It was a busy weekend for me with lots to do, honey and otherwise. Yesterday morning was the first quality hours I was able to spend with Yale Final, DirectStream's new operating system.
When I first heard Yale before its launch my reaction was a single expletive starting with the letter "f" followed by three more. Clearly, this was a major advancement in sound quality beyond anything I had ever heard; there was little sense in waiting to release it.
Yesterday morning, mastering engineer Gus Skinas dropped by to deliver a copy of our upcoming music release. We were both anxious to hear it in Music Room One. Gus was visibly excited about the finished CD master and told me he had listened in its entirety five times in a row: last night on headphones twice, this morning another three in the mastering studio, and all played through Yale. He said that Yale reproduced the CD so close to the DSD original he had to keep looking at the mastering lab controls for verification. Extraordinary.
We listened, and listened, and listened, and then Gus had to go, but I stayed. Foot tapping musicians shared the room with me, and their voices and instruments were there too. The separation and uncanny space surrounding instruments and percussion were new to me, the room they occupied unfamiliar as well. And I noticed that I turned the volume up several clicks higher than I would have with Pikes, and even louder when occasion prompted me, and never did it feel too loud. Others in our forums have reported the same and I verified with engineering that levels had not changed, but the sound has.
If you own a DirectStream you must load Yale Final. If you own a PWD you must upgrade to DS. If you own neither, I apologize.
