When dCS confirmed the issue where the first .84 seconds of .dsf files get cut off on the Rossini when played over the network, they said it would be fixed in the next software release for the Rossini:
Playing DSD .dsf files from the beginning on the Rossini skips the first 0.84 second of audio
I’m patient, but that was also around eight months ago and I was hoping a bug fix release would have been issued by now.
Bill, this seems not just to affect Rossini but also Vivaldi according to some of the archive threads.
Can it be fixed via Mosaic if it is a common issue? If so James said on 4th January that they intended to update v1.1.1 quickly to produce fixes rather than add features. There are a number of issues that require a fix, some reported over years without any action being taken e.g. problems with creating playlists. I have to point out that when v.1.1.0 was introduced there was a similar statement from Andrew anticipating a release by Easter of 2020 which never took place. When v.1.1.1 came out months later it really only introduced Expanse for Rossini HPA owners.
If it cannot be fixed via Mosaic and requires a firmware upgrade then Vivaldi owners with this issue need to be particularly concerned as it is widely expected that a replacement for Vivaldi after a long product life will happen in the near ( or nearish) future. For those who are unaware, dCS do not issue firmware upgrades for discontinued products.
Mosaic has nothing to do with it; it happens if you are sending content directly to the DAC without Mosaic in the loop at all.
dCS also has said that the code base is different between Rossini and Vivaldi so it’s not the same issue.
The basic problem is that Rossini takes too long to decide an incoming data stream is DoP rather than PCM, and rather than buffer the data while it’s figuring it out it instead discards it completely, so only DoP data received after it has determined it is DoP is played.
I posted a rather long observation of the problem in detail:
Summary:
Played continuously starting at Track 1:
Track 1: First part cut off
Track 2: Plays normally
Jump to Track 2:
First part cut off
Jump back to the start of Track 2:
Plays normally
Played continuously starting at Track 1:
Track 1: First part cut off
Track 2: First part cut off
Jump to Track 2:
First part cut off
Jump back to the start of Track 2:
First part cut off
The only workaround at present is to use playback software that can inject a half second of DoP silence before it starts sending the actual DoP datastream, meaning you cannot directly play .dsf files from a file server.
Rossini HPA? Bartók you mean, of course.
Mosaic 1.1.1 does contain more than that:
MOSAIC 1.1.1 RELEASE NOTES
CHANGES
2.1 NEW FEATURES
Mosaic 1.1.1 contains the following new features.
• Support for dCS Expanse: Mosaic Control includes settings to enable / disable dCS Expanse on the Bartók Headphone DAC
• TIDAL My Mix: Added support for TIDAL’s auto-generated playlists (My Mix) based on individual user play history
2.2 FIXES AND IMPROVEMENTS
The following changes reflect improvements to existing functionality or fixes to identified bugs.
• TIDAL: Implemented new login and authentication mechanism for TIDAL (users will now be redirected to TIDAL website for service login)
• TIDAL: Playback options are now shown correctly for the TIDAL Artist Radio function
• Media Browsing: Fixed several issues where metadata lookup functions were incorrectly shown when browsing Deezer, Qobuz, or a UPnP server
• Media Browsing: Playback options are now properly shown when browsing the MinimServer [folder view] tree
• Play Queue / Playlists: Increased the maximum number of tracks able to be added to the Play Queue or a Playlist.
• Playback: Fixed an issue in which very long track / album names could cause a device crash
• Playback: Fixed an issue in which AIFF files downloaded from Qobuz were unplayable
• Device Control: Fixed an issue which would cause a device to wake itself from sleep
• Device Control: Fixed an issue that caused some settings menu items not to populate correctly within Mosaic Control
• Interface: Adjusted screen layout to allow for app display on lower resolution Android tablets (minimum display height is now 600 dp)
• Interface: Fixed an issue in which a double-tap action within Mosaic Control would lead to unpredictable behavior
• Device Discovery: Complete re-work of device discovery mechanism to address issues with connection between Mosaic Control and Mosaic Processor
• General: Several minor bug fixes and code improvements
From: https://www.dcsltd.co.uk/support/mosaic-1-1-1-release-notes/
dCS Mosaic is a carefully assembled collection of hardware and software modules
So, Mosaic has all to do with this. And probably more FPGA updates too.
It depends on if you consider data sent via USB to be “streaming.”
Certainly parts of Mosaic affect network streams but I would think USB is more like if a connected SACD transport was sending data via dual AES/EBU.
Regardless, the recent Mosaic update did not address this issue.
