==UPDATE=
Thanks to your suggestions I have added an active pre-amp (Audio Research SP16) and this solved the issue. I finally got what I wanted. Good sound, nice volume and control.
I will try to revert back to the 8 Ohm setting as suggested by Erwan to see if that makes any difference.
As far as I am concerned, CASE CLOSED.
Thank you all for thinking along and help me out
——————————————————————–
I just upgraded to 2 big 600W McIntosh MC601 monoblocks.
My path is the dCS Network bridge into the Scarlatti Upsampler and then into the Scarlatti DAC with the analog XLR Balanced out into the amps.
My speakers are Quad ESL63 and I have connected them at 4 Ohm
The sound is really fantastic, but the volume is not like seriously big.
I have the output of the DAC set to 6V already.
But I would like to have a stronger, more powerfull signal coming in I guess.
In a previous attempt Phil kindly suggested to take a look at the volume icon in Mosaic, and indeed that changes with my variable sound in Roon. Right now the volume on my DAC is 0.0 db and in Roon/Mosaic -25 db. It is after midnight here and no neighbours will complain about this level.
And if there is no music playing my amps still show a signal (between 0,6 and 6 watt)??
Network Bridge has a fixed digital output and was made to provide additional connectivity to earlier dCS ranges. So it is doing the job it was made for. I assume that NB is connected to Scarlatti using dual AES.
As you say the volume is really controlled via the Scarlatti. There is no pre-amp listed so you are using using Scarlatti at full output if the volume control is set at 0.0dBfs.This means that your amps will be trying to deliver <circa. 600 watts to the Quad ELS 63. This is way over their maximum specified input which is circa. 00 watts ( recommended amps are 50-100 watts). They have a protection circuit so I am guessing that you may be activating this causing a reduction in sound level. But this is only a guess though may still be more or less valid given such large amplifiers even if the Roon or Mosaic input level has been reduced.
Frankly a 600 watt/channel amp is a mismatch for Quad 63s. The bigger available power will not make the Quads produce a higher maximum sound level.
Unfortunately I do not really know what you regard as as “sensuously big” sound but this is not a quality that I associate with Quad ESLs which are really made for moderate sound levels in a typical UK living room. If you are playing heavy rock and/or have a large room these may not be the speakers for you.
I f your amp’s meters show a small power output when no music is playing you may have some noise present. Or the meters may just be poorly calibrated.
Can you give some idea of the sound level that you would want to listen at? ( you can download a sound pressure meter to your phone).
The Volume Control with the Network Bridge is a digital volume that will impact bit-perfect transparency when set to anything other than 0.0dB - don’t change the volume on the Network Bridge.
Just referring to this part of the message above: it looks like an issue with your amps VU Meter settings (unless the XLR outputs of your Scarlatti are quite noisy at max level, in which case you should be hearing white/pink noise emitted by your speakers when no music is playing…)
On my MC462, no music playing leads the needles of both VU meters to be totally stuck on the left, below 4.5mW.
How are your METERs (left knob on the front panel) configured on your amps?
Are they set on “WATTS” or on “HOLD”? If you set them on “WATTS (as on picture above - you can change it while the amp is running), does the needles finally fall to 0 when no music is playing?
Hope this can help,
Erwan
PS: for McIntosh amps with AutoTransformers, it is of common usage not to follow the speakers spec to the letter, and to always try the 8ohms tap which has the better signal/noise ratio. I experimented it myself at home with Kef R3 meta speakers and at my dealer with Kef Blade 2 meta speakers (too big for my room unfortunately, but god!: what gorgeous articulation and outstanding spatialization!) and the sound of 8ohm taps of MACs have always sounded far better than the 4ohms! (whereas those speakers are all spec’ed at 4ohms…)
Same for dealers of Wilson’s speakers who always tend to prefer the 8ohm tap with MACs when they’re doing installations.
Given the plenty of current, oversized transformers and the many electronic protections, neither risk for the amps, nor for the speakers.
I’m with Anup on this one. I suspect the combination of the gain of your amps (remember more power doesn’t mean more gain, it just means the amps can drive tougher loads), the sensitivity of the Quads and the size of your room etc. is just not leaving you with enough gain at the top end, even starting at with a 6V full scale signal. You may need to test adding an active preamp.
One thing you could try, since you mentioned Roon, is adding a 10dB lift there using Procedural EQ. Your signal won’t be ”bit perfect” any more but it’s the quickest, easiest, not to mention cheapest way to get to where you want to be.
EDIT: Sorry, I realize that wasn’t particularly clear. The loss of bit perfection may offend your OCDs but IMO shouldn’t be an issue in practice, Roon performs EQ with 64-bit floating point precision so is extremely transparent. The issue here is not sound quality but headroom. If the music was recorded without any, i.e. it contains samples within 10dB of full scale, then it has ”nowhere to go” and the additional gain will simply result in digital clipping. Depending on the sort of music you typically listen to and how it is recorded, this may or may not be an issue.
