Review and Measurements of the PS Audio Stellar Gain Cell DAC

[BDWoody]

My short list of possible next preamp/dacs just got little shorter.

Is this bad unit or has there been other sites with measurement results like this ?

No, this is what you get. They are consistent at least.
Shocking, isn't it?
Lots of great DAC's out there, no need to buy garbage.

 

[retro]

I posted the link to Amirs test of the Directstream dac on PS Audios forum. The results we know well..

But this..? No, I don't dare..
I'm sure they are reading it anyway..

 

[frogmeat69]

I posted the link to Amirs test of the Directstream dac on PS Audios forum. The results we know well..

But this..? No, I don't dare..
I'm sure they are reading it anyway..

DO IT!!!!!! lol, I wanna see heads explode, it is the Halloween season after all. And post a link!

 

[retro]

ah, ok. didn't notice those 60db results on their site , but thanks

No, they only spec the ESS data which is 106db........

 

[BDWoody]

I posted the link to Amirs test of the Directstream dac on PS Audios forum. The results we know well..

But this..? No, I don't dare..
I'm sure they are reading it anyway..

Let the tantrums begin!! How long before someone comes in with one post, looking to tell us our ears and systems suck?

 

[LTig]

Maybe @amirm should get another panther without upper torso. The missing head no longer seems sufficient for performance like this...

 

[digitalfrost]

Just in case....

https://imgur.com/a/esluVsS

 

[frogmeat69]

Maybe @amirm should get another panther without upper torso. The missing head no longer seems sufficient for performance like this...

Or just a shattered pile of pink rubble.

 

[scott wurcer]

No, this is what you get. They are consistent at least.
Shocking, isn't it?
Lots of great DAC's out there, no need to buy garbage.

What I don't understand is that you have to deliberately work to make something this bad with the average quality of the cheapest IC's and passives available today.

 

[BDWoody]

Or just a shattered pile of pink rubble.

?

 

[ahofer]

It seems the unstated philosophy is that a high noise floor sounds better (more like vinyl I suppose)

 

[renaudrenaud]

I have a "very little system", a little SMSL SU8 and a TPA3255 EVM from Ti, and oooold pair of speakers. I have a lot of pleasure to listen to the records. Now, I've understood if I pay a lot more for recognized brands, I will have less!
Thanks a lot amirm!

 

[LTig]

[..] The Gain Cell is the PS Audio name for a differential mixer circuit called Gilbert Cell. Using 6 transistors in a clever differential configuration, you can either mix two analog signals together, or use DC on one pair of inputs and control the gain of the other. The latter is what is used here. [..] While Gilbert cell is used in IC designs to good effect, there, matching of the transistors is easy. Not so in a discrete design as is used here. The transistors used to control the gain have their own non-linearities so the concept that there is no loss is quite dubious.
[..]
There are voltage controlled amplifier ICs used in Audio/Video Receivers and they perform far better than this.

Again we see that it is almost impossible to reach or even exceed the performance of integrated circuits with discrete designs. This should be a warning to other boutique designers.

 

[LTig]

Just in case....

https://imgur.com/a/esluVsS

Positive Feedback: "The GCD's performance as an analog preamplifier is nothing short of spectacular." Well, its failing might be spectacular.

 

[JJB70]

Shocking. I'm looking forward to seeing Paul spin this one in one of his videos "weeeeellllllll, what a great review Amir....waffle waffle waffle...….burble burble burble...….bollox….so that's why this is such a great DAC! Until next time, be good y'all"

 

[LTig]

What I don't understand is that you have to deliberately work to make something this bad with the average quality of the cheapest IC's and passives available today.

These companies must do something different to stand out of the crowd. Going discrete seems to be the easiest way: see how much work we do to improve upon those bad chips. Give us money, we earned it! Otherwise it's difficult to charge a lot of money when the internals look like a Topping D10.

Unfortunately this trend is not limited to boutique highend companies - see Marantz discrete HDAM output stage which also seems to be the culprit in the performance of its highend AVPs.

 

[BillG]

Maybe kind of like this?

https://www.innerfidelity.com/content/ps-audio-stellar-gain-cell-dac-sound-quality

https://www.dailyaudiophile.com/ps-audio-stellar-gain-cell-dac-review/

Yeah, people that write well but who really have no idea about transparent equipment - the audiophile media appears to be full of them...

 

[simbloke]

Good grief this is so sad. Never mind DAC's, they can't even make a decent volume control.

Again and again this site demonstrates that "high end" audio companies have been pulling the wool over our eyes (well ears) for years.

Edit typo.

 

[Cortes]

One of these days will appear a horse's head on Amir's bed.

 

[gvl]

It's hard to believe the bad performance of their products is not deliberate. I mean, they must know better.