Erwan, Hi. You have my sincere commiserations. I know what you are going through. Really. I have seen your scrambled screen, but only once, and never again. And never the RCA output distortion. Gee, these are certainly some serious issues, of the same order as those I seem to have experienced. Maybe even worse!
An update. My Bartok is still with dCS; they were going to return it as they said that initial tests showed there was nothing wrong but, to their credit, Oxford Audio has told them this situation is and remains unsatisfactory. They also reminded them that a replacement Rossini has worked flawlessly for several weeks when unit-for-unit replacing the Bartok - for two separate spells now - whilst the Bartok was at Oxford Audio and then dCS.
dCS then asked a raft of questions concerning my mains power, Internet and Wifi which I have comprehensively answered. Nothing since. And nothing as to why the Rossini, and every other internet or WiFi-mediated equipment in the house (18 at last count) works flawlessly in my domestic high-speed 250 mbps fibre and mesh system.
I have been very patient; these problems have been going on for a year, but now I am beginning to lose it. Frankly. I think we are now in a situation where they need to definitively fix it or replace it by a new unit. Or sort out a decent p/ex price on the immaculate dem Rossini which has been with me for several weeks.
dCS is a brand currently at the top of the tree - a position that many others have found hard to maintain in the long term. Part of the ability to do this is to maintain customer trust.
Full support from me, (although my support is of no worth of course). These products are very expensive. You can buy a very acceptable alternative unit for 10% of the price of a Bartok and although clearly we have all decided to spend the extra for the small incremental benefits, dCS need to deliver faultless performance (or first class service to sort things out) if they are to retain their position.
There are already a number of shortcomings to the Bartok design in my opinion but Iām prepared to overlook them while I enjoy the sound. If it becomes unreliable, I will lose interest very quickly indeed. Iāve had my Bartok 5 months and so far so good (apart from those design shortcomings). I hope it remains so.
I think dCS are well aware of their role in the audio industry, and the level of service that is associated with it. They maintain a very good relation with their supply and sales lines (distributors, dealers) and are keeping their staff at required level. They are currently hiring, so if you can, and want:
Folks, Hi. Thank you for your kind support. I will let you into two secrets:
One of the main reasons I went to the extra expense to buy the Bartok (apart from the great sound, of course!) was the dCS reputation and immaculate standard of reliability. Thatās what you pay the big bucks for! Much of my previous hi res digital streaming and playback high end gear has been not been so reliable, and I was definitely looking to change this. But I have been disappointed by my experiences thus far.
As an aside, it is my experience that high end digital is actually less reliable and predictable than high end analog - which I have used with great pleasure for over 40 years. There are many reasons for this, I suspect - but time is too short to go into them here. Maybe a new topic, later?
For several months, I didnāt register my new Bartok or post here because of its continuing problems. Right or wrong, I didnāt want to make a fuss. That was probably a mistake!
Anyway, I will of course advise of any developments. I am sure dCS will sort it out in the end. As several folk have pointed out, they are top of the pile and their support is a given. And they seem like nice people.
Well, Iām kind of disappointed as well.
Iāve also encountered more or less severe issues with other brands (Chord Electronics, Mezze Audio, Micromegaā¦), so I wasnāt expecting dCS to be totally fault free either.
(Note that Iāve never encountered any issue with McIntosh or Moon products for now; crossing fingers).
Iām actually kind of bitter over dCS support because:
its distributor found my issue neglectable, and ddināt even report it to dCS
I ended up contacting dCS myself directly, through the support contact form and via this forum as well, and I then had to demonstrate them the issue, after 3 days, they even asked me to make a video showing the problemā¦ Overall it lasted a week of discussion and trials, before they finally take the decision to have my unit returned back to their factory.
And when my Bartok was eventually analyzed there, despite all my previous written explanations and the video on how to reproduce the problem, I had to tell them again what the problem was and how to get itā¦ Well, wellā¦ Just as an example, when I contacted Mezze about a sudden buzzing earcup on my Empyrean, they contacted me the next day to set me an appointment with a transporter to have the headphones return to their facilities. The Empyrean was fixed and sent back to me in less than 10 daysā¦
Some issues remainā¦
One thing people should be aware of, and not fall into here, is the āAUDI syndromeā:
AUDI makes premium cars, with high prices.
AUDI is known NOT to be a (very) reliable car manufacturer (there are a lot of reliability surveys showing AUDIās cars reliability is barely average).
BUT, as an AUDI is expensive, AUDI enthusiasts just canāt admit AUDIs not to be perfect, and others to have major issues with their AUDIs. Therefore enthusiasts will minimize troubles others (or sometimes even themselves) can encounter with their cars. This tends to make even the support behave sometimes with arrogant manners, not acknowledging easily their carsā issues.
One of my colleague totally faced this a few years ago, when he evoked on dedicated forums and with the official support the numerous troubles he was having with his A8.
