dCS Ring DAC and related digital gear

[Joe Appierto]

About 20 minutes ago I decided to download the Roon Core to my MacBook Air.

A few minutes later the Rossini was happily playing tunes seamlessly from Qobuz via Roon.

That has always been a selling point with Apple products: how easily and well they play with others.

[AnotherJohnson]

That has always been a selling point with Apple products: how easily and well they play with others.

When I was director of a design lab many many years ago, I kept state of the art workstations for most platforms in the lab. In my offices I kept the latest and greatest PC and Mac.

When I stepped away from that to the next level, I just kept the Mac, and I’ve been Mac focused pretty much for nearly 30 years. I’ve always liked the easy integration and lack of extra drivers. But when I started trying to hardwire my MacBook Air to the Marantz and Levinson players and had to use what admin and wildcat thought was antiquated (the MIDI driver resident in the bowels of the Mac), it was a hopeless task.

With Roon, I’m letting the MacBook stick with the WiFi while the devices it controls (specifically the Rossini and the Node) are hardwired to the same network.

And, of course, all the iPhone apps also control from their WiFi login on the network where the streamers reside by Ethernet.

Once I figured out the lingo that admin and wildcat were using (bridge = WiFi extender with port, switch = splitter with several ports, packet delay variation = jitter, etc), it was very useful info.

I wish IT were in plain English. What the H**^ is S/PDIF? Ad Nauseam.

[admin]

Roon is a great platform. They also do a good job with all the meta data on the albums as well as good music suggestion engine.

[roberto]

Hola,

I am using with my Mac: Audirvana. It handles my music files with no problem. I have over 2O Teras of music files... and all type. DSD and PCM.

Happy listening!

[admin]

Hola,

I am using with my Mac: Audirvana. It handles my music files with no problem. I have over 2O Teras of music files... and all type. DSD and PCM.

Happy listening!

Now that you have the service, you may want to have Roon index that personal collection. It will allow easy access along with your quboz subscription.

[AnotherJohnson]

Hola,

I am using with my Mac: Audirvana. It handles my music files with no problem. I have over 2O Teras of music files... and all type. DSD and PCM.

Happy listening!

Cool.

I’m diggin’ Roon on day 2.

I had originally wanted to use Roon after that demo last November with the Roon and the Rossini Apex, ARC REF 6SE, ARC REF 160Ms, Wilson Alexia Vs, and Transparent wires.

I had been thinking Roon Nucleus Plus, but got turned away from the idea as I fooled with HEOS and BluOS.

It (the Roon core as controller) seems to run better than my other options. Far more versatile. Far more complete.

Obvious shortcoming is no Amazon capability. But I like Qobuz better. I’ll probably keep both because of HEOS gear here.

Tonight I’m getting a real feel for true audiophile level streaming. The Rossini as both streamer and DAC stands apart from my other options.

The system demo last November was arguably higher level gear than mine. Rossini instead of Rossini Apex, REF 6SE same, REF 250SEs instead of REF 160Ms, Wilson Sasha DAWs instead of Alexia Vs, AQ Thunderbird wires instead of high level Transparent. But I think to quantify the differences I’d have to play them side by side.

[admin]

If you really plan on listening mostly to quboz, you may want to reconsder the Roon Nucleus. I'm not really sure what the advantage of the "Plus" version is. I know they offer more "DSP" options, but I tend to not use any DSP in ideal situations anyway. The non-plus version is a reasonably priced $1500. If the Nucleus becomes your primary streaming source and Roon becomes your primary choice of interface, this is not a very high entry point and may be worth the entry point price.

[AnotherJohnson]

If you really plan on listening mostly to quboz, you may want to reconsder the Roon Nucleus. I'm not really sure what the advantage of the "Plus" version is. I know they offer more "DSP" options, but I tend to not use any DSP in ideal situations anyway. The non-plus version is a reasonably priced $1500. If the Nucleus becomes your primary streaming source and Roon becomes your primary choice of interface, this is not a very high entry point and may be worth the entry point price.

If I were to decide to use the Nucleus to run the core and play traffic cop, I’d go with the plus. The incremental price difference is trivial in the context of $30k streamer/DACs. Much cheaper to buy the plus rather than to buy the lower level and then upgrade later. The faster processor by itself would be noticeable.

But … it is not yet clear to me that I need either one because, at least for now, the core runs extremely nicely on the MacBook Air. It might make more sense to just upgrade the MacBook Air to a higher model of processor, memory and storage if one were feeling the need for more of anything. I generally upgrade anyway whenever the free Mac OS upgrades get to the point where I notice performance issues. That’s probably every 5 years if you buy the most powerful model when you do upgrade.

I was surprised last night by how clever Roon was at suggesting new artists. Roon was much closer to right than QoBuz or Amazon by themselves. I was also surprised to find that, with no effort on my part, I’m developing editable Roon based libraries of albums, artists, and tracks.

