FYI
I had the Luxman HA in for an extended home demo. Unfortunately I was not a fan.
@struts001 @supa so, if I want to have smooth, not harsh sound, I will choose filter 5 or else?
NO! Filter choices are (a) subjective i.e. down to personal preference and (b) to Peteās point above, dependent on the incoming and outgoing sampling rates and in some cases even the type of source material and partnering equipment.
If there was a ārightā answer rest assured dCS would have preselected it and wouldnāt be offering you the choice.
Here is a great forum post exploring the options in a lot more detail:
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Filter F3 and F5 give me smooth sound. Suggest you cycle through the options to decide which suits your preference best. But I think that filter are subtle in changes compared to the upsampling, which I will set mostly DSDx2. Sometimes, I switch to DXD because it gets too smooth with some recordings.
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Thanks, the Luxman is wonderful hpa. It is fast powerful with slight warmth.
Last year I did try the Mola Mola Tambaqui for a week at home you can see my conversation in Audiophilestyle starting august 5 2023.
My story short: I had a dCS Elgar plus Verdi encore Verona set since 2006. The Verdi did give problems so I replaced it with the dCS Netwerk Bridge somewhere 2012.
Because it was a quit old system from 2006 I thought about buying a Bartok.
But I saw a lot of positive reviews about the Mola Mola half the price of a Bartok and even better,lucky me I thought.
I did pay for a week try out for the Mola Mola at home,200 Euroās.
Right from the beginning I was not really happy with the Mola Mola.
It was all between the speakers and upfront,see my conversation with different people at Audiophilestyle.
After all the reviews I had made the decision to sell the dCS stuff and go for the Mola Mola because it was so much better then the Bartok that my Elgar plus and Netwerk Bridge should be blown away.
I found myself moving my speakers and not enjoying my system anymore it felt like I lost my hobby.
The Mola Mola dealer came with a pre amp to create a better soundstage he said,but not in my system.
A few of my audiofriends could not believe my findingās and came to listen but preferred the Elgar plus Netwerk Bridge combination also.
The Mola Mola is back to the dealer and I stayed with the dCS.
Dirk Koning
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Welcome to the forum Dirk! Interesting comparison, thanks for sharing.
I also owned the Verdi/Elgar/Purcell/Verona stack back in the day and although audio memory is notoriously unreliable and I was never able to compare them directly I am sure my current dCS stack represents a substantial step forward. This simply based on the number of āwow, never noticed that beforeā moments I have had (and still frequently experience) since owning it. Used BartĆ³ks (even APEXed ones) are now regularly trading at roughly half of list so worth checking out if you have the upgrade itch.
And here is Dirkās thread for anyone curious.
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Iāll just add my confirmation of @struts001 memory.
I too owned Elgar/Purcell/Verona /Verdi back in the day and very enjoyable it was . However I felt that the Scarlatti generation ( I had Paganini) offered a very big improvement in in sound and musical communication. Of course the current generation improves on this further but , for me, not to the same degree. that is not to say in any way that Vivaldi is not much better than Scarlatti but that the subjective improvement gap is less pronounced.
Hi Pete,
This year I had the opportunity to buy a Rossini Apex and I am very happy now.
A huge step forward indeed.
Dirk
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Thank you also for the thread you made.
Regards Dirk
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Iām very pleased with my Rossini Apex as well.
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As am Iā¦ 
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Let me add myself to the list of folk who originally owned Elgar (mine was the Plus)/Purcell/Verona/Verdi: a superb combo. I had the opportunity to simplify my setup and improve its sound quality by moving to a preloved-but-mint dCS Puccini and U-Clock which I continue to enjoy. I got such a good price for the 4-box that it was basically a Ā£1,000 upgrade cost for an improvement in sound quality which I frankly thought was impossible given how superb the 4-box sounded.
Iām going to skip Bartok and am holding out for a Vivaldi One at the right price - and am not holding my breath.
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Hi Nigel,
I have to admit that when I came back to dCS again a Vivaldi One was one of the bits of kit that I was - shall we say - āsomewhat obsessivelyā keen to get hold of if at all possible.
I did manage to extract one of R&Ds mules (so it is in totally unprocessed metalwork and Iād love to get it hydrodipped) but it sits tucked away in the sideboard in my living room and I absolutely love it to bits - I can simply lose hours listening to that setup.
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The employee benefits seem excellent at dCS. 
Vivaldi one sans disk transport please!
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Totally get what youāre meaning there but without any irony or sarcasm (which is unusual for me) the real benefit is the people here and that applies top-down ā¦
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I look at it this way: having the use of the beast with the unfinished metalwork (Vivaldi One) is so that Phil āknows whereof he speaksā and can figure out what the sometimes not very clearly explained customer problems actually mean. No need to be defensive, Phil!
My sincere apologies if my reply came over as defensive in any way - that certainly wasnāt intended if it did.
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