dCS Product Enhancements

dCS Products Feature Requests
1

I’ve been using my Bartok APEX HDAC as the hub of my system for over a year now. Having a world-class DAC, digital Pre, head amp and streamer in one box is a real value. There are a few enhancements I’d love to see going forward and I’m wondering whether others see these as relevant

Mosaic - Love it but…

  • There is a small bug I notice with the volume control (on iOS at least) if you adjust the volume manually on the Bartok, the numerical display will adjust on Mosaic but not the GUI circular slider. You need to lower the volume control tab and raise it for the GUI to adjust. Ditto if you adjust on an iPhone then move to an iPad (only happens if the app is already open on these devices)
  • Looking at the manual, I recently i realized it is possible to change the names of various inputs by connecting to a computer. Would be nice to do this directly in Mosaic

Display UI

  • While most of us (I expect) use mosaic (and rarely use the physical display on our dCS products), the dac GUI could benefit from an overhaul. Although a different product and use case, there is a lot of goodness in Lina that would benefit other DCS products from a GUI perspective.

AirPlay

  • I think it is now common knowledge that AirPlay 1 is sonically better than AirPlay 2 for streaming (one can get cd quality streams from Roon with AirPlay 1 whereas airplay 2 downsamples to acc 256). I’ve been using AirPlay 1 to stream internet radio (BBC mostly through sounds - I’m outside of the UK so this is always time shifted programming). Trouble is that we can’t do multi room streaming with AirPlay 1 and much of the time we want to be able to hear the same thing in more than one room. So for this use case, I’ve hooked up a low cost airplay 2 steamer into one of the digital inputs. Doesn’t sound as good but it works! As ridiculous as it sounds there is value in having both AirPlay 1 and AirPlay 2 in the same device. One less box to manage

Family-friendly Multi Room - everyone can use the dCS hub!

  • This is the final frontier for me at least. Rather than have 3 different hi fi systems, I’d like to use my Bartok + Amp setup and switch speakers. Currently I have run wiring for 2 pairs of speakers in different rooms. I switch by swapping speaker cables at the amp. Need to get a good switcher! I do this now by swapping speaker cables

  • BUT - for those of us using our dCS Dacs as digital pre amps it would be nice to use the single ended and balanced outputs independently. For example allowing the user to mute one or the other or both would make it easier for us to use our dCS dacs with another amp or headphone amp

random thoughts…

2 Likes
2

and volume limits in Mosaic would be very helpful! The volume control in Roon is clumsy. I much prefer to have Mosaic in ‘slide over’ mode with Roon on my iPad

3

Can you expand on this? Mosaic has maximum volume limit ,0.0dBfs. How loud that maximum is to the listener depends on external factors . Are you suggesting pre-set maxima ? Or maybe that for safety reasons Mosaic would always turn on on at, say, -20dBfs?

4

For those who use their dCS days as pre amps, Yes indeed a user defined preset maximum volume would be a nice addition. It is easy to whack up the volume by accident. A vol setting of -30dB at start up is a sensible idea, but only if the volume was left higher than -30dB at shutdown. I typically turn the volume to -80dB and mute after each listening session.

Once we start talking about volume limiting, mosaic would need a ‘user mode’ setting. In other words, a setting for ‘fixed line out’ or ‘variable line out’

1 Like
5

You can count me in for this one: +1

6

But then you just as easily run the risk of someone accidentally toggling to that “fixed” setting and blowing their speakers :laughing:

2 Likes
7

Or, worse, blowing their eardrums!

8

I hear you both, caution is always advised. But it is no different than dCS-as-digital-preamp users ‘accidentally’ clicking on 6V output button while riding high on a lower voltage output. I typically run .6V between -10dB and 0dB depending on programme material.