Hi gang, I am awaiting the delivery of a Rossini and Clock. I’m super excited to add this and I must say thanks to all, for the great knowledge here. I hope after I learn the system I’ll be able to give back.
Are there any “rookie mistakes” that I should look out for?
Best,
JK
Buying one of the DACs without a clock. But you’ve already dodged that one 
One thing that I think would be a mistake not to try is the Rossini direct to a power amp. You’re likely to get very, very good sound that way. It might not be where you end up — some (not all!) of us prefer the sound we get by adding a good preamp — but if the results without a preamp are more to your taste, you’ll be incredibly pleased to save yourself some extra cabling and boxes to control.
Welcome to this community, and congrats with your upcoming Rossini and Clock! You will be delighted.
In case you need to update your Rossini: never forget to power cycle it from the rear before starting a update.
Well that’s be dropped the ball because I’m waiting for my Rossini, but no clock ordered. The clock will come later.
I’m currently using a dealer dem Bartok and I find it better to use my preamp and not go direct to my power amplifiers. Should I expect anything different with the Rossini?
Welcome JK, and congrats! You’ve already made the “mistake” [succumbing to dCS]. The rest is just recovery. 
Welcome to the club! 
I don’t (yet) know the answer to that, but others will.
I’ve read that the Vivaldi does a better job at higher levels of digital attenuation than the others, but I don’t know whether that in turn means it’ll sound better at higher volumes also. It’d be fun to find out one day. I’ll report back
Congratulations. I am relatively new owner of the Rossini and clock. They impart a wonderful sound to my system. I’ve found that the quality of the clock cables between the DAC and clock are important for the best sound.
Welcome JK. It’s almost 2 months since I took delivery of my Rossini & Clock and I’m loving it!
As Ben commented above, I’m not using a preamp and am very happy with the SQ in my system.
Next step for me is to upgrade my interconnects and power cables (currently AQ). I’m talking to my local Shunyata dealer about a special package price, probably Alpha v2 XLR & Clock and Delta v2 NR & XC power cables.
You will find that there is no “best” on the question of using a preamp. It depends upon your personal preference, the system, the type of music that you listen to etc. Although direct connection is better theoretically, in practice many of us find that use of a preamp provides a preferable experience. I have been using dCS for over twenty years and have owned multi box systems for all three generations of their processing platform. I have always tried direct connection. I have loved it on small scale music but have somehow been disappointed on e.g. large symphonic works. As one reviewer put it, he had been admiring the clarity of direct connection but when a big musical event came it somehow passed by. I have not found that moving up the range ( I own Vivaldi) has changed my own opinion in this particular respect.
So if a preamp brings you the most pleasure then go with it.
Thanks for the advice and humor(PaleRider), I’ll report back when I’m up and running. I will try it first with no Preamp.
Best,
JK
Congratulations. It would be good to go ahead and download the latest version of Mosaic preferably on iPad. (I purchased an iPad to improve the user experience with dCS products shortly after delivery of my Rossini.). Also learn about your network setup if you plan to set up a NAS device to store your music files. It works great with the Rossini after proper set up. Most issues that occur with streaming are related to one’s network setup and not the Rossini itself.
rsbrax_dcs is correct so if any new users reading are to use NAS to serve locally stored files please read this FAQ first. It may save you needing to post a question later:
I previously shared my experiences with respect to the clock when comparing the sound of the Rossini Player with my previous reference, a Wadia S7i:
Rossini Player alone - good, but not as good as the Wadia. Less focused soundstage, no palpable sense of “space.”
Rossini Player with Clock - the room was suddenly present, and very obvious. You could tell the size of the room, you could easily hear where the singer was in the room, it was amazing. By switching the clock off, the walls of the room went away and it was just a vocalist in space. Turn the clock back on, and the room and sense of the space all came back instantly.
Is that important? Only you can decide of course, but if I had a choice between the Rossini Player without the Rossini Clock and getting nothing, I would have declined to purchase the Rossini Player as it wasn’t an upgrade.
That shows you how good the Wadia S7i was; it took the combo of Rossini Player and Rossini Clock to beat it.
It’s not actually all that surprising when if you go back and look at Wadia’s “ClockLink” technlogy as implemented between the S7i’s internal transport and the DAC (the DAC drove the clock of the transport directly, not unlike the Rossini Clock driving the Rossini Player’s electronics.)
Jitter is the enemy of all digital audio systems and precise clocking is the only way to defeat it.
From this diagnosed clock addict, yes.