Hello,
did one test the rose audio 150 with AES/EBU on dCS?
Thanks!
The Rose 150 audio streamer is a pretty new product ( at least here in the UK ) so the chances if anyone trying the combination already is pretty slim especially as the Rose 150 does nothing that any of the dCS products with hetwork streaming do not do already aside from video processing ( where one assumes that its HDMI connectivity would be used to provide MCH). It is also a DAC so , again, use with dCS is unlikely. Incidentally you can choose between versions with either ESS or AK DAC processors.
Aside from its functional duplication vis-à -vis dCS, there are also issues with using its AES/EBU output with dCS. Firstly it has no dual AES/EBU output so that the processing of some hi-res files will not be available with this combination. Secondly there is no wordclock input which means that Rose 150 and any dCS product cannot work in synchronisation. In this case it may be preferable to use the Rose’s USB connection as the dCS USB input is asynchronous.
The Rose 150 did get a very enthusiastic review in HI-Fi News a couple of months ago and seems a good product. But as a streamer/DAC it is really a product designed to be used as a stand alone device to play a variety of media sources and to drive an amplifier directly. Rose envisage this themselves in the typical system setup graphic on their website.
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Hi Pete,
thanks- so would you rather go with and Aurender N20 or above then?
Or does the Aurender has same problems apart from external clock…
The reason why I ask is that my dealer prefers the AES input vs USB.
I would need to start from the point of understanding what you want to achieve. In isolation I would not go for either product as neither are really fully compatible in all senses with a current dCS based system.
Your dealer is not wrong but only if the conditions for using the dCS AES input correctly can be met.
Basically as you have a Rossini I do not immediately see what features you wish either the Aurender or the Rose to provide which you cannot already enjoy as you have impeccable streaming and DAC which neither of those products can improve upon. If you would kindly let me know what I am missing then I will be happy to give it some more thought.
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Thanks- I thought about Vivaldi 
in the next step…
Vivaldi is a digital replay system that happens to come in 3 or 4 boxes which need to be considered together. I say that both from a conceptual standpoint and also from personal experience. Given a Vivaldi system you then really only need to one external component; NAS if you have local files.
Vivaldi DAC on its own presents its own set of connectivity issues with either of those products. Once again we have the dual AES difficulty which means that the port with the widest compatibility for streamed media is USB . As has been voiced in these posts over and over network ( ethernet) connection is the best option for optimum sound quality with dCS and this is not available with just Vivaldi DAC .
Thanks- my idea was to get the DAC only and use the Rossini clock. Since Vivaldi has no ethernet, I would use Aurender or Rose via AES (…or USB).
I don’t have the budget to go for an all Vivaldi stack.
There is quite a difference between the sound of Vivaldi Clock and Rossini Clock. By that I mean that Vivaldi Clock is better and I would venture that Vivaldi Clock makes quite a contribution to the Vivaldi experience.
Given a third party media source with possibly sub-optimal choice of connectivity I could not guarantee that what you are considering would actually provide a better experience than Rossini + Rossini Clock. It would be an expensive “suck it and see”.
I too could not afford ( and still cannot) an all Vivaldi stack. I started with Vivaldi DAC and Vivaldi Clock . This was fed by a Paganini Transport for silver disc and a USB computer based system ( with USB conditioning device) for network. I learned from experience that this type of configuration did not exploit the Vivaldi DAC’s abilities sufficiently. In sonic terms Vivaldi was being underused by a significant amount. My first upgrade was to provide network connected streaming by adding dCS Network Bridge ( now sadly no longer available and in my case later upgraded to Vivaldi Upsampler ) and NAS storage of local files. The improvement was not marginal but something I described at the time as a new world of listening.
My advice ( about most things really) is if you can’t afford them then don’t waste your time thinking of owning them. If you buy a Vivaldi DAC only do it if you have a firm costed plan to buy Clock and Upsampler at a defined time subsequently. Or it may be sensible at this point to await the replacement for Rossini in (perhaps) a couple of years. The timing of the two options might more or less coincide 
.
Many thanks for that answer Pete!
I never thought that an upgrade could be so complicated ;-)… So I’ll stuck with what I have and see what’s inside Vivaldi II.
Will test the Aurender with AES soon (if my dealer gets one unit 
)…