Playback Designs Merlot - comparative listening session (long, rambling, tedious)

acousticsguru

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Feb 17, 2014
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Spent a most instructive afternoon/early evening with three audiophile friends in Zürich, a comparative listening session of three DACs in a known system, all fed by a nice server running JRiver:

- Playback Designs Merlot DAC
- dCS Delius DAC and Purcell Upsampler via a Weiss INT202 FireWire/AES converter, with JRiver resampling all DSD to PCM as these 15-year-old dCS (pre-RoHS era) units won’t accept DSD from a computer
- Weiss DAC202

In short, an apples to oranges comparison in that:

- the Merlot will accept and convert DSD up do 256fs and PCM up to DXD
- the Delius/Purcell combo played back re-/upsampled 24/192 PCM regardless of the native format (our engineer friend created different zones in JRiver, which also converted all DSD to PCM on the fly for dCS playback via the Weiss FW/AES-converter); it also had the disdvantage of having to be dialed down in volume by 4.5 dB to match the Merlot, which has no volume control (except for its headphone amp). Filter 6 (minimum phase) was used for the Delius throughout.
- the DAC 202 will accept DSD at its USB (but not the FireWire) input, but internally converts to PCM before conversion

We played and compared some of every format, single-blind (one person at the Goldpoint switch, the others trying to guess which DAC they were hearing). Mostly classical (opera and symphonic), some jazz and blues.

Fast forward to my/our conclusions:

- Merlot pros: smooth and liquid regardless of format, to the point where it makes some (not all) harsh sounding PCM records more palatable; a better DSD (and a great one at that) than PCM DAC, with some of the best DSD playback any of us has yet heard (my benchmark being the dCS Vivaldi, which was limited to 64fs DSD when I last heard it); all in all one of the best modern DACs we know, but…
- Merlot cons: presents a smaller, less wide, more forward, triangular-shaped soundstage (narrow at the back, lacking in depth perception) with PCM playback except perhaps DXD (with DXD and especially DSD playback the Merlot approached or matched the dCS’s soundstage to the point where differences were negligible); noticeably rolled off at the top especially with PCM playback, which sucks some life and sparkle out of some records, as a result making a handful sound slightly compressed and hard in the upper mids (partly an effect of the soundstage narrowing, and hence again, no a problem at all with DSD playback); occasionally some coloration could be detected (reminiscent of, but subtle compared to a Meitner – but happily, not with DSD playback); restrained dynamics (sometimes sounding a bit laid-back and Hi-Fi as a result, as if trying to match the sonic characteristics of its own DSD playback instead of real life)

- dCS combo pros: open, airy, wide-band, dynamic, with a huge soundstage (and by “huge” I mean realistic in terms of width, height and - comparatively speaking enormous - depth, with everything in real-life proportion, not outsized or overblown), highly resolved from top to bottom, in direct comparison particularly noticeable in the treble, which ironically makes it sound less hard than the Merlot with cymbals or recordings (such as digital remasterings of legendary recordings from “the golden era of analogue”, in particular opera or symphonic) that tend to show signs of overload/compression; although there was some give and take with some (particularly fine modern) recordings, on the whole, not only does the dCS combo PCM as well or better than the Merlot, the downright crazy part is, those iffy JRiver on the fly conversions from DSD sound at least 99% as good as real DSD on the Merlot (not everyone was able to reliably tell them apart!); tempting to claim “you are there” realism for the dCS versus the Merlot’s (nomen est omen?) “smoothness for smoothness sake”, hampered only by…
- dCS combo cons: it did sound a bit raw compared to the Merlot’s liquidity and smoothness; the sheer size of the holographic soundstage occasionally (rarely!) seems to take away from the hologram’s density of what’s placed in it with some recordings, even so, nothing ever sounds disembodied (let alone ethereal/ghostly as an earlier Meitner DAC I once auditioned), but rather, much more clearly separated as if hanging in space (listening to the dCS combo made me feel as if one could throw a ball back there, defying the fact that visibly, there was a wall behind the speakers – no way it would have bounced back, or would it?!)

