Can anyone please help. Have a 4 box paganini, cd playback only, ie no other inputs. When inserting a cd i sometimes just get hiss, the cd is playing according to the readout but no sound, just loud hiss. I then put in a sacd and it auto switches and hiss disappears and disc plays fine. When i then put red book cd back in hiss comes back. Its intermittent to be doubly annoying. Any ideas what is causing this
Can you kindly help us by telling us what the Paganini display says when you try to play a redbook CD?
Will do…its intermittent which suggests its a either a faulty cable or input failure. Seems to me the dac is not reverting to its non sacd mode when a red book is inserted, cannot find anything in the manuals that refer to this but then there aren’t any fault finder guidelines in those either as there used to be with the older stuff.
Ps…and thank you for taking interest!!
Does your Paganini have the last firmware upgrade which allows dual AES connection rather than IEEE 1394 connection when playing SACD ( Vivaldi mode)? If so which connection are you using?
Unfortunately my Paganini transport left me last week so I can no longer check things directly to see if I can replicate your problem. To check your idea that there may be problems with switching from SACD to redbook, use the menu to disengage Easy Play. Now try a hybrid SACD and select, in turn, SACD layer, then CD layer. Do you still get the hiss? Now try a standard CD. Same question.
Yes it is the latest version with dual aes and vivaldi option. It had only just come back from dcs following a mechanism repair so maybe i am naive in thinking it would have been given a 100% clean bill of health ( a £720 bill would imply this).
This a.m it is behaving which suggests it may be a loose socket or a faulty firewire. I do not know why these things are so complex, I would happily pay someone/anyone to visit me to ensure its all working as it should be. Maybe i am just thick but still a consumer who is not feeling the love!
OK Lester, you should be feeling good as the 4 box Paganini is a great system which I enjoyed until the last year or so. So I am sorry that you currently are not getting the pleasure that you should.
I am sure that the guys at dCS would confirm that when they carry out an upgrade or repair the item is fully checked out and tested subsequently. I would be very surprised if the transport did not leave dCS in as near brand new condition as possible.
I gather from your new message that you are using the firewire connection. I know from lots of experience that those can be unpredictable and vary sonically and in efficacy of connection from brand to brand. I can easily imagine that may be one of the reasons why dCS dropped that interface from later models and implemented Vivaldi Mode later on the Paganini. Can you swap to dual AES? I recommend that for both SQ and connectivity. If you think that the change would be too expensive then I will PM you with some ideas.
Where about are you? PM me using the messaging service here if you do not want to make this public.
Hi
Thank you again for being so tolerant! I am not sure what dual aes is or what costs it involves, probably cabling of some sort? It seems to have settled down, probably as i have not been playing any sacds anD the switching seems yo be where the problem manifests. Am in Farnham in surrey, one of the cables is a old firewire ( pale grey…old dcs issue) as upsampler/clock only came with one firwire whereas the cable routing for a 4 box needs 2 . Luckily i had the old one to hand, probably dates from my first elgar so it could be just old. I am not sure if these cables are the sort you can ge5 on amazon for about £5, if so then its worth a punt. If however one needs hydrogen nuclear infused cryogenic wire then it no doubt will cost a fortune!
The upsampler is showing 24/176.4 to dsd, however when you power it down whilst playing a cd the sound carrys on as normal…implying that is not offering any sonic gain?
The manuals are not very clear in this regard and assume you have a computer based knowledge, i dont…i just like listening to music!
OK. It looks to me like you are having problems configuring the system.
If this were normal times,with my being in South London, I would drive to you with an assortment of things for you to try both to sort out the Paganini and, perhaps, to give you an insight into other things you can do without spending huge amounts. NB: No charge, my pleasure.
" i just like listening to music!". Me too. No point in it otherwise.
Unfortunately these are not normal times and I am someone who has to self isolate for the next 12 weeks due to the government advice on Covid-19.
So I am going to try to PM you tomorrow and see if we can find a good way of getting you fully up and running.
Best Wishes
Pete