First some background about the origin of the question.
At a Sasha V release demo in NYC, someone noticed, and posted about (PS Audio forum), the differences he heard when the dCS stack streamed through Patricia Barber’s Companion cut “If this isn’t jazz.” He noted a glass tinkling event around 2:20 into the cut (I would say just slightly before 2:20).
He went home and tried to replicate the detail and prominence of the glass event in his home system, and was disappointed.
Someone posted (Conrad Johnson Owners forum) about his post in response to one of my posts about the Sasha V release. This led to my digging out the Qobuz and Amazon hi res files and playing them multiple times with four different paths. I did my best to match levels without instruments. The gear had a one hour warmup before listening evaluation began.
1. HEOS on iPad, Amazon, WiFi, Marantz ND8006, Marantz SA-KI Ruby DAC, Sennheiser HDV820, HD800S.
2. BluOS on iPad, Amazon, Ethernet, Bluesound Node, McIntosh MDA200 DAC, ARC REF6SE, ARC REF250SEs, Sasha DAWs.
3. Roon on iPad, WiFi, Qobuz, Ethernet, Roon Core on Nucleus, Ethernet, dCS Rossini, and then ARC/Wilson as in 2 above.
4. Mosaic on iPad, and then Qobuz without Roon or Nucleus, but otherwise as in 3 above.
I was not surprised that in path 1, that the event was audible, but neither prominent nor detailed.
I was not surprised when in path 2, the event was noticeably better in terms of clarity than in 1. It was well formed.
I was not surprised when in path 3, the event was even more clearly defined and seemed to me to match what the PS Audio forum posted had described.
The dCS rep had once asked me to try Mosaic instead of Roon because some listeners preferred it. So, my listening via path 4 was on a whim based on this cocktail party nudge.
Imagine my surprise when the glass event as heard in path 4 literally stood out with the program and was the clearest of all.
I repeated the experiment the next night, with the same result.
The difference between 3 and 4 is what puzzles me. In fact, I have now listened to several reference albums and am noticing more fully developed musical detail across the whole spectrum with Mosaic directly instead of through Roon.
The Nucleus and the Rossini are both connected to my network with 2m Cat6 from the same switch.
So … we come to the question.
Does direct control via Mosaic sound better because it cuts out that Nucleus to Rossini RAAT connective loop? Or are there other plausible explanations?
At a Sasha V release demo in NYC, someone noticed, and posted about (PS Audio forum), the differences he heard when the dCS stack streamed through Patricia Barber’s Companion cut “If this isn’t jazz.” He noted a glass tinkling event around 2:20 into the cut (I would say just slightly before 2:20).
He went home and tried to replicate the detail and prominence of the glass event in his home system, and was disappointed.
Someone posted (Conrad Johnson Owners forum) about his post in response to one of my posts about the Sasha V release. This led to my digging out the Qobuz and Amazon hi res files and playing them multiple times with four different paths. I did my best to match levels without instruments. The gear had a one hour warmup before listening evaluation began.
1. HEOS on iPad, Amazon, WiFi, Marantz ND8006, Marantz SA-KI Ruby DAC, Sennheiser HDV820, HD800S.
2. BluOS on iPad, Amazon, Ethernet, Bluesound Node, McIntosh MDA200 DAC, ARC REF6SE, ARC REF250SEs, Sasha DAWs.
3. Roon on iPad, WiFi, Qobuz, Ethernet, Roon Core on Nucleus, Ethernet, dCS Rossini, and then ARC/Wilson as in 2 above.
4. Mosaic on iPad, and then Qobuz without Roon or Nucleus, but otherwise as in 3 above.
I was not surprised that in path 1, that the event was audible, but neither prominent nor detailed.
I was not surprised when in path 2, the event was noticeably better in terms of clarity than in 1. It was well formed.
I was not surprised when in path 3, the event was even more clearly defined and seemed to me to match what the PS Audio forum posted had described.
The dCS rep had once asked me to try Mosaic instead of Roon because some listeners preferred it. So, my listening via path 4 was on a whim based on this cocktail party nudge.
Imagine my surprise when the glass event as heard in path 4 literally stood out with the program and was the clearest of all.
I repeated the experiment the next night, with the same result.
The difference between 3 and 4 is what puzzles me. In fact, I have now listened to several reference albums and am noticing more fully developed musical detail across the whole spectrum with Mosaic directly instead of through Roon.
The Nucleus and the Rossini are both connected to my network with 2m Cat6 from the same switch.
So … we come to the question.
Does direct control via Mosaic sound better because it cuts out that Nucleus to Rossini RAAT connective loop? Or are there other plausible explanations?
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