So, high price doesnāt necessarily imply high reliability, but people are uncomfortable thinking all the money they invested in a premium/luxury brand could be eventually wasted in an unreliable product.
Yet, technical problems exist, and they exist everywhere, at every levelā¦
And this is where, I think, the reputation of a brand can be judged: the quality of their support team; their ability to acknowledge and to quickly overcome their customersā problems.
So guys, the Bartok isnāt perfect.
If you have no issue with yours, glad for you!
But when one complains about a problem with his unit, telling here āhey, mine works like a charm !ā really doesnāt help, and can even make people facing an issue hesitant to share it on this forum.
My two cents,
Erwan.
Edits: tried to fix most of my English typos/spelling mistakes.
Many thanks for this - IMHO worth a lot more than two cents!
I agree with nearly all of what you say. And I had an Audi TT for many years, and know firsthand where youāre coming from on this. The Audi syndrome LIVES.
Iām sorry youāve become bitter, as Iām trying hard not to do this. And it doesnāt help. I reserve anger, bitterness and my infamous attack-mode for mindless money-grubbing conglomerates like Sky TV and Virgin, with shockingly incompetent call centres and next-to-zero tech support. If you have any problems with those guys, you are seriously out of luck.
dCS does not fall into this category. And I have a phone call booked with James Cook to discuss the way forward.
On a broader note, I never expect bespoke, low production-run expensive kit to be more reliable than mega-products like smartphones, TVs and so on. I think we all know that, in fact, the converse is true. I bet you Maseratis go wrong more often than Toyotas. Anyone care to take that bet on that?
This whole topic of digital system reliability is one that I have been musing during my dialy jogging. For a strictly philosophical and personal perspective on this, I have opened a new thread, which I controversially entitle:- why does digital reliability suck?
Iāve just had a little chat with my local dealer who just came back from vacation today.
She told me dCS through its distributor contacted her to get my Bartok replaced.
So thanks to anyone who may have helped here on this forum.
Hopefully the replacement unit will be totally fault free
I am pleased to report a resolution to the issue which originally started this conversation. For me, at least! You may recall that my Bartok suffered a string of firmware, track transition and queue glitches. But both a loaner Bartok and Rossini experienced no such problems. Eventually, with the cooperation of Oxford Audio, Absolute Sounds and dCS, I was able to upgrade to a Rossini at a price which did not cut off my financial legs at the knee. Thanks are due to Alasdair, Pedro and James for making this happen!
And the original Bartok? Well, we never did find out the full story. But a late clue suggests that much of the glitching was confined to playback from USB stick, rather from UPnP - i.e. NAS/hardwire Ethernet. Well, James did tell me that USB playback was not recommendedā¦
This is a shame. Iām sure a lot of folk would like to use this rather convenient input, and one of the new (powered) Samsung EVO 8TB SSDs would do a grand job plugged in there - assuming you donāt attach much importance to metadataā¦
But that - as they say - is another story.
Many thanks to all who have contributed to this thread!
Thanks for this. Now we wait 8-10 weeks for the new Rossini. No biggie, as Oxford Audio are loaning me their dem unit during the interregnum. Jolly nice of themā¦
The Bartok is dead, long live the Rossini!
Hopefully this thread may have been of use to folk who have also experienced Bartok nasties.
Jon, I am really pleased to read this. It is another story confirming that dCS and their distributor/dealer colleagues look after their customers, I have been in receipt of this myself in the past .
Just as a general observation I seem to recall many reports, totally unconnected with audio, of certain brands or USB stick or SD card etc. or of certain storage capacity not working with given products.
Thanks for this! Yep, but I seem to recall these reports usually relate to cheapo knockoff sticks made in god-knows-where; I always use high speed USB 3 devices from Sandiskā¦
In the end you got up sold. Not sure going back to Bartok wouldāve been a real possibility after having a loaner Rossini. At least in my limited experience. Hopefully youāll have years of trouble free enjoyment.
As for people using large external ssd drives via usb, I doubt many would care for that ability at this point. It wasnāt a great solution eight years ago when I tried it. Now with upnp servers available under $100 and Roon integrated the direct attached usb approach feels almost uncivilized.
Yes, I know. But - as you say - there is no going back after hearing the Rossini. Clever buggersā¦
But we kinda disagree on SSDs. High speed, high capacity and low latency are key positives. SSDs have improved massively; eight years ago is basically the Jurassic for storage. Needless to say, powered would be better.
But there is no getting around the metadata problem at the moment. To solve that, dCS would need to integrate a server layer - developed in house or bought-in - into firmware or software, as Auralic has done. And most successfully, I should say. In many ways, Lightning DS runs rings around Mosaic. It was clunky garbage at first, but rapidly came good.
That does not seem a priority for dCS at present; they still have not re-introduced tiled album display into Mosaic. It was there in the original!
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