- Weiss pros: always thought highly (and continue to do so) of those Weiss products that are all about engineering, such as the professional FireWire/AES/DAT converter etc. (of which the INT202 we used with the dCS combo is a direct descendant), but when it comes to conversion to analogue, perfect measurements don’t necessarily add up to great sound
- cons: the Weiss sounded flat and compressed in comparison (far from being a bad DAC, better is the enemy of good), regardless of format (shockingly so, its owner gasped, given the Weiss bettered the Berkeley Alpha DAC in just the same respect in earlier listening comparisons)

In short, the Weiss sounded like good Hi-Fi, the Merlot like supremely polished Hi-Fi, and the “antiquated” dCS combo like an ever so slightly raw version of reality.

What was perhaps most astonishing was that while DSD (true of all the 64fs, 128fs and 256fs files we listened to) did sound best played back natively on the Merlot, it sounded only marginally different from (and hence only marginally better than) converted on the fly to PCM and as such converted by the dCS combo.

I was suddenly reminded by what another audiophile acquaintance (dare I say friend) told me: that using more careful (and integer-numbered) offline DSD to PCM conversion such as with the DSDMaster tool (beats JRiver on the fly conversion any day), such PCM files played back with the Daniel Hertz Masterclass media player sounded just like DSD to him if not better.

In principle, I believe formats should be played back natively whenever possible, having said that, the smoothness we heard with the Merlot was irrespective of format, and on a side note, I know from personal experience that a superior media player will make the ancient dCS combo’s “rawness” all but disappear (not to mention external clocking, as well as carefully chosen audiophile fine fuses, power conditioning, AES/EBU, FireWire and power cabling – today’s dCS combo was nowhere near “maxed out”) – and hence the gap may indeed close to where in a blind test, I wouldn’t want to bet my own on being able to tell which is which…

(On a side note, I do feel dCS, after being forced to re-design their whole product line due to RoHS regulations, sonically took a noticeable step backwards before taking the next one forward.)

So our conclusion was that yes, the Merlot is a DAC worth owning, and DSD worth listening to – even so, it was nowhere near the quantum leap we expected.

More research in order: Chord DAVE, Merging NADAC and T&A DAC 8 are currently at the top of our engineer friend’s wish list, I’m also hoping to sneak in a Lampizator Atlantic at some point…

Greetings from Switzerland, David.

P.S.
Should mention that I concentrated on the differences rather than similarities in this writeup. The three DACs, as different as they sound, don't as much differ in weight, body, bass, or other Hi-Fi criteria as in the ones mentioned above, and in terms of emotion, I noticed that each time I started tapping my feet (or smiling broadly), it turned out the dCS was playing, even though the Merlot converting DSD was no slouch in this respect either. The Weiss, I’m sorry to say, wasn’t very inspiring in this respect.

P.P.S.
Admittedly, the whole experience was a bit sobering in hindsight. My two friends were ready to get their checkbooks out in anticipation of that qualitative quantum leap we didn’t get, whereas I have been toying with the idea of adding a DSD DAC for some time (although preferably one with volume control, clocking I/O etc.). The owner of the Weiss, who’s also the initiator of the meeting, aches (or I should say, is still looking) for a satisfactory all-purpose solution (meaning, a DAC that will play back all the relevant formats equally well, preferably no-fuss). Most importantly, we all enjoyed the weekend tremendously, and already set a date for the next DAC shootout. But note the man’s an electronics engineer, so the idea of 15 years of technological progress gone by that seemingly add up, if not to nothing, so to a barely discernible difference in sonics was a profound shock.

P.P.P.S.
Disclaimer: I personally don’t have any principled preferences other than great sound (by which I mean lifelike, “you are there” realism) – despite my profound love for and interest in the technological side of audio, I’ve always insisted that if I were presented with perfect sound, lifted the lid and discovered a hamster was running on its wheel, I’d shrug it off and continue to listen and enjoy.
I’m usually more into apples to apples comparisons, and never much thought of comparing formats, because I’m primarily a music lover, and so much of the music I love hasn’t yet made its way to high-resolution digital, so that for years I was happy to see it released on RBCD instead of not at all. Although I admire reference-quality engineering and own my share of audiophile recordings, being able to play those back is no more than a plus to me. The most telling horror scenario I experienced in roughly 30 years in my audiophile hobby was being invited over to someone’s home who had what seemed closer to a seven- than six-figure system, a self-proclaimed “fan” who played back a sampler of e.g. a train passing by (gleefully pointing to the subwoofers getting a workout), and when I modestly asked for him to put on something else, it turned out it was one of only three albums in his collection, with the other two containing aerobic music belonging to his fake-blonde trophy wife…
 
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Barry2013

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Thank you very much for sharing your experiences and conclusions.
Real food for thought and a useful reminder that the newest is not necessarily the best.
 

Mdp632

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May 29, 2016
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This was an enjoyable read as I'm considering the Merlot as well. In specific I'm comparing it against the Meitner MA-1 or maybe a PS Audio Directstream running the latest OS.



Spent a most instructive afternoon/early evening with three audiophile friends in Zürich, a comparative listening session of three DACs in a known system, all fed by a nice server running JRiver:

- Playback Designs Merlot DAC
- dCS Delius DAC and Purcell Upsampler via a Weiss INT202 FireWire/AES converter, with JRiver resampling all DSD to PCM as these 15-year-old dCS (pre-RoHS era) units won’t accept DSD from a computer
- Weiss DAC202

In short, an apples to oranges comparison in that:

- the Merlot will accept and convert DSD up do 256fs and PCM up to DXD
- the Delius/Purcell combo played back re-/upsampled 24/192 PCM regardless of the native format (our engineer friend created different zones in JRiver, which also converted all DSD to PCM on the fly for dCS playback via the Weiss FW/AES-converter); it also had the disdvantage of having to be dialed down in volume by 4.5 dB to match the Merlot, which has no volume control (except for its headphone amp). Filter 6 (minimum phase) was used for the Delius throughout.
- the DAC 202 will accept DSD at its USB (but not the FireWire) input, but internally converts to PCM before conversion

We played and compared some of every format, single-blind (one person at the Goldpoint switch, the others trying to guess which DAC they were hearing). Mostly classical (opera and symphonic), some jazz and blues.

Fast forward to my/our conclusions:

- Merlot pros: smooth and liquid regardless of format, to the point where it makes some (not all) harsh sounding PCM records more palatable; a better DSD (and a great one at that) than PCM DAC, with some of the best DSD playback any of us has yet heard (my benchmark being the dCS Vivaldi, which was limited to 64fs DSD when I last heard it); all in all one of the best modern DACs we know, but…
- Merlot cons: presents a smaller, less wide, more forward, triangular-shaped soundstage (narrow at the back, lacking in depth perception) with PCM playback except perhaps DXD (with DXD and especially DSD playback the Merlot approached or matched the dCS’s soundstage to the point where differences were negligible); noticeably rolled off at the top especially with PCM playback, which sucks some life and sparkle out of some records, as a result making a handful sound slightly compressed and hard in the upper mids (partly an effect of the soundstage narrowing, and hence again, no a problem at all with DSD playback); occasionally some coloration could be detected (reminiscent of, but subtle compared to a Meitner – but happily, not with DSD playback); restrained dynamics (sometimes sounding a bit laid-back and Hi-Fi as a result, as if trying to match the sonic characteristics of its own DSD playback instead of real life)

