BANG FOR THE BUCK

NONE

I AM CURRENTLY REVIEWING JUST THE P-3A AS A STANDALONE DAC. I DO NOT OWN THE P-1A BUT, SO THOROUGHLY ENJOY THE P-3A I WISH TO PURCHASE ONE AS SOON AS I CAN AFFORD IT. I WONDER WHAT OTHER DAC MANUFACTURER THIS LITESTON REVIEWER WORKS FOR. GIVING THESE PRODUCTS A ONE STAR RATING IS UBSURD OR A DELIBERATE ATTEMPT TO SABOTAGE THE PRODUCT AVERAGE. I KNOW THAT THE P-3A THAT I LISTEN TO SOUNDS INCREDIBLE, IT CAN PULL OUT THE MOST SUBTLE DETAILS OUT OF THE MIX. IT'S INCREDIBLE S/N RATIO MAKES DYNAMICS EXPLODE FROM A TOTALLY QUIET BACKGROUND. THE P-3A TAKES ABOUT 200 HRS TO BREAK IN. I FED IT THE DIGITAL MUSIC OUT FROM MY DSS RCIEVER FOR 10 DAYS STRAIGHT TO BURN IT IN AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. EVERY EVENING WHEN I LISTENED TO CD'S OR SAT MUSIC THE SOUND IMPROVED FOR ABOUT A WEEK. THE P-3A IS A DAC WITH A VERY HIGH PRICE TO PERFORAMNCE RATIO. BUY IT YOU'LL LIKE IT!

Similar Products Used:

BEL CANTO DAC1

Beguiling sound, build quality, PT customer service

none for me

I only have the P3A but even on it's own it has made a big difference. I now enjoy listening to my CDs *much* more than before. It makes a sound that you can't get enough of and I would say that the time I spend listening to music has gone up by at least 200%. For instance, I would rarely sit and listen to an entire CD because the sound, although technically good, somehow repelled me. Not any more.

One of the biggest and most obvious improvements is to the soundstage. It is bigger both from left to right but also seems to occupy more of the space between my ears and the speakers. Listen to the old DAC again and the sounds seem to hang in a thin layer, but with the P3A the sound fills out in all directions. Lovely.

I'm not sure if this is a psychological effect or not but the P3A seems to be improving even though I've had it powered up and active for about three weeks now.

I've noticed that the P3A and P1A are quite hard to obtain 'on the street' here in the UK. As usual we are behind everyone else. I found only one shop selling (Hi-Fi Experince in Tottenham Court Road) but they tried to unload a used P3A on me for GBP800. They didn't tell me it was used and I only noticed back home because half the items were missing from the box. Shame on you. Anyway I got my card refunded the next day and ordered directly from PT. Now here's a company that knows how to look after overseas customers. I received the P3A in less than five days, despite ordering during the Easter holiday period and saved a substantial ammount of money in the process. Emailed questions were replied to with amazing speed and with the kind of do-everything-to-help-the-customer attitude that shows how much companies this side of the Atlantic have to learn, especially some high street audio dealers (you listening, Hi-Fi Experience? Probably not).

A top quality product.

price...analog sound....build quality

will get back with you on this one...

this review is on the p3a...perpet.tech dac that works in conjunction with the p1a.i cant give you any data on what exactly is going on technically with the p3a,but sonically it is the clearest,non colored,tube like sound i have ever heard from a digital source...and i would have to spend literally FIVE times more money on my front end to achieve a better sound digitally ..buy an inexpensive dvd player that outputs 24/96... connect it to the p3a and you will put your albums away for a long time...to all you vinyl lovers ..they are getting closer!

Similar Products Used:

msb,bel canto,AA,mark lev

Ability to upsample 16/44 CDs to 24/96, plus speaker and room correction processing, incredible and unique at any price.

None found yet

This upsampler/digital processor is without equal in my experience, and shows a great amount of careful design and
attention to detail; it is a steal at any price. It will give you a new CD collection, as it reveals subtle details, and breathes life into 16/44 discs. As a jitter remover, it has over 8X the processing power of the excellent Audio Alchemy Pro 32, resulting in a reduction of jitter to just 2 picoseconds! That is an incredibly low figure, and you can easily hear the ease and naturalness in digital playback that results. Using both my Sony XA7-ES as a transport, and a Pioneer DVD-414 for true 24/96 output, the P-1A is a marvel.
First, the bass goes lower, and with more definition than I have ever heard in my system. There is a a ton more space and depth around voices and instruments, decay of notes are much more extended,and the noise floor is very much lower than I've ever heard, allowing all of this to be more apparent. The dynamic range, and the dynamic contrasts of music really grab your attention when played through the P-1A. Voices, both male and female, are much more true to life, with the sensation of a real person singing the song.
Every note played through this processor just sounds more real than I've heard before, and it is very quick and articulate, with smooth yet detailed highs.
After listening to the P-1A for a month, I got the P-3A DAC and the combination of the two is an audiophile and music lovers dream fulfilled; wide open and natural sound, with the deepest and widest soundstage I have ever been able to reproduce from my Innersound Eros speakers. The speaker correction software that is coming for the Eros should be spectacular.
Both of these units need approx. 100 hrs of music playing time until they settle in, and after that, you will be very, very happy. They output a true 24 bit signal, which equals
140 db of dynamic range; only a few (3-4) available DACs are
capable of this. You will hear everthing clearly, from the smallest studio sounds, to the loudest orchestral blasts, against an absolutely silent background. The depth and dimension of music and voice moves up a (big) step, and you
gotta hear true 24/96 playback (especially Chesky audio DVDs) with the P-1A/P-3A; it will stun you. Buy the P-1A, and the P-3A DAC and you'll never stop smiling. They get my highest recommendation for performance and value.

Similar Products Used:

Bel Canto DAC 1

This is a followup to the review recently submitted.
While all the earlier mentioned sonic attributes were noted when placing the P-1A *before* the SigTech room correction system, it is an entirely different story when the P-1A is placed *after* the SigTech and before the AudioLogic DAC.
Since most people do not own a room correction system of any kind, I thought in only fair to point out how different were the results.
Basically, the P-1A had absolutely *no* effect one way or the other when placed after room correction and just before the DAC. Now the Audio Logic re-clocks all the data and upsamples it to just under 2 megs before releasing it to analog conversion.
The bottom line was that whatever came from the SigTech, through the P-1A and onto the DAC sounded exactly the same as the data from the transport directly to the DAC.
How much affect the P-1A would have on data from a different digital source is open to conjecture. For certain, it appears to be very transparent. This sonic difference has to do with how the P-1A and the SigTech (and perhaps other digital products) interface. Unfortunately, it appears that my review above would only relate reliably to a P-1A/SigTech combination.
This is probably why Paul Siu had mentioned to me that the P-1A had a large effect in front of his SigTech and "very little" when placed after it.

The P-1A and P-3A BLEW AWAY my Mark Levinson 39 in every respect from musicality to the complete audiophile checklist.

Can't think of any .... and it's ridiculously inexpensive.

What more can I say ....

except that even my off-digital-radio live MiniDisc recordings (!) sounded (at best) as if you are in the audience.

A stunning achievement in every respect.

44.1KHz/16bit is DEAD - it just doesn't realise it yet.

(Yes, I know, how can upsampling give you any more data than is on the original 44KHz recording ??
I don't know - but it DOES !)

Similar Products Used:

Mark Levinson 39, Audio Research CD2, Musical Fidelity FCD