dCS at the Verbier Festival Academy 2025

Recently published on dCS Edit:

https://dcsaudio.com/edit/verbier-festival-highlights

This idea finally took shape in 2025, when Verbier UNLTD director Stephen McHolm, together with Leonard, dreamt up a 7.4.1 listening space in a chalet room used mostly for Academy masterclasses and workshops.

The expert team at Hi-Fi Lausanne – who have worked with the festival in previous years – curated a playback system in partnership with dCS, Stenheim and Nagra, providing four dCS Lina Network DACs, a Vivaldi Master Clock, seven Stenheim alumine two speakers and four Nagra amplifiers.

(plus a Audient Oria Immersive Audio Interface and Monitor Controller)

Can someone explain how 4 Lina’s, a clock, 4 amps and 7 speakers, and the Audient Oria can produce 7.4.1 spatial/ Atmos audio?

AES Outputs: 16 Audio Channels (8x AES Data Streams)

Word Clock (Input): 44.1kHz to 96kHz

Thanks Anup. That Audient link was already in my OP.

But what the 4 Lina’s do: 4 x 2 channels AES output?

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Oops! Missed that line you quoted! :smiling_face:

Yup, just D-to-A conversion. All fully clocked synced clearly.

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Thanks, but what is the source? Four identical streams?

Or is it the other way: Atmos source file → Audient Oria → 4 Linas clocked by Vivaldi → analog Lina outputs to 4 Nagra’s → 7 Stenheim speakers?

Considering there were 4 Lina DACs / 4 Nagra Stereo Amps, presumably it must have been 8-chanel ATMOS masters supplied through the Oria.

The system is just a “disaggregated multi-channel AV Receiver”; So, instead of the ATMOS receiver + multi-channel DACs + multi-channel amplification all being in a single box, like with a Denon, Marantz, Yamaha, etc etc, this system has each element as a discrete component, all synced together with an external Clock.

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Got it :+1: