Thanks Pete,
that helps! Tricky situation 
Rossini transport is a dream but for that I have not enough SACDs/CDs. Older models may fail and spare parts are no longer available. Last option is SACD ripping then which needs computer voodoo and specific blu-ray hw…
Went to Edinburgh yesterday to pick up my Rossini Apex back from the upgrade. Gosh, the improvements are not subtle. More, just more of everything and much more than I expected. Happy bunny.
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Miss Edinburgh so much! 
Agreed re: Apex. Not a minor upgrade for me either.
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Slight side note… My integrated amp does not have a remote (Audio Note Kondo Ongaku). So what I do is set the volume to about noon and trim down the volume with Rossini to the level I want. It usually means -10dB to -20dB. For this in my setup I use the 2V output level.
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I guess it was a 35.000$ option, I understand why you seek for alternative solutions 
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Good spot, thanks for flagging it Bill - will get this corrected.
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Thanks, James!!
Same review just printed with the same error at Stereonet UK (sigh…)
This Rossini Player variant sports a silver disc spinner which plays CD and SACD, the latter in its native format. This is an increasingly rare feature and makes it – coincidentally – one of the world’s most expensive SACD machines.
Great catch again @BillK.
So here we have reviewers again caught in the act. They could have simply tried to play an SACD. Instead, absent a test which would have required 30 seconds, we again see a member of the audiophile press lying to the public in a printed review.
There are thousands (millions?) of people around the world who were “sold” on MQA, thanks to the demonstrably false reporting of Absolute Sound (and then Tidal). There are hundreds of manufacturers and X-knows studios sold on a technology recommended by the “experts” in the audiophile press, who then paid licensing fees to meet the demand created by a deceived public.
IMHO, @James and others should not correct the error. Let everyone see for themselves.
Does anyone doubt how easily the human mind (including mine) can be manipulated? Is the year 1984?
R
The problem is if someone reads the review and buys a Rossini Player and finds out it’s CD only, they won’t be mad at the reviewer or the dealer, they’ll inexplicably get mad at dCS.
(“Why did you take this functionality out? What do you mean it never had it, it obviously worked on the reviewer’s machine! Yet another case of companies giving reviewers a specially configured machine for reviews!!”)
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But then again, they might not have noticed the CD layer was playing.
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I think this is more subtle… MQA can sound very good in many instances, either because the album in question is a “White Glove” MQA album (ie remastered by them from the original analog tapes) or because the subtle DSP applied to the sound is pleasant (it is pleasant to my ears). I don’t think it is fair to blame reviewers for liking the sound of MQA. Additionally, there were plenty of people, reviewers and DAC makers, strongly and vocally against it. So in my opinion this criticism is unfounded.
However, once a new format exists, and that format is added to a streaming platform, it becomes a sort of requirement and that’s why many DACs implemented it in some shape or form. There was not concerted effort of the review community to push it.
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Mine is away for the upgrade but I have a loan Rossini Apex as a stand in. You’re right the difference isn’t subtle, you get more of everything.
I respect that you have a lot of experience with MQA and also take a balanced approach to its assessment @miguelito. This topic is also likely going to be moot, as it seems unlikely that MQA will survive without Tidal’s backing.
The only statement I disagree with is this:
For your consideration, I am including a link to the original issue of The Absolute Sound in which MQA was introduced (May, 2016). On the cover, TAS declares MQA (in all caps): “BETTER THAN HI-RES” and “MQA Revolutionizes Digital Audio”.
The article goes on in this effusive manner for no less than 22 pages, in which TAS’s editor declares: “MQA is the most significant audio technology of my lifetime.”
The same article of course includes the introduction of Meridian’s 808v6 DAC, described by the same editor as: “But the $22,000 808 v6 is so much more than a CD player—it is the first disc player and AC to offer decoding of Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) sources. As described in the accompanying feature, MQA delivers better-than-hi-res sound with a bit rate low enough to stream. This extremely sophisticated new technology was conceptualized and created by Bob Stuart with British mathematician Peter Craven. The 808v6 is thus not just the most sophisticated CD player in Meredian’s history, but the progenitor of an entirely new class of digital-playback systems based on the revolutionary MQA.”
I don’t think I have ever seen a more coordinated effort by a magazine to push an technology and product.
I understand. Bob Stuart is a respected member in the audio connoisseur circles, so when Robert Harley was impressed by MQA, and he would be especially if only “White Glove MQA” files were played to him, I can see that he would get so excited about it. It did sound amazing, but in hindsight, I would regard the difference more to the remastering that anything MQA related. You cannot blame Robert Harley for being excited. You could blame those who portrayed the difference as strictly MQA related.
I actually attended an MQA demo in March 2014 at Meridian NYC. A friend is a prolific Meridian buyer and so he got a special invitation and he brought me along. There was one file they played where they played one non-MQA 192/24 file and the MQA version. Night and day, literally. I asked the guy if it was the same analog master, or if the MQA version was actually remastered more carefully. He refused to answer. I am pretty pointed so I insisted. He refused to answer, instead saying something like “Don’t you like the MQA version better?”
It reminds me of this:
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Lol.
I think I’m going to find the Stonehenge clip now…
: )
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Ok here’s another jewel:
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Had forgotten about this skit — fantastic 
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