- dCS combo pros: open, airy, wide-band, dynamic, with a huge soundstage (and by “huge” I mean realistic in terms of width, height and - comparatively speaking enormous - depth, with everything in real-life proportion, not outsized or overblown), highly resolved from top to bottom, in direct comparison particularly noticeable in the treble, which ironically makes it sound less hard than the Merlot with cymbals or recordings (such as digital remasterings of legendary recordings from “the golden era of analogue”, in particular opera or symphonic) that tend to show signs of overload/compression; although there was some give and take with some (particularly fine modern) recordings, on the whole, not only does the dCS combo PCM as well or better than the Merlot, the downright crazy part is, those iffy JRiver on the fly conversions from DSD sound at least 99% as good as real DSD on the Merlot (not everyone was able to realiably tell them apart!); tempting to claim “you are there” realism for the dCS versus the Merlot’s (nomen est omen?) “smoothness for smoothness sake”, hampered only by…
- dCS combo cons: it did sound a bit raw compared to the Merlot’s liquidity and smoothness; the sheer size of the holographic soundstage occasionally (rarely!) seems to take away from the hologram’s density of what’s placed in it with some recordings, even so, nothing ever sounds disembodied (let alone ethereal/ghostly as an earlier Meitner DAC I once auditioned), but rather, much more clearly separated as if hanging in space (listening to the dCS combo made me feel as if one could throw a ball back there, defying the fact that visibly, there was a wall behind the speakers – no way it would have bounced back, or would it?!)

- Weiss pros: always thought highly (and continue to do so) of those Weiss products that are all about engineering, such as the professional FireWire/AES/DAT converter etc. (of which the INT202 we used with the dCS combo is a direct descendant), but when it comes to conversion to analogue, perfect measurements don’t necessarily add up to great sound
- cons: the Weiss sounded flat and compressed in comparison (far from being a bad DAC, better is the enemy of good), regardless of format (shockingly so, its owner gasped, given the Weiss bettered the Berkeley Alpha DAC in just the same respect in earlier listening comparisons)

In short, the Weiss sounded like good Hi-Fi, the Merlot like supremely polished Hi-Fi, and the “antiquated” dCS combo like an ever so slightly raw version of reality.

What was perhaps most astonishing was that while DSD (true of all the 64fs, 128fs and 256fs files we listened to) did sound best played back natively on the Merlot, it sounded only marginally different from (and hence only marginally better than) converted on the fly to PCM and as such converted by the dCS combo.

I was suddenly reminded by what another audiophile acquaintance (dare I say friend) told me: that using more careful (and integer-numbered) offline DSD to PCM conversion such as using the DSDMaster tool (beats JRiver on the fly conversion any day), such files played back with the Daniel Hertz Masterclass media player sounded just like DSD to him if not better.

In principle, I believe formats should be played back natively whenever possible, having said that, the smoothness we heard with the Merlot was irrespective of format, and on a side note, I know from personal experience that a superior media player will make the ancient dCS combo’s “rawness” all but disappear (not to mention external clocking, as well as carefully chosen audiophile fine fuses, power conditioning, AES/EBU, FireWire and power cabling – today’s dCS combo was nowhere near “maxed out”) – and hence the gap may indeed close to where in a blind test, I wouldn’t want to bet my own on being able to tell which is which…

(On a side note, I do feel dCS, after being forced to re-design their whole product line due to RoHS regulations, sonically took a noticeable step backwards before taking the next one forward.)

So our conclusion was that yes, the Merlot is a DAC worth owning, and DSD worth listening to – even so, it was nowhere near the quantum leap we expected.

More research in order: Chord DAVE, Merging NADAC and T&A DAC 8 are currently at the top of our engineer friend’s wish list, I’m also hoping to sneak in a Lampizator Atlantic at some point…

Greetings from Switzerland, David.

P.S.
Should mention that I concentrated on the differences rather than similarities in this writeup. The three DACs, as different as they sound, don't as much differ in weight, body, bass, or other Hi-Fi criteria as in the ones mentioned above, and in terms of emotion, I noticed that each time I started tapping my feet (or smiling broadly), it turned out the dCS was playing, even though the Merlot converting DSD was no slouch in this respect either. The Weiss, I’m sorry to say, wasn’t very inspiring in this respect.

P.P.S.
Admittedly, the whole experience was a bit sobering in hindsight. My two friends were ready to get their checkbooks out in anticipation of that qualitative quantum leap we didn’t get, whereas I have been toying with adding a DSD DAC for some time (although preferably one with volume control, clocking I/O etc.). The owner of the Weiss, who’s also the initiator of the meeting, aches (or I should say, is still looking) for a satisfactory all-purpose solution (meaning, a DAC that will play back all the relevant formats equally well, preferably no-fuss). Most importantly, we all enjoyed the weekend tremendously, and already set a date for the next DAC shootout. But note the man’s a electronics engineer, so the idea of 15 years of technical progress gone by that seemingly add up, if not to nothing, so to a barely discernible difference in sonics was a profound shock.

