My understanding is that Jim operates a separate business for the Apex upgrades. In any event, he did a terrific job on my Rossini.
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They didn’t say Ethernet was fragile, they said the data is fragile. This is a classic marketing scheme to instill doubt and paranoia. Surely, they have a better solution! It’s the same thing I think Melco said about CD rips. Theirs is bit perfect. This is to imply that maybe the conversion you’re using is screwing up! I better buy Melco then. I have to have bit perfect!
Agreed….we use Ethernet every day, transmit money, shop, and a zillion other things. Oops, I lost a bit. I guess I bought a million shares instead of a thousand. Imagine the chaos that would ensue if bits weren’t perfect. I implemented TCP/IP protocols over Ethernet. It always makes me laugh when people say it is fragile or error prone.
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True, but they’re inferring that Ethernet is not robust enough to handle “fragile data”.
Precisely. Ethernet is well able to handle the most sensitive and “fragile” data, including ones that literally involve life & death every single day in millions of hospitals.
I think you mean implying.
Here for you!
Anup,
Very much agree with your comments on data integrity but I think you miss the gap between gear and cables meeting engineering standard specs and what truly sounds good. Ethernet can carry noise that impacts sound quality. Otherwise my switch would not have made such a dramatic difference in sound quality with my Rossini Apex.
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Lee, Ethernet, with its physical layer and the networking stack above it, is incredibly robust. Which is why it’s employed in literally billions of systems world-wide without problems or extra special care, including in systems far more sensitive than Audio, like in Medical and Aerospace applications.
The Wadax Server must be extremely poorly designed if it allows routine noise carried on Ethernet cables to interfere with “fragile data” and Sound Quality🤦🏻♂️
Can you imagine if a PC manufacturer suggested you need special care for the Ethernet port and cables or else the spreadsheets on your Ethernet connected PC would have errors? So the Wadax Server doesn’t have noise immunity comparable to a PC 100th of its cost? Pretty darn ludicrous.
As for your Switch having “dramatic difference” with your Rossini Apex - I know the Rossini’s Ethernet subsystem very well - let’s just say your subjective opinion is just that, subjective 
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“Bit Perfect” is a standard phrase used throughout the digital audio world. It is neither unique to Melco nor does it have anything to do with marketing. It is a phrase mostly used to distinguish a lossless system from those using lossy codecs such as MP3 or AAC. It also describes a perfect digital copy of the original compared to one where DSP has been applied.
I just want to make sure we add MQA to this list of lossy codecs…
…which, to this day, dCS still supports and not DSD256, inexplicably.
Yes MQA may be considered as not bit perfect.
There is a reason why DSD 256 has not been implemented on older dCS models ( Varese has it). There has recently been a lot of discussion about it on this forum. Basically it is not technically feasible with the existing hardware. DCS are trying to think of a way around this but whether or not they find an answer is not guaranteed.
Hi Pete, thanks for the reply. I’ve been part of and following these threads but I didn’t see where/if dCS has made that statement officially.
Have they?
The statement was made during the webinar which although mainly concerned with Varese also touched upon some user queries.
The topic has been referred to here several times since.
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I ask because this was recently communicated to me through a dCS channel, specifically about DSD256:
“At this time there is not any info about that feature. They say the interest just isn’t there.”
So I was hoping there might be a definitive statement on the matter.
You are welcome to visit me in Atlanta and I can demonstrate the difference.
Which is quite disappointing given they’ve been telling us for a few years it was doable in software when there was demand for it - long enough that I’m not sure I wouldn’t have auditioned other choices before pulling the trigger on my APEX upgrade if I knew DSD 256 would never be coming.
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To be fair,from recollection the question that they were posed was only whether or not there is sufficient processing power for DSD256, not if there could or would be a software upgrade.
Hi,
That is the reason why I am quietly waiting Apex II…It will show up one day, especially after the Varese implemented new technologies…In 2027