Yes but generally it’s better to let the Upsampler do the bulk of the donkeywork…
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Hi Phil,
Thanks for clearing a doubt I had for a long.
It clears up the miss conception that in Vivaldi one can avoid upsampling by using Clone option. This option only allows to push the up sampling to Dac instead of doing the entire upsampling (or part of it) in upsampler.
Regards,
Sourav
Sourav,
Vivaldi DAC displays the bit depth and sampling frequency of the data it is actually receiving.So you can check what I say in situ if you have a Vivaldi stack.
With a Vivaldi Upsampler and with Clone Mode selected in Mosaic an (e.g. 16/44.1) datastream source will be received by DAC as 16/44.1. If , however, Clone Mode is not selected and even if Upsampler sampling rate is selected to be the same in and out ( in this case 44.1), the 16 bit output will still be padded to 24 bit.
So, in short ,with Clone Mode 16/44.1 in = 16/44.1 out .Without Clone Mode 16/44.1 in = 24/44.1 out ( if upsampling in and out are effectively selected to be at the same rate such as 44.1). With Clone Mode any other data data rate stream will also be sent to DAC at the native rate and will neither be upsampled nor have bit depth padded.
If I remember correctly Clone Mode was originally introduced so that HDCD data sent via the Upsampler could be passed to the DAC intact.
Incidentally I do not know about Rossini but we seem to have moved to Vivaldi in this thread.
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Hi PAR,
I dont have Vivaldi. However, I dont see anything logically wrong in your observation.
But, if I understood what @Phil has mentioned above, even if u send a 16/44.1 to Vivaldi dac in Clone mode, the Vivaldi dac would first upsample it.
So what somebody is able to avoid in Clone mode is avoiding upsampling in Upsampler and pushing the same task to Vivaldi dac. However, it seems to me that anyway is not a very good idea based on what mentioned by @Phill above ‘it’s better to let the Upsampler do the bulk of the donkeywork…’.
So, in summary, to me -
Logically any 16/44.1 input to a Vivaldi Upsampler + Vivaldi Dac system will go through these 2 conceptual stages -
Stage 1 (Upsampling) + Stage 2 (Other necessary processing for DtoA)
1.Option 1 : Clone mode on - Vivaldi dac is doing both Stage 1 and Stage 2 for a 16/44.1 input fed to the upsampler
2. Option 2 : Clone mode off - Upsampler is doing Stage 1 for a 16/44.1 input fed to upsampler. Upsampler is then providing the Vivaldi dac the upsampled data and the Vivaldi dac is doing Stage 2.
In Rossini, the same logical architecture prevails. It is just that since Rossini is not a 2 box solution, separating Upsampling from actual DtoA conversion, one cannot have Clone mode there.
@Phil I hope my above understanding is correct.
Regards,
Sourav
Which is why I am asking if at some point they can let specifically DXD free from upsampling/conversion to DSD. At the end it is already at the max a Vivaldi upsampler can do…
Clone mode selected impacts all signal and cannot be specific and as such is not a solution (unless obviously you are ready to change the mode each and every time you present a DXD source and leave it)
It is eventually just a bypass like DSD mode.
Hi,
There’s a set of articles written by James which explain in detail how the dCS Ring DAC works which is here and may help to cover your question - certainly very worth a read…
Best regards
Phil
Not sure if I misunderstood your posts, but the Vivaldi Upsampler does not upsample DXD to DSD, if you don’t want it to.
With “Clone Mode” OFF, “DXD Mode” to ON (Locked), “DSD Pass-Through” ON, and the Upsampler’s Output set to DXD; all incoming DXD sources are output as DXD, while incoming DSD is bypassed from any conversion and remains as DSD. Both with Filter 1, the classic sharp filter applied. Incoming DXD is only converted to DSD if you specifically set the Upsampler’s Output to DSD/DSDx2.
@Phil perhaps the real question for the VUP is; (aside from Clone mode) when the incoming source rate and the output rate are the same, obviously there won’t be any interpolation going on, in which case, is Filter 1 even necessary? Or does it just have no effect in cases of I/O rates being equal?
Just for kicks, I checked the Scarlatti Upsampler Manual, it has this interesting nugget;
Filter 1 is a classic sharp filter. The 44.1k → 44.1k conversion has no filtering, the level is reduced by 0.1dB.
The behaviour in the Vivaldi Upsampler is the same as in the Scarlatti Upsampler when I/O rates are the same. The output volume is attenuated by 0.1dB to match the 0.1dB attenuation incurred during interpolation (filter ripple). It isn’t strictly speaking a filter - the connected DAC always has to do its own filtering, the same as if the Upsampler was not in the chain, so no use doing it twice as you suggest.
(on a completely unrelated note, the 0.1dB attenuation may actually help with intersample overs if they are present in the recording)
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Thanks for the response James, makes sense. I never really thought about it till this thread as I always Upsample 
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My point was precisely to request an exception for DXD when regularly you upsampler to DSD/DSD2. For sure in clone mode it leaves the upsampler unchanged but it means enabling clone mode before feeding the upsampler with DXD stream and removing it after. We have such “bypass” for DSD, why not for DXD? At the end, it is already at the “max” resolution of what can output a Vivaldi upsampler.
Anyway I am quite sure that by now Phil understood what I meant and it is probably stupid as he politely avoided to really answer.
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Ahh, I get what you mean; You regularly upsample everything to DSD/DSD2, but would like DXD to be bypassed.
It’s not really similar to the “DSD Pass-through” feature though - that’s bypassing a whole format, whereas you’re requesting the bypass of just one particular PCM rate.
In any case, I get that it’s a feature ask.
If I understood it right, if this feature were there you did not have to switch to DXD upsampling (from ur regular DSD/DSD2) in case the input is DXD. Is that right ?
Regards,
Sourav
Not at all … we just can’t really comment on specific feature requests.
Best regards
Phil
Yes !!!
(or by activating/deactivating clone “mode”).
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I obviously did not expect that you to express any kind of commitment, but some feedback on whether or not it would be difficult to do, pointless because of something I missed etc… 
For example, with such high resolution streams, what is the value added of the upsampler ?
In my case I find very little interesting music released in higher resolutions. So upsampling to DXD or DSDX2 provides me with (IMHO) better SQ for CD quality releases.
If I understood correctly the explanation from @Phil, the Clone mode cannot be used for this requirement you have. The Clone mode can be used just to switch the upsampling to happen either in the Dac (when On) or in Upsampler (when Off).
Given that understanding, to me it is a valid feature request. Why either of the Dac and Upampler should do any kind of Upsampling if the input itself is DXD ?
I shall also extend this requirement for Rossini. Doing unnecessary upsampling does not make sense to me if the input is already in the highest form.
Regards,
Sourav
Hi Sourav,
If you look at the information regarding how the Ring DAC works then you’ll see that no matter what the input format (whether DSD, DSDx2 or DXD) there is always a need for the input audio data to be upsampled for the Ring DAC.
BR
Phil
Hi Phil @Phil
But, if I understand it correctly, Ring Dac is handling DSD inputs without upsampling.
The above understanding is based on this part in manual in the Upsampling section - ‘This feature does not apply to DSD data, which is processed differently.’. But surely ‘differently’ does not necessarily mean that it is not doing some other kind of upsampling/some other processing’.
Regards,
Sourav
It’s not really something for us to discuss or make judgements on though - we can (and do) feed suggestions into the R&D guys and we are here to help and answer questions wherever possible but there are things that we really do need to keep out of.
If you are feeding the DAC straight DXD or double speed DSD and nothing else then an Upsampler may well not be of relevance to you…
BR
Phil