P.P.P.S.
Disclaimer: I personally don’t have any principled preference other than great sound (by which I mean lifelike, “you are there” realism) – despite my profound love for and interest in the technological side of audio, I’ve always insisted that if I were presented with perfect sound, lifted the lid and discovered a hamster was running on its wheel, I’d shrug it off and continue to listen and enjoy.
I’m usually more into apples to apples comparisons, and never much thought of comparing formats, because I’m primarily a music lover, and so much of the music I love hasn’t yet made its way to high-resolution digital, so that for years I was happy to see it released on RBCD versus not at all. Although I admire reference-quality engineering and own my share of audiophile recordings, being able to play those back is no more than a plus to me. The most telling horror scenario I experienced in roughly 30 years in my audiophile hobby was being invited over to someone’s home who had what seemed closer to a seven- than six-figure system, a self-proclaimed “fan” who played back a sampler of e.g. a train passing by (gleefully pointing to the subwoofers getting a workout), and when I modestly asked for him to put on something else, it turned out it was one of only three albums in his collection, with the other two containing aerobic music belonging to his fake-blonde trophy wife…
 

audio.bill

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acousticsguru - Welcome to WBF and thanks very much for sharing your detailed impressions and analysis! It's very helpful to many of us here and I look forward to your further planned evaluations. :cool:
 

Elberoth

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I wonder how the Delius/Purcell combo would sound when fed with the new dCS Network Bridge, with the clock link feature enabled. I bet it would sound much smoother than when fed with Weiss INT202 FireWire/AES converter.
 

acousticsguru

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I wonder how the Delius/Purcell combo would sound when fed with the new dCS Network Bridge, with the clock link feature enabled. I bet it would sound much smoother than when fed with Weiss INT202 FireWire/AES converter.

Who knows? I've heard the Delius/Purcell combo sound significantly smoother fed by a Weiss AFI1 FW/AES converter (the pro unit includes clocking I/Os) and externally clocked by an Antelope Isochrone Trinity studio clock (ideal to use with an Upsampler thanks to independent clock generators, integer as well as non-integer multiples are possible). I doubt the INT202 was the culprit (but must admit I don't know).

Greetings from Switzerland, David.
 
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acousticsguru

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I wonder how the Delius/Purcell combo would sound when fed with the new dCS Network Bridge, with the clock link feature enabled. I bet it would sound much smoother than when fed with Weiss INT202 FireWire/AES converter.

Unable to find any info regarding I/Os and such (nor as much as a pic of its back plate) - do you have a link you could share?

Greetings from Switzerland, David.
 

bonzo75

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Hi acoustics guru, since you have tried such different versions of DSD dacs, have the Lampi DSD, and will try the Atlantic, try to hear dsd on big 7 or GG. It would be interesting to know what floats your boat, the DSD or the DHT
 

ack

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Very enjoyable read, David, thanks!
 

NorthStar

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The most telling horror scenario I experienced in roughly 30 years in my audiophile hobby was being invited over to someone’s home who had what seemed closer to a seven- than six-figure system, a self-proclaimed “fan” who played back a sampler of e.g. a train passing by (gleefully pointing to the subwoofers getting a workout), and when I modestly asked for him to put on something else, it turned out it was one of only three albums in his collection, with the other two containing aerobic music belonging to his fake-blonde trophy wife…

Best laugh so far today.
 

edorr

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Nice writeup. Have you considered throwing a PS audio DS DAC into the evaluation mix? Same price ballpark as the Merlot, and probably a serious contender.
 

Elberoth

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Unable to find any info regarding I/Os and such (nor as much as a pic of its back plate) - do you have a link you could share?

Greetings from Switzerland, David.

GxeS2L.jpg
 

microstrip

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Spent a most instructive afternoon/early evening with three audiophile friends in Zürich, a comparative listening session of three DACs in a known system, all fed by a nice server running JRiver:(...)