Roon is far more than BluOS on steroids. It is like BluOS after gain of function research. Far more effective. It is certainly better than Mosaic Control except in the area of remote control of the physical Rossini device. That aspect of Mosaic is quite nice, and I am not usually a fan of phone resident remote control.

[AnotherJohnson]

Regarding the Nucleus or Nucleus +, it seems that these might have their greatest advantage when used by turn key system custom installers. Add a Nucleus, and help the customer set up a tablet or phone.

[AnotherJohnson]

Here is dCS’s explanation of their proprietary Ring DAC approach and how it differs from other DACs in common use.

https://dcsaudio.com/assets/dCS-Ring-DAC-Explained.pdf

[Joe Appierto]

Thanks for posting this. I will read it in its entirety as it seems quite comprehensive and I'm sure to learn a good deal from it. I didn't realize that the dCS Ring DAC was FPGA-based as are the DACs from PS Audio such as the DirectStream Mk1 and Mk2 models. Not saying they're in the same league as the dCS components but they do use a similar approach.

[AnotherJohnson]

I expect that the PSAudio DAC is first rate. They say they were the first to build a stand alone DAC.

It could be even better than dCS. I haven’t heard it. But I did think about it.

Today I’ve ordered another DAC just for fun. The McIntosh MDA200 to go with the McIntosh MCT500 transport. The two together will play SACDs, and I wanted to hear what current McIntosh sounds like compared to the Levinson or the Ruby.

I’ve greatly depleted my available trade inventory. So the PSAudio DAC and attendant transport may be something to try later. I’ve got players to trade, but I’m not yet ready to let them go.

[AnotherJohnson]

Hola,

I am using with my Mac: Audirvana. It handles my music files with no problem. I have over 2O Teras of music files... and all type. DSD and PCM.

Happy listening!

This is what Roberto is enjoying.

https://audirvana.com/

It’s from France, like Qobuz. It looks pretty nice.

[Joe Appierto]

The comparisons I've read on the PS Audio Forum in various threads by users who have heard both the PS Audio DirectStream and the dCS favor the dCS models starting with the Bartok which I think is their entry level model. From everything I've read you made the right choice with the Rossini but should you ever audition the PS Audio Mk2 model I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

[AnotherJohnson]

The comparisons I've read on the PS Audio Forum in various threads by users who have heard both the PS Audio DirectStream and the dCS favor the dCS models starting with the Bartok which I think is their entry level model. From everything I've read you made the right choice with the Rossini but should you ever audition the PS Audio Mk2 model I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

dCS now has a new entry level, the Lina.

The crazy thing is that as you go from Lina to Bartok to Rossini to Vivaldi, the differences are clear. But if you just pick one and don’t compare, any of them will please you if you’re not used to a higher one.

The Apex upgrade is real too. As is the master clock upgrade.

Right now I’m just dumbfounded with what I’m hearing, so no motivation for upgrade. I’d like to audition the Rossini master clock in my system … I hope that becomes possible. I wish there were a local dCS dealer.

[AnotherJohnson]

This combo of Qobuz, Roon, and Rossini is killing it here.

The Mac DAC will be here mid week. It’s going to have to exceed expectations to survive.

As admin thought, it is Roon Tested.

[AnotherJohnson]

Call back from dealer. It’s a Saturday, so can’t contact dCS til Monday.

The technician on staff says others are asking about this same issue. There’s some bug between Qobuz and the latest DAC update and they (dCS) are working on it.

So it’s not me. And it’s not my unit (which is on warranty).

I’m going to just run it with the Node until dCS input is shared next week.

The DAC sounds very good.

But after each track Qobuz begins streaming the next track, but the Rossini is asleep at the switch and doesn’t go back into play mode for 27 seconds when it finally bursts out playing the track that Qobuz has underway. Happens for every track after the first one in the queue.

FWIW, the Rossini reports that it is “up to date,” so it’s not that the update didn’t take.

FWIW, Mosaic and Qobuz are now playing together perfectly.

Since I started using Roon, I’ve been very happy. But today with Mossic Control finally performing here as it has in demos, I’m tickled that this last little glitch has finally been resolved.

It is unclear why it started working as it’s supposed to. Both the App and the Rossini were up to date.

I am not going to knock myself out trying to figure it out. I’m just enjoying it.

[AnotherJohnson]

FWIW, in my system Qobuz files streamed through the Rossini are sounding fuller, better defined, and more musical when played through Roon rather than Mosaic. Another head scratcher.

I brought back several demo cuts from the weekend trip. Playing them with the newly working Mosaic was disappointing. I thought the $500k and $1M demo systems had spoiled me. Then I decided to play them again through Roon. It was immediately obvious and not subtle.

Interesting to me is that the demos were all through Roon. Hmmmm. They’re running their Roon Core on the Innous Statement with a Rossini Apex as the DAC.

[admin]

It's possible that quboz had made a change on their end. The software running on dCS, roon, and quboz servers must be compliant. A failure of any one will cause a total failure.

[audiobill]

AJ, when you pass you'd better hope your significant other doesn't sell your stuff for what you told them you paid !!