I am writing to share some structured feedback regarding my Rossini unit after using the player for over a year now.
First of all, I would like to express my overall satisfaction with the sonic performance of the machine. Both CD playback and DAC functionality via the USB port deliver outstanding audio quality. From a purely listening perspective, I find the performance excellent and fully aligned with expectations at this level.
Secondly, I would like to confirm something that appears to be a recurring issue discussed by several users. I have been using a 1TB external hard drive connected to the USB port for over a year without experiencing any reading or stability issues. However, I personally know other Rossini owners who have encountered significant problems even when using simple USB flash drives. Could you please clarify what may account for such variability? Is there any known ratio or explanation regarding compatibility differences between units? Are you ever gonna resolve this issue maybe releasing a new firmware?
That said, I must express a strong concern regarding one specific hardware aspect. The CD tray mechanism features two plastic arms with serrated guide rails that appear roughly formed and surprisingly lightweight. I must admit I was quite stunned to see this on a player positioned at nearly €40,000. Could you clarify which transport mechanism is being used, and how such material and construction choices align with a product positioned at the very top of the industry? From an engineering and brand positioning standpoint, this feels inconsistent with the overall price and expectations.
Additionally, I find the software interface and management system rather basic and, frankly, underwhelming for a product in this category. While the audio performance remains highly satisfying, both the hardware construction of the tray mechanism and the software environment leave me surprised and somewhat disappointed.
I am sharing this feedback in a constructive spirit, as I genuinely value the sonic performance of the unit and the brand’s reputation for excellence. I would appreciate your clarification on the points above.
Hi Stef. I see that this is your first post so welcome to the forum. I hope that you find it interesting and useful.
As your post is addressed to the dCS team I will tag @AndrewS from dCS to ensure that someone from the team will see it. The forum is largely a dialogue between dCS users.
In regard to your transport query, there are two Rossini products which it may be applicable, Rossini Transport and Rossini Player. It may help if you would kindly clarify which you refer to as each uses different mechanisms.
Hi, I also have a Rossini player and think it’s extraordinary as to its sonic performance. I can see the comments about the CD tray as well. However I am most interested in your comment on the fact that you connect via USB. Have you ever tried the network connection? I have been torn and go back and forth between using USB and Network myself. My understanding has always been DCS recommends Network for best performance. I have a sonic transporter server running a roon core via network connection. I was using Mosaic with MinimServer as the RAAT layer Roon adds is not desired , that said I found working with Minimserver too much of a Pine in the Annis frankly as 95% of my playback is from my own CD ripped library.
Hi Anthony, no because I have a huge music collection and I can t stand the idea of using networks via subscriptions. I have an enormous cd collection (over 10.000 titles) so I listen to those basically. But, I prefer using the HD because it is much more convenient to store there many albums and access them very rapidly. With the benefit of not stressing the cd mechanic of course. Best regards! Stef
Firstly, welcome to the dCS forum! Thank you very much for taking the time to provide such detailed feedback on your experience with your Rossini Player. It really is appreciated, and your comments have been circulated to a number of dCS staff internally.
With regards to connected USB flash drives, the maximum storage size which we support is 32GB. Larger drives may work, such as with your 1TB external hard drive, but we cannot provide any guarantees in such cases. The USB A port is a USB On-The-Go interface, with limitations on power delivery and processing power available. This is a deliberate choice on our part – for large collections of music, indexing and serving up large amounts of music up to the user within either the Mosaic app or on the front panel of the Rossini would take a larger amount of processing power than we typically want located inside of the DAC, for noise and performance reasons. The power delivery is the usual reason why larger drives will not consistently connect – they require more power than the USB interface can deliver, so will not operate correctly.
The USB-A interface on our DACs is deliberately designed for convenience, and not to be the primary interface for larger music collections. Our advice for users with collections of locally stored music that exceed 32GB would be to look at a network-based solution – such as Roon, or a NAS drive with a UPnP server running on it (such as MinimServer). These solutions allow for a large amount of storage, with backups, plenty of processing power available, file tags and filtering, more consistent album artwork displays and a host more improvements over USB file playback. It also keeps any of the necessary – noisy – processing power well away from the audio equipment in the system. In our view, this type of solution provides a much better user experience than having the DAC need to act as the processor for terabytes of locally stored music content connected via USB.