Can we know the details about the system and room? Your remarks are interesting, but without a context are difficult to valuate. IMHO this type of interesting comparisons analyze also the interaction of a player with the system.

PS Some of my best and worst digital experiences were with the DCS Elgar plus/Purcell system - depending on system. IMHO the Elgar plus sounded better than the Delius.
 

Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
Fabulous review David as I have a Playback Designs MPS-5 with the USB-X, The newer USB-X will be able to be run by El Capitain which is what I am waiting for as it will now play up to DSD256 and 384

BTW I hope your friend doesn't belong to WBF or you're in deep doo doo :)
 

Elberoth

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Can we know the details about the system and room? Your remarks are interesting, but without a context are difficult to valuate. IMHO this type of interesting comparisons analyze also the interaction of a player with the system.

PS Some of my best and worst digital experiences were with the DCS Elgar plus/Purcell system - depending on system. IMHO the Elgar plus sounded better than the Delius.

Elgar and Delius are basicly the same DACs - AFAIK the ony difference was a different box.
 

Elberoth

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Interesting, thanks! wondering if it can output non-encrypted DSD - presumably not…

Greetings from Switzerland, David.

This is the only info dCS has released so far:

Making the Network Bridge
In the first instalment of this four-part feature, Chris Hales, dCS Director of Product Development, gives his take on the new Network Box…
“This is for people who bought into pre Vivaldi, to give them access to network streaming of audio. Scarlatti, Paganini or even classic Elgar owners don’t have access to this – unlike the new Rossini – and it's increasingly becoming the way that people are consuming music”, explains Chris Hales. “This special product really came out of that need. In essence it's using the network hardware that we have in Rossini and Vivaldi, all the IP and know-how that we built up over the period that we have been developing that. It receives audio via UPnP, Apple Airplay, Spotify Connect, TIDAL and other sources and outputs bit perfect au-dio in a form that a legacy dCS DAC can use, and that’s really what we are try-ing to achieve.”
Chris says that it was a case of using the tried and tested dCS streaming plat-form and adapting it for this special box of tricks. “As far as the network hard-ware design is concerned, our platform is now well developed, although need-less to say some customisation was needed.” As with the new Rossini, the net-work hardware itself is supplied by Stream Unlimited in Vienna. “The Rossini uses a Stream 800 board which is a very capable network solution, and the Network Box is using a variant of that – the Stream 820. This is essentially the same board, but with a slightly more powerful processor, plus it’s wi-fi enabled. We really wanted to take advantage of this feature.”
He says that dCS always recommends a wired connection for the best sound, “…if you possibly can. This is because you are guaranteed bandwidth which you are absolutely not with a wireless connection. But some users although they stream all their music files, may enjoy the added flexibility of wi-fi.
“The board itself is self contained and is not modified,” explains Chris, “as de-livered by Stream Unlimited. But needless to say, it requires power supplies and is flexible in its own right. So one of the key things that we have done is to alter the clocking. So the Stream board plugs into a motherboard that has some typi-cal dCS circuitry on it that basically gives you all the benefits of our clocking system that you'd have in any other dCS product. The very high quality clock-ing gives low jitter, and of course it has our usual power supply arrangements. Traditionally we don't make too much fuss about dCS power supplies because it’s something that’s just got to be done right, but perhaps that’s dCS modesty – you need to do things well if you want things to work right. But the Network Box power supplies are typologically similar to what you would find on a dCS control board, with ultra low noise…”
In terms of connectivity, Chris says dCS, “is trying not to be too partisan”, so it could be used with both dCS and a very wide range of other manufacturers’ products too. “But the general idea is that if you have a dCS product, be it the very early Elgar or the most recent Scarlatti, you will be able to use this box to maximum effect. So we have processing options which will allow you to downsample to whatever the maximum sample rate your DAC can cope with, or not as you wish. The idea is to make the box as transparent as we possibly can where we can, and then to process minimally to suit your DAC where that's appropriate.”
“The motherboard has a big Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) on there as you’d expect from a dCS product, which does all the processing and all the logic and so forth. It’s not quite the monster that we have inside the Rossini but nevertheless we've got a lot of processing in there that can interface with the Stream 800 board and take that and send it out onto the digital output and so forth. So the processing platform is typically flexible and upgradable, as ever with dCS. All the software is done in-house as usual, from our algorithms to the control coding. What we have inside is by no means a generic Stream 820 by the way – there are lots of features which didn't exist before we commissioned them to build those in. We had a lot of dialogue with Stream Unlimited to shape the architecture of this board and to integrate these new features into our pack-age. I think many of the performance features wouldn't have been developed, if we weren't the lead customer on those…”
Overall, Chris says the new Network Box is an interesting niche product that will expand the horizons of both dCS fans and the wider audiophile public alike. “It’s a product for the legacy market, but with very much the quality of that processing that you would expect from dCS.”


