PS Audio Stellar Gain Cell DAC Instructions For Use Manual - page 8
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Owner’s Reference
Stellar Gain Cell DAC
Owner’s Reference
4826 Sterling Drive, Boulder, CO 80301
Owner’s Reference
PH: 720.406.8946 support@psaudio.com www.psaudio.com
15-083-01-1
Rev A
5
Balance
Phase
Filtering
Menu Settings
Its a good idea to familiarize yourself with the different functions in the Stellar Gain Cell DAC’s menu.
To access the Menu simply long press the menu selector button to the left of the Display. When the
word Setup appears, release the button and the first menu will appear. The menu will display for 7
seconds if no input is registered. After this the Stellar will default to the volume screen saving your
settings. The first menu you’ll see is the Fixed or Variable selection menu. In this menu you can set
any of the digital inputs to either Fixed or Variable. Setting the input to Fixed bypasses the Stellar
Gain Cell DAC’s preamplifier output and provides a line level signal without volume adjustment.
Setting the input to Variable enables the Preamp and allow volume adjustment with the volume
knob.
The next menu feature is the balance menu. Simply rotate the knob and the display will show the
balance offset in dB. The offset is measured in 1/2 dB steps. The maximum offset is 48dB.
The next menu item is the phase setting. It can be set to normal or inverted by rotating the knob.
This will invert the absolute phase (polarity) of the audio signal. This is the same thing as reversing
the loudspeaker inputs, placing + to – and – to +. Phase reversal happens on many recordings,
sometimes even within the same CD or DVD. If the track sounds a little “off ” try reversing the phase
with this control.
The next menu item is the filter section. There are 3 selectable filters in the Stellar Gain Cell DAC.
These filters have no effect on the analog sources. The filters only operate on PCM digital audio
sources and do not affect DSD source material. Digital filters generally have a trade-off between how
sharp the filter is and how much ringing results. A sharp filter allows the most high frequency signal
to pass through, but at the expense of greater ringing. The filter you select will display as F- 1, 2 or 3
in the main volume screen.