For nearly four decades, dCS has pursued extreme accuracy and precision in the conversion of digital audio to real music, whilst preserving emotion and detail like no other technology. The MCD 16 extends that pursuit into new territory with sixteen channels of audio from eight Ring DACs, sharing our vision for what high-fidelity audio can become when multichannel is uncompromised.
The MCD 16 is our first 16-channel Digital-to-Analogue converter. It may be a new product category for dCS, but we believe it is a natural one.
The dCS MCD 16 features 16 channels of high-performance Digital-to-Analogue conversion using eight individual Ring DAC™ circuits. The Ring DAC™ is the foundation of every dCS product, chosen for its exceptional distortion and noise performance.
8 ring dacs in a box, this will have to put dCS at the top of the tree in the cinema world. As I do know its big business and many invest a lot of money into all this, especially over sea’s.
Hope it sells well and fantastic to see new top products coming out from, what is really a small British company, that just happens to be world leaders in digital replay.
Not directly, the MCD 16 is top end multichannel audio world as it is. To use it in cinema world you will need a AV (pre-) processor, such as offered by Trinnov, and others.
It’s intriguing how Trinnov and dcs will showcase this new DAC in Vienna . Trinnov have DAC/ processors in their stable and their processors use a lot of DSP / room correction etc so the signal passing from a source ( eg blu ray / Apple TV ) to the Trinnov to the new dcs DAC is hardly going to be unadulterated.
To dive into the world of high end multichannel (immersive) audio, and NOT only cinema, see here:
This guide covers immersive music and everything related to it. As enjoyable as movies and gaming are, our focus is on music because it’s our passion. As noted in the title, this guide is about high end audio.
All we know now is what is presented at the Trinnov announcement of the Vienna High End 2026 demo:
Signal conversion is handled by dCS’s latest 16-channel DAC platform, designed to maintain timing integrity and resolution across all channels simultaneously, an essential requirement in immersive reproduction, where phase relationships define the soundfield as much as level.
The MCD 16 will be situated between Trinnov’s new AltitudeCI and their Amplitude 16 amplifiers. We’ll actually be using two MCD 16s in parallel, as the AltitudeCI has 32 channels of AES3 outputs.
The MCD 16 is a multichannel DAC; the AltitudeCI will still be handing all of the source and format decoding, rendering of immersive formats like Atmos or Auro-3D, room correction etc. It’ll be feeding the digital audio to the MCD 16 via AES3, which the MCD 16 will convert with the Ring DACs and output as analogue to drive the Amplitude 16s.
This lets the AltitudeCI stay as a digital-only product, converts all the work it does on processing, room correction etc. through discrete Ring DACs, and drives the amps with our Class A output stage.
On the way soon - we’re all hands on deck to get ready for the Vienna demo currently. That said, just wait till you see the inside of it…
Will it be possible to use this with Lyngdorf A/V processors and amplifiers? I currently have a 7:2:4 cinema system and would be interested in extending this to immersive audio. Can I assume that pricing is not yet available?
This will work with the Lyngdorf MP-60 processor provided it has the AES output card fitted. That allows the MP-60 to output 16 channels of digital via DB25, and that can be connected to either the DB25 input of the MCD 16, or into the 8x XLR AES inputs via a breakout cable. I believe this can be installed as a retrofit, but I’d check with your installer / Lyngdorf dealer on that.
In terms of the Lyngdorf amplifiers, looks like the SDA-2400 and the MXA-8400 both use XLR inputs, so the MC 16’s outputs can be fed into either, or a combination.
Which processor and amplifier model(s) do you have in your system?
Thanks James. Thats good news I have the MP-60 with AES output card and four SDA-2400s (one for the side RH and LH, one for the rears and one each for the two pairs of ceiling mounted speakers. The subs are two (LH and RH behind the screen) Perlisten active D215s fed from the Lyngdorf. The MP-60 is currently fed through a CH Precision L1 preamp bypass to feed two ATC SCM 200 actives for front left and right and the MP-60 also feeds a third ATC SCM 200 active for the centre (behind the screen). I will follow developments with interest!
Hi Brian, I believe it’s Yes on the Amplitude 8 Amps as it accepts 8 Analog inputs for amplification, but No on the Altitude16 as its an integrated processor that does not output 8/16 Digital channels.
With MCD 16, I believe you need a processor that will output multichannel AES (digital), like the AltitudeCI, Audient Oria, or the Lyngdorf MP-60 as in the discussion above.