It has been posted on their FB page:
https://www.facebook.com/dCSonlythemusic/?fref=ts
 

acousticsguru

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Feb 17, 2014
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Can we know the details about the system and room? Your remarks are interesting, but without a context are difficult to valuate. IMHO this type of interesting comparisons analyze also the interaction of a player with the system.

PS Some of my best and worst digital experiences were with the DCS Elgar plus/Purcell system - depending on system. IMHO the Elgar plus sounded better than the Delius.

Not sure what and how much I'm allowed to reveal about my host, the Swiss are somewhat secretive when it comes to valuables/property etc.

The listening room is the kind I'd give my eye-teeth for: pre-WWII residential with high ceilings, former reception room/library (presumably old-style gypsum-lime plaster, parquet floor with one heavy rug in just the right place, 270 degrees book shelves expect the wall behind and the corners/walls right next to the speakers), love the acoustics in there, whether no music is playing and several people talk across each other (as a former teacher, something I'm very sensitive to), or Wagner's Ring is being played back at realistic sound levels.

The all-balanced system isn't cutting edge but plenty good enough to compare and judge gear. Includes among other the aforementioned dCS combo and Weiss INT202, the sizable Carat speakers with super-tweeters (forget brand, former reference type floor-standing, passive/dynamic, overheard a Backes & Müller engineer may have been involved in the design, anyways, they stand taller than me and sound like it), that provide plenty speed and slam, Brinkmann mono blocks, Audioforum (which I know well, all about wide-band neutrality, speed and soundstage) and Tara cables. I don't know all the details (we'd explicitly agreed on "less chatter more matter"). We had to use a balanced Goldpoint attenuator (probably SA2X judging from the size and functionality) as a switch after our engineer friend measured and matched the volume level to within what the dCS volume control is capable of, i.e. 0.5 dB steps (I used to design and build loudspeakers and know from personal experience that a minute difference in volume is the death of all comparisons!).

All in all a system that, unsurprisingly, profited from the Merlot's smoothness, laid waste to the Weiss's literality, and made almost too much of the dCS's speed, slam, dynamics and openness.

Greetings from Switzerland, David.
 

acousticsguru

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Feb 17, 2014
505
324
373
Elgar and Delius are basicly the same DACs - AFAIK the ony difference was a different box.

The Delius uses a switched-mode power supply in contrast to the Elgar's slightly more powerful but slower conventional toroidal transformer based power supply. Also, the Delius uses a non-floating versus the Elgar's floating balanced output stage (which makes the Delius sound faster and more dynamic in setups where "half" a balanced output stage is used to drive a single-ended preamp or power amp). Sonically, there's very little in it depending on the setup, as long as both are being used with a Purcell Upsampler. Without upsampler, or using the single-ended RCA outputs in a standard setup, the Elgar has a slight advantage (but I have never liked using either in isolation except, needless to say, in Dual AES applications playing back 176.4 and 192 kS/s PCM or DSD via FireWire). Having said that, strictly speaking from memory.

Apart from the differences mentioned above, one is basically looking at a dCS 954 platform, ever so slightly tidied up in case of the (fractionally more modern) Delius. The Purcell is basically a dCS 972 in a sturdier box/chassis.

Greetings from Switzerland, David.
 
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