With regards to the CD mechanism, any mechanism which we use in our Players or Transports does have some quite specific requirements. We require the mechanism to read the data from the disc bit-perfectly, output it completely unprocessed, and the mechanism needs to be able to accept an external master clock signal to allow us to clock the functions of the mechanism from our own clock circuitry. When all of these requirements come together, it does provide a very limited number of options that are suitable for use. The Rossini Player uses the Stream Unlimited JPL-2800 SilverStrike, which does meet all of these criteria and plays an important role in providing the sound quality for the Rossini when playing CDs. I do note your comments on the physical construction of the mechanism, and your feedback has been passed on internally. Thank you for taking the time to detail it.
For your comments on the software, I would love to hear any specific feedback you have to offer – are your comments related to the Mosaic app used to control your Rossini? If so, are there any particular areas you feel the experience could be improved upon?
Hi James thank you very much for taking the time to reply and thank you for your kind words. I ll take the time to go through your reply with great attention.
Dear James
Thank you very much for your detailed reply and for taking the time to clarify these points. I truly appreciate it.
Regarding network-based solutions, I must say that they are not of interest to me.. I have a very large CD library that I specifically want to use by storing the files locally on a hard drive. This setup is extremely convenient for my workflow, and I consider myself fortunate among all the Rossini users apparently to be able to use a modern, high-quality hard drive, which has never caused any issues in over a year of use. Probably this surprises you a little bit! =))
In terms of playback quality, I see no limitations. I have done careful comparisons between the same discs played via CD and FLAC files via USB from my hard drive, and the results were essentially identical, with a slight preference for the USB playback.
Concerning the hardware, I would be grateful if you could provide any additional feedback regarding the CD tray/mechanism and the quality of the materials used.
Regarding software, I do not use the Mosaic app, as it is quite problematic and would not accommodate my workflow via the USB port. Consequently, I operate directly from the machine itself. Using the remote with USB-connected content would be limited and rudimentary, and of course, no artwork or metadata is displayed anyway.
That said, I want to reiterate that the most important aspect for me is audio playback, which is truly excellent. Owning and using a dCS has been an extraordinary experience for me, and I remain very satisfied.
I would simply love if the USB interface allowed a slightly better user experience with the machine itself, though I understand that this may not have been part of the original design intent. As I mentioned, paying for a network solution is absolutely out of the question for me given that I own over ten thousand CDs and multiple hard drives full of FLACs and high-resolution files.
Welcome to the Community, @stef . Could I just clarify something please?
I have the equivalent of thousands of CDs stored on a Synology NAS which sits in my study, some 5m direct (and 8m of basic Cat 6A ethernet cable) from my Rossini Apex. In physical terms, I consider these to be locally stored but they are accessed by the streamer using standard (ethernet) network protocols.
Is there something about transferring your multiple hard drives to a single, enterprise-quality, backup-capable etc local store like this to which you object? I ask because it would be a “network solution”. Just so I/we know and can advise appropriately. Thanks.
Hi Nigel thank you very much for your reply. and for your explanation. I understand that a NAS-based solution is technically sound and fully viable, and I appreciate the architectural logic behind it.
However, my point is slightly different.
If a USB port is provided on the unit and allows direct connection of external storage, then in my view it should be implemented in a way that allows users to use it confidently and comfortably with modern hard drives. Otherwise, one may reasonably ask: what is the purpose of including it?
When described as a “convenience feature,” I struggle to understand what that truly means in practice. If it cannot reliably handle large collections or provide a satisfactory user interaction, then it becomes difficult to consider it genuinely convenient.
I fully respect the design philosophy prioritizing network-based solutions (which I don t prefer anyway), but if USB playback is offered as an option, it should allow stable and practical use with contemporary storage devices. Otherwise, it risks feeling like a secondary, limited pathway rather than a fully supported feature.
As I mentioned before, audio performance is excellent and remains my top priority — and in that regard I am extremely satisfied. My reflections concern usability and implementation coherence rather than sound quality.
