ThePerfectWave CD/DVD Memory player is a ground-breaking product that removes all digital sound limitations retrieving everything from your CD collection without any jitter or sonic loss.
The PWT plays both standard and high resolution audio and sends perfect digital audio data from its solid state memory directly to your DAC and then onto your loudspeakers. It works differently than other CD players by first extracting music from the CD, then storing to an internal memory and playing from the memory instead of the disc.
Traditional CD mechanisms and computer hard drives are mechanical deviceshopelesslytrying to perform in a world of precise timing. These timing challenges can only be properly handled with non-mechanical means and that’s just what the memory player does: plays from the output of a solid state memory rather than the CD itself.
The results are remarkable and deliver better performance on any system by unlocking all the musical magic stored in your CD’s and hidden from you until now.
From Memory:
It is a minor miracle that a CD mechanism works at all.
Between the mechanical devices controlling the laser, varying rotational disc speeds, disc wobble and the errors that must be corrected for even the best CD’s, getting perfect jitter-free music from your CD player is an elusive goal.
Until the advent of the PerfectWave Memory Player, every CD player ever built relies on the sameerror-prone mechanical technologiesand suffers the same problems as every other. The PWT Memory Player changes all that forever by first extracting the music from the CD or DVD and then placing it into our Digital Lens memory buffer. When you play a disc you are never listening to the real time stream from the CD or DVD. Instead, everything you hear comes directly out of memory in perfect, asynchronous jitter free fashion.
It’s easy to see this in action for yourself. Press play on the PWT’s front panel touch screen and then press elect. The disc will be ejected but the music continues to play for up to 30 seconds. It’s a quick and easy demonstration that will show you how the PWT plays from memory, never from the disc itself.
Why is this important? It sounds better. The fact that you listen to digital data as streamed from a precise memory means that data can be asynchronous (not tied to the CD mechanism’s clock) and unaffected by the vagaries of the CD and DVD mechanisms that read the data in the first place.
You’ve heard that ripping a disc and storing it on your computer sounds better than playing that very same disc through your transport? This is the reason and you get the full benefit of a bit-perfect rip and asynchronous output of the Memory Player.
High resolution audio on DVD:
The future of audio is to be found in higher resolution media than CD’s which are limited to 44 kHz and 16 bits. The PWT can certainly play standard CD’s directly but because the PWT is a high resolution audio transport, it can also read WAV files directly off a DVD and present jitter-free digital music to your DAC with resolution up to 24 bit and samples rates as high as 192 kHz.
High resolution downloads from sites like HD Tracks can easily be converted from FLAC or ALAC to WAV files on your computer, transferred to a DVD and played in all their high resolution glory on the PWD.
Cover art and song titles:
Building the perfect transport means more than just producing the perfect output. The transport should also be a joy to use and answer a higher level of expectation from its owners.
60 years after the introduction of the vinyl LP, there are still very few players that recognize and display cover art and song titles from the disc itself. Once connected to an internet capable network connection, the PWT will display the cover art and song titles of just about any CD you place into it.
Imagine how much closer to the music you’ll find yourself with the picture of the artist on your player.
Every time you play a disc in your PWT a copy of the cover art and song titles are kept for you on your own private library page, accessed through our website. From your personal page on our website it is a simple matter to correct any of the CD’s information, change cover art and polish your CD collection.
Asynchronous audio:
The PWT’s CD/DVD read device is a DVD ROM drive like that in a computer. This type of optical drive allows the PWT to read the music on the disc using an entirely different approach than that of a traditional transport or CD player.
To get bit perfect results without traditional error correction the PWT uses a multiple read technique which reads the data on the disc until it’s verified as bit perfect. Once confirmed as perfect it is then added to the Digital Lens memory.
Once in the Digital Lens solid state memory there is no clock information attached to it, just the raw and pure music extracted from the disc.
The output of the Lens is then forwarded to the PWT output through a fixed high precision, low jitter asynchronous clock. The PWT is one of the few true asynchronous transports in the world.
What does this mean to you? Better sound – in fact, far better sound. Gone are the digital artifacts we become so used to. With the Memory Player you hear every detail on your disc and that’s a revelation for many.
I2S through HDMI output:
There are two ways to get the digital audio data out of the PWT: S/PDIF or I2S HDMI. I2S is the preferred method if you have the PS Audio PerfectWave DAC or any manufacturer’s DAC that can receive it.
S/PDIF (and AES/EBU) are the standard delivery methods and available on the PWT but are not the best sounding ones.
Standard digital outputs take three separate internal clocks along with the raw music data and combine them into one stream to the DAC. This mashup of music and clocks causes the audio to sound flat and harsh compared to I2S and is one of the reasons we designed NativeX on thePWD. NativeX eliminates many of the problems associated with S/PDIF.
A much better way of delivering the music is what I2S does and the audible results are stunning. Simply use any HDMI cable between the PWT and the DAC and you are transferring data perfectly, through I2S.
A growing number of DACS and devices are adopting the PS Audio HDMI standard for digital audio transmission because of its superior audio quality.
Digital Lens inside:
Inside the PWT there is a built-in Digital Lens that stores the music from your disc before playing it. Unlike other approaches it is unnecessary to play the entire disc and place it into memory before listening. Instead, the intelligent Digital Lens stores only what is needed for perfect playback and the user experience is nearly instantaneous.
Just push play as you would on any CD player and the PerfectWave Memory Player does the rest instantly.
If you wish to see the lens in action, simply eject the disc while you’re listening and note how the music continues to play even when the disc has been removed from the PWT .
It is the fact that you are listening to the stored version of what’s on the disc that helps the music sound so lifelike and spacious. CD players all stream music directly off the CD while a PerfectWave Memory Player always plays out of its memory; never the disc.
The net results of this technology breakthrough is stunning sound – perhaps for the first time on your system. Music played on the PWT is simply breathtaking, full, spacious and alive as no other player can do.
The last transport you’ll ever need:
The chassis of the PWT is a metal sculpture that rivals the best ever built. A combination of aluminum and steel, the PWT weighs in at 20 pounds of elegance and beauty. The top cover is a hand painted, hand polished piano black cover that has been lavished over for hours.
The PerfectWave series is assembled, programmed and tested at our production facility in Boulder Colorado. There is a measure of pride of workmanship that goes into every one of these PerfectWave products and it shows from the moment you open the unit up and plug it in.
This is one gorgeous piece of equipment and just the beginning of the most beautiful natural sounding audio equipment you have ever had the privilege to own. Add a PerfectWave PowerBase and together we believe you’ve never heard anything quite like it in your system
