PS Audio - Digital Link III Audio DAC Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought this DAC a couple of weeks ago to complement and hopefully improve the sound of my 15 year old California Audio Labs Mk II CD player. When I first hooked it up, I left it plugged in for a few days to "warm up" then started listening to it. At first, I have to say I heard no difference at all between the DAC and my CD player on the CDs that I played - an old "best of" ZZ Top CD and an old Foghat "Energized" CD. I chose two because I wanted to make sure the DAC could "rock". After a week or so, I was about ready to pack it up and send it back for a refund. Then I listened to a few more CDs (through speakers and through headphones) and began to heard the differences between my CD player with and without the DAC. I was expecting/hoping for some sort of huge night-and-day difference immediately. A lot of audiophiles claim electronic equipment needs to "burn in" for a couple of weeks before they sound their best, but I never really bought into that but -something- happened. Maybe -I- "burned in" my ears. Maybe it just took me awhile to get used to the DAC. I don't know. This DAC has really grown on me and has brought some crummy sounding CDs to life and really astounded me on some well-recorded CDs.
The bass, where drums, bass guitar, and various percussion instruments are, is better defined and fuller than without the DAC. Music has more body. By comparison, my CD player without the DAC is lively but sounds kind of thin. I also have noticed that percussion instruments are much better defined. I can hear the various percussion instruments - they are separated and don't all kind of blend together like they do without the DAC. Instruments seem better defined - I can hear individual instruments separated in space noticeably better than I can without the DAC. On live CDs, the ambiance is noticeably better - the echo of the room, the echo of instruments in the room, etc. are more pronounced. I wouldn't say it is yields more detail than my CD player alone - not exactly. It seems like it just better focuses in on the details. Maybe it just controls everything better so you can hear individual instruments better. The tone of electric guitars is different than how my CD player alone reproduces them. It's hard to describe without trying to use nebulous audiophile terms like "warmth" and "transparency" that aren't always very helpful or meaningful. I just find it a lot more pleasant, interesting, and fun to listen to overall than my CD player without the DAC. The details are better, the control of the music is better so individual instruments are better separated from one another, the tone of the electric guitar is somewhat different than I'm used to without the DAC (I personally like the tonal shift better). I like rock, jazz, electric blues, etc. I have listened to the Rega Saturn CD player in my system and although it had plenty of detail, it didn't seem to have very much bass in my system. Ultimately, I couldn't live without the bass so took it back. This DAC reproduces bass and mid-bass well so if you like the driving rhythm of rock, you'll like this DAC. It is somewhat more mellow in some areas of the midrange than my CD player without the DAC is - a bit more laid-back perhaps - and I'm getting used to that. I only notice the difference when I compare my CD player alone against my CD player with the DAC.
Tonight I was listening to a CD that I've listened to many times in the past but this time with the DAC, and I felt like I'd never heard the CD before. It sounded so much different (and better).
I just finished listening to a CD that I have ignored for years. I put on Kinsey Report's "Edge of the City" CD. I started with track #6, "Full Moon on Main Street", because I vaguely remembered that being a favorite of mine on that CD. I have to say I was absolutely and truly astounded. I never ever expected it to sound as good as it did tonight! The soundstage was probably about 100 miles deep! I could hear the background vocalists behind the lead vocalist in space. I could hear into the music in a way I never imagined possible without a megabucks audio system. I could hear seemingly every nuance of the guitars and the bass guitar too.
I listened to a CD of music from the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey". I've listened to this CD a hundred times and until now I felt it just didn't sound that great. With the PS Audio DAC it sounded great! I could hear the limitations of the technology at the time, yet it still sounded damn good - like I'd never heard it before!
Considering that I was thinking seriously of buying CD players like the Rega Saturn, Cyrus CD8x, Naim CD5x, or maybe the Primare CD31 (expensive CD players), I am really happy with this DAC for the price! I am SO glad I didn't drop a bundle on one of these CD players now. This DAC sounds better, to my ears and tastes, than the Rega Saturn and even the incredibly detailed Cyrus CD8x.

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Warm, Open, and Spacious DAC Warm, open and spacious are words not typically associated with digital audio. But PS Audio's new Digital Link III outboard DAC helps any digitally recorded medium sound just like that, with a top end that will remind you of analog -- and performance that may make an SACD player unnecessary.
"The Digital Link III made standard-issue CDs essentially equivalent to their SACD counterparts, even when SACDs are played back through the $5000 Linn Unidisk SC," raves Barry Willis in the March 2007 issue of The Absolute Sound magazine. "It's a fantastically high-value product."
It Delves Deep Into Bass
"The PS Audio Digital Link III is more 'earthy' and 'meaty sounding' than either the Cyrus or Musical Fidelity," reports Alan Sircom in the August 2008 issue of England's Hi-fi News magazine. "It delves deep into bass and lets you know it. It offers a keenly dynamic and enjoyable sound, too, on both CD and computer sources."
The DLIII is a killer DAC featuring the latest balanced D to A converter, the TI PCM1798DB. This new generation of 192 kHz processors from Texas Instruments (formerly Burr Brown) features 24-bit resolution and 123 dB dynamicperformance. Its rated THD is just 0.0005%. The DLIII comes with differential outputs and an eight times oversampling filter, too.
PS Audio's engineers based the DLIII around this amazing DAC engine and designed an all new input circuit and receiver, plus a 100% discrete output stage, along with a huge power supply to finish it off.

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