Thank you again for your time and openness to discussion.
I think you are asking something of it which is not its primary purpose; not its design intent as you quite rightly say.
I have a Zen Mini in one system which has a USB port; it can of course be used to add a USB drive containing music but its primary purpose is to allow a USB storage device to be connected from which music files can be transferred to the internal storage. It is absolutely not intended for the long term connection of a larger store than the Zen itself accommodates.
I used to have a Bluesound Node 2i in my main system. This also had a USB port which allowed some sort of connection I now forget but it was not designed to and would not work with external storage.
You use the phrase “network-based solutions” again, and negatively so again, without really explaining what you consider these to be and why you object to them. The term encompasses everything from pure streaming using services like Qobuz, with no local storage at all, through to local storage like my NAS which is only network-based in that it uses network protocols. In every practical sense it is like one large USB drive.
You say above that you “specifically want to use by storing the files locally on a hard drive“. My NAS is my local hard drive. This is not limited to the storage size mentioned by @James .
@ARDDCS asked about network connections as recommended by dCS and you said “because I have a huge music collection” (I do too, though not as large as yours) and “I can t stand the idea of using networks via subscriptions“. My NAS requires no subscription.
I hope this helps, even though I’m asking questions as much as providing answers!
You want a player that will accept a USB flash drive of whatever capacity presented to it. Is that correct? Restricted support for large capacity flash drives has been the case sine it was released in the 20teens. So was Rossini the right choice for you if this is your major requirement?
If a sufficient number of owners ask for a change to an existing model dCS will establish if it is viable and at a price users may pay. However the Rossini design dates from the 20teens when I recall USB flash drives of large capacity were not reliable. I am sure that none of us would like models that change at short intervals especially where interest may be limited or may be met by alternative methods.You can request new features in the a feature requests thread on this forum. It may not result in a hardware upgrade (if that is necessary) given the likely production cycle and time expired since Rossinis introduction but it could influence future design decisions.
Note that James is saying that dCS will not support drives above 32GB,though larger drives may work, however the latter would be serendipitous and therefore there is no guarantee.
Apologies as i may not have been as clear as I attempted. Basically my understanding that connecting the Rossini or for that matter any DCS component it is recommended that you use your ethernet connection directly to the Rossini for playback. I have a sonic transport server with my CD library. It’s in another room on the same network which is what I acquire the files from with the roon core on the sonic. 95% of my playing is my library not Qobuz which I also have. SQ is my priority. My question has always resolved around whether i should place my server near the Rossini and use the USB connection from the server to the Rossini direct instead of the ethernet connection. Again SQ being the deciding factor. I also had used a synology with minimserver as the previous server and Mosaic. So, for optimized SQ files on the server it’s either a network stream or a direct server to Rossini flow? Consensus seems to be with DCS use the network? Hope i did a better job in restating my question
Not trying to be impolite but I struggle to see your point.
The Rossini is an old unit, 11+ years now. Transports break over time. The transport market itself is dying. Everyone knows this. No one under the age of 25 even owns CDs. dCS does its best to cater to its users that still prefer to spin discs (I used to be one). I understand that they achieve–for most users–outstanding results. If you buy a DAC with an integrated transport, you are asking for trouble as the transport will fail over time. Again, this is well-known and the reality of dealing with moving atoms, instead of moving bits.
11 years ago, as @James wrote, the USB 2 port on the Rossini was not designed to handle large libraries. The storage innovation curve is much, much faster than the DAC hardware innovation curve. So, it makes perfect sense that the 11yo DAC hardware can’t handle new 2+TB USB sticks (if that is what you are trying to do). The port in my 2017 car can’t handle those sticks either. I have to save music onto SD cards. It’s a real Debbie Downer! ; ) But the car is 9 years old, and wasn’t designed for that technology.
As you have shared, you have a large library and the best solution–if you don’t want to buy a Roon device or other network server–is to do as Nigel (@TheFlash) suggests and put everything on an enterprise-quality NAS and then connect via Ethernet. It’s a better protocol, as has been extensively covered on this forum, and it is also the approach recommended by dCS.