Hello,
I am looking for an upsampler to feed my Delius with DSD (it has the firewire option).
Can you tell me which upsamplers are compatible ? Purcell plus with FireWire ? Other ones ? And where I can find one ?
Many thanks !
William
Casting my mind back a few decades I recall upsampling to DSD from my Purcell Plus to my Elgar Plus.
Unfortunately having the units is by no means the end of the story now. Firstly FireWire cables are almost impossible to find these days. Secondly the pin count varies as there were several varieties. So even if you do find one for sale it may be incorrect.
It gets worse. The majority of FireWire cables will not fit dCS units of that era. This is because the insulation of the connector housing fouls the casework and no electrical contact is made. Trying to cut the excess down proved impossible for me. So although I was able to find a single make of ordinary cable that also sounded acceptable that source dried up twenty years ago. As for audiophile cable brands few entered the market and of those that did only a single brand would modify the housing to fit. That was a service that’s probably no longer available.
So good luck and report back if you find any success.
Hi William,
Yes, you need either a Purcell Mk.2 with 2.x Firmware (the last version was 2.25 (with the 2.06 daughterboard) so keep an eye out for one of those) or, I believe, a Paganini Upsampler would also be compatible but pinging @Phil for confirmation.
As Pete says finding compatible cables was a challenge even back in the day and likely no easier now, so buy one with FireWire cables if at all possible. Good luck!
I too think Paganini upsampler would work although later models with the final software upgrade may need the Vivaldi emulator mode unselected.
Frankly I found the Paganini a major sonic upgrade over its predecessors and would recommend that if the OP found the upsampler it would be well worth his while finding the DAC too. That could resolve the Firewire difficulty anyway as the Vivaldi emulator mode allows AES connection .
Hi,
Many thanks for your answers !
Ok, so I am going to look for a later Purcell or a Paganini upsampler. Regarding the firewire cable, I read someone in this forum who said that the monster firelink 300 6/6 will work - let’s try to find one too !
Does anybody know the standard used by DCS for the firewire interface ? Is there any usb → FireWire interface ?
Regards
I don’t know hat that means. So I will say, no.
As for standards, the dCS implementation was pretty much cutting edge. I cannot rememberer the pin count involved so also cannot confirm that a 6/6 version is correct but it may be. Remember, however , that the correspondent making the commendation for the Monster cable may have been referring to Paganini and cables fitting the latter may not work with Delius or Purcell due to the issue of fouling the casework.
One essential point. The DSD interface carries no timing signal and it is necessary to connect a 75 ohm BNC cable from Delius wordclock out to Purcell wordclock in or find a Verona 
.
The remaining issue is , after all that work, whether you think it provides any benefit to you. Only you can tell this. I can only say that back in the day I ended up preferring PCM conversions.
Hi William,
It was I who used the Monster FireLink 300 cable with my Verdi/Purcell/Verona/Elgar stack.
IIRC all the dCS FireWire-equipped units supported the same version: IEEE 1394-1995 (aka FireWire 400) on a 6-pin connector. Any 6-pin FireWire 400 cable should work, but I only ever tried the Monster (I guess we’ll never know why they called it “300”) and the dCS supplied ones.
A quick search on Amazon turned up a number of different FireWire-to-USB cables, although I don’t know what use case you have in mind and have a hard time believing a cable like that would support it. But they are very cheap so maybe worth a shot.
PS There’s one on ebay at the moment ($7.99) but it’s only a foot long. Should work if you stack the units though.
Hi @cauwil
If you are thinking of using a USB to Firewire interface to get USB audio into the system then please be aware that that won’t work…
Cheers
Phil
I asked to dcs support if it was possible to send dsd to the firewire interface with something like an amanero, and I have been replied that the ieee input is encrypted.
So I have to find a DCS upsampler with FireWire interface…
Regards,
William
The Elgar/Purcell/Delius Plus range were designed when the only orifgnal DSD source for domestic listeners was the newly introduced SACD. The patents forbade DSD digital code exiting the SACD player or transport. This gave dCS a problem as they made no self contained CD player. It had to be a transport unit with the data sent to a DAC.
As dCS had been a partner of one of the patent owners, Sony, in the development of SACD they were able to secure authorisation for a two box solution if the DSD signal outside of the boxes was encrypted. So transport or upsampler out sent an encrypted DSD signal and the receiving DAC decrypted this.
Units of that era were never equipped for streaming services ( no network or USB inputs) nor were there there any at the time so playing original DSD files aside from SACD was not feasible. It was SACD or upsampled PCM if you wanted to hear DSD.
Upsampled PCM does not result in a file identical to an original DSD master. The recorded musical information is the same as the PCM from which it was derived whereas an original DSD recording contains additional recorded information. You may or may not like the result of such upsampling anyway.