Sorry, going to force your minds back over 20 years
I bought an early Delius last year (no firewire, v1.01 boot rom), loved it! Added a Purcell earlier this year and am running it dual-AES 48/,174 (174k preferred to 192k, not sure why) into the Delius.
It’s my digital solution of choice now, replacing a heavily modified Naim CDI and is simply stunning. All done on a hugely restricted budget (just over £1k for both).
The Purcell is the last version with v2.25 firmware, so my next low cost upgrade option would be a Delius with firewire connectivity. Long shot, but anyone have one gathering dust they’d be willing to sell?
Even a non Firewire one, but with v1.03 firmware, I’d be interested in - it would enable me to sync the Delius to the Purcell word clock I think, which is not available with my Delius‘ v1.01 boot rom.
To assist your search,the connection standard is IEEE 1394. However DSD equipped models from this era are more commonly known as Plus versions. If you can stretch your budget, the more common Elgar Plus can be found for under £1K.
A difficulty may be finding cables that will work with this combination. Many have comparatively short electrically conductive areas before the insulation is met. Using these will appear to make a physical connection but there will be no electrical one as the depth of the Elgar/Delius/Purcell casing fouls it. Back in the day some cable manufacturers ( e.g. AQ) made custom ones.
Thanks Pete - DOH, yes, 1394 Not had any problems with cables so far, but good to know, thanks. And Elgar is also on my shopping list, although more expensive in general.
Just my two cents… I’m not sure I would stick with dCS as a brand in this price range. To stay in this budget, you are dealing with 20+ year equipment and there have been huge leaps in DSP since then.
I suggest looking at some of the more recent DACs (below).
Thanks, I completely disagree I’ve only tried one of those in my system, very dynamic but zero texture or depth. I’d rate vintage Micromega, PS Audio, Mark Levinson & Wadia DAC technology far superior, and none of them come close the the vintage dCS kit…IMVHO of course.
I agree with you. I have a Delius/Purcell I purchased in 2001 and i a-b’d vs many modern dacs but always landed back on the Delius. Recently I did finally upgrade to a Rossini which is quite a bit better. Unfortunately, my Delius is 1.00 and my Purcell is 1.10. Both are in perfect working order if you want them for parts. I
Wow - thank you! I will send you a private message. I am really not missing anything with this setup, and can’t really justify the expense of moving up the dCS ladder, even knowing it will improve things
Two friends and I did a three day shootout (don’t worry it was only a few hours per each day) comparing my friend’s Delius / Purcell combo with Andreas Koch’s Playback Systems Merlot, Chord DAVE and my then workhorse Weiss DAC202. Here the impressions of one of us three. Here are some more.
The result was that the 20 year old dCS combo was at least as good as the much more recent state of the art DACs and in terms of musical enjoyment clearly superior. My measure of musical enjoyment is how relaxed I am while listening and to which degree I can ‘settle into the music’. In this respect the dCS combo was unsurpassed. The dCS slogan ‘only the music’ is well chosen.
I purchased a Rossini as a result of the session, which was complemented by a clock and upgraded to APEX since. I haven’t looked back and am looking forward to 20 years of state of the art sound reproduction with the Rossini.
David @acousticsguru , the author of the linked posts, has since upgraded from Delius / Purcell to a Vivaldi stack and upgraded it to APEX.
BTW, dCS customer service for old products is superb. When my friend’s Delius’ PSU failed, dCS sent a replacement board, which I was able to install in the Delius without issues. The Delius / Purcell combos of both friends are still in use.
YMMV
Not had any problems with cables so far, but good to know, thanks. And Elgar is also on my shopping list, although more expensive in general.