequency range. It can be powerful or soft and reacts sonically to how the pianist strikes the notes. It can sustain a note, or the note can be quickly released. The piano is also capable of incredible dynamics.

I often listen to solo piano music. If a system can’t reproduce a piano correctly, the system is usually flawed in some way. With the MK2, the piano sounds very right to me. It sounds very coherent top to bottom, and has the speed to keep up with the instrument. The MK2 provides the weight and gusto to reproduce the sound of a real piano.

For me, the single most important instrument to get right is the human voice. This ability is part of what draws me to the DeVore Fidelity gibbon SuperNine speakers. Voices are so articulate, and sound so natural and easy to listen to when played through these speakers. With the MK2, voices are beautifully reproduced and have intimacy without a hint of stridency. The music seems to ride on a cushion of air that pulls me in emotionally.

With the MK2 I could hear the body, soul, and vibrato of voices. Voices also seemed to occupy a more natural space. The result is that they sound more like real people singing, and less like well-recorded voices. This last point makes a good transition into talking about how the MK2 enables my system to produce an unbelievably realistic soundstage.

Summing Things Up

It should be obvious by now that I love and plan to keep the MK2. This DAC is a very special accomplishment in the digital field. There are several things, however, that I want to be sure I have conveyed about its sound. First, it enables my system to sound more musical than I ever dreamed was possible. Second, the way it holds together when the music gets really loud is simply wonderful. Third, the drive and flow of the music from note to note is more than I ever expected to hear with a digital source.

As much as I loved the way my system sounded with the PS Audio DirectSteam DAC, the MK2 is a whole new ballgame. Thank you Ted Smith and Paul McGowan for a DAC that sounds so wonderful.

Website: https://www.psaudio.com
MSRP: $8000