PWT offers the usual outputs: S/PDIF on coax and optical connectors as well as AES/EBU. These outputs all make use of the S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface) format which folds four signals into a single data stream: master clock, word clock, bit clock and finally the audio data. Internally, every CD player of transport uses the so-called I²S format, the acronym standing for Integrated Interchip Sound. In that format, audio data and clock rates are kept separate and can’t influence each other. We offer our customers this format on a separate output which uses an HDMI interface. Please note: we are not outputting video data, we just use the HDMI socket because it offers precisely defined impedance and because there are very good and cheap HDMI cables which in our experience work better than the usual CAT-5 or 6 cables. Via that HDMI connection, we send the audio and clock signals separately to our PWD. And if this signal is replayed in Native Mode, this sounds much better in our experience than when the audio signal has to be extracted from the S/PDIF data stream as on 99.9% of all players available today. Our customers can see if they agree with us by toggling between Native Mode and one of the several upsampling rates on the PWD.

We published the work we did on the HDMI connection on several diy sites, for example diyaudio.com, because we think that it would be a great step forward if the audio community in general and other manufacturers also adopted this idea.

Naturally, the PWD has an HDMI input socket for the I²S signal, and it also offers the usual inputs. It’s a very well done DAC which also has an output stage that is strong enough to drive a power amp direct, so it can also fulfil the role of a preamp. If you have very long connecting cables to your power amp, you should use the symmetrical output, however.