Rossini + Verdi = ❓

Say you have a Rossini Player/DAC and want native DSD (from SACDs), would it work to connect a Verdi transport? Or would that be like grafting the neck of a giraffe onto the body of a hippopotamus?

Jeff G

Jeff, SACDs played on the Verdi only output digitally over its Firewire ports (as dCS proprietary encrypted DSD over IEEE 1394), which obviously the Rossini doesn’t support. So, yeah, it’s not going to work :laughing:

If you’re not looking to spend on a newer SACD-capable dCS transport, then your best option these days is to just losslessly rip your SACDs and stream them into your Rossini.

Ok, thx, that makes sense.

Jeff

There is another option: Get this:

And a DVD/SACD player that can output a DSD stream over HDMI - eg all Oppo’s but I presume most Sony’s etc

The box above takes HDMI and puts the audio on a SPDIF output. It will do redbook, high res PCM AND will also do DSD over DoP. I have this box and checked this all works with an Oppo BDP-93.

If you get a Sony BDP-S5100 for $30 on ebay (I got one basically brand new) you can use it for that AND rip SACDs to DSD files. Just checked the manual: the BDP-S5100 should work perfectly for this (though I have not tested this myself).

This is interesting, thanks. But candidly I have doubts re SQ. I’ve done experiments with different transports; my impression is the quality of the transport makes a considerable difference. At least a nontrivial one. People say “bits is bits.” But bits ain’t bits until the laser Hoovers them up and then a logic board changes them into an electrical signal. I’m guessing the signal produced by a Rossini and an old Sony have some differences.

Bottom line, I wonder if I would get better SQ from the Rossini reading Redbook or DSD transmitted as you describe. Curious to get your thoughts.

Jeff

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I don’t say bits are bits, it does matter. I venture what would matter the most is clocking - get a transport that can take the 44.1KHz from the dCS clock. Unfortunately, if you want max quality from SACDs played on a transport, your only option is dCS. If redbook is ok, the CEC transports (eg TL3n) will take a dCS clock input - and possibly others.

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I kind of agree with u.

In my previous P S Audio stack once I bought their sacd transport I was using that 90% of the time as digital source.

So when I planned to upgrade to dCS I had to plan to buy the dCS transport. It took time to save for that and now I am broke (though a super happy one - ha ha ha).

To me streaming etc is good for convenience / exploration. But for critical listening transport with matching Dac is best digital source.

Regards,
Sourav

Miguel,

Thx for your response. I think we’re on the same page. But there’s optimum quality and what one can pragmatically do. So I’ll pose this question:
Suppose DSD via the setup you describe is A, and PCM via the Rossini player/DAC is B. Which do you think will give (on average) the higher SQ?

Thx,
Jeff

I am not sure I understand the question, and I am pretty sure I don’t know the answer if this is what you’re asking:

A- SACD in DVD player → HDMI/coax box → Rossini coax input (which will play the DSD stream)

B- Same disc but reading the redbook layer since the Rossini player cannot read SACDs? Or a CD transport reading the redbook layer?

I don’t know which would sound better but I presume A might.

Sorry if I was unclear.

A is simply the configuration you described. The result being DSD to Rossini coax.

B is sticking the same disc in the Rossini (bear in mind I have a player/DAC) where it will automatically read the redbook layer. Because as you correctly point out, it cannot read the SACD layer.

Candidly option A is inexpensive enough as to be worth a try. But given the importance of transport, I really wonder, even though it’s DSD, if it will sound better than B.

I would expect that an SACD via option A will sound better than option B, and a pure redbook CD (ie one without an SACD layer) will sound better with option B.

In my experience, even pure redbook CD sound better in option A.

Regards,
Sourav

Although I don’t have direct experience with the Rossini player, I find it very hard to believe that a run of the mill DVD player and this tiny box’s crystal clock would better the Rossini player itself, to be honest, when playing redbook CDs.

I may have confused you.

What I meant is in my experience with Rossini Transport + Rossini Apex Dac playing music directly from a Red Book disk spinning on Rossini Transport is better than playing same music from hard disc through Rosini Dac using Mosaic.

Regards,
Sourav

Ok, I concur.

Since input stream is buffered in the DAC in both cases I don’t understand why this would be the case.

I also don’t understand it. But this is not the first time I’ve heard people say this. One possibility: when we say “input stream,” we are thinking of bits, of course. But in reality it’s an electrical signal, and there could be differences between the two cases. As I mentioned, not all transports sound equal. there must be a reason for that.

“Buffered in the DAC”… The clock is recovered from the source in the SPDIF protocol. Buffering and reclocking is a dangerous game with SPDIF as you have no way to tell the source to slow down or speed up. That said, it is done in many platforms.

In the dCS platform, the default is to clock with the source (ie the “Audio” setting in the clock setting). If you use a master clock across all components, then that takes care of precise clocking and jitter resulting from either a less stable clock at the source of crossing detection is avoided.

Bits are not just bits… The timing of those bits matters tremendously.

Having said all this, why playing from a CD can sound a little better than playing the ripped file, once you have avoided all clocking issues, is a bit of a mystery to me, but I have indeed heard this in some cases.

Found these helpful comments from Andrew at dCS on this topic:

@Andrew: "In networked audio the data is buffered many times in many different places. In our products the very last buffer is slaved to the DAC’s clock and it is the source that the DAC sees. Everything that happens prior to this point is irrelevant in terms of audio reproduction. Until it’s in the final buffer it’s just data.

Q: Are missing packages (maybe unlikely) resent like in file transfers between computers and hard disks?

@Andrew: Yes, In both network transfers and transfers to/from disk packets that are lost or corrupt get re-sent. This is generally true (definitely with TCP), but there are some specific cases in which lost packets are truly lost. The most useful example of this is asynchronous USB audio. If a packet is dropped in this case, it’s gone forever.

Q: It would make the choice of Ethernet cable between Roon and dCS receiving endi less important.

Andrew: YES!! The only really critical factor is that the cable meets the correct specs for Ethernet at the correct category level. Most audiophile Ethernet cables fail this test.

If I understand correctly dCS does not use dac’s master clock for all inputs. For example spdif inputs will use the clock sent by the source.

Regards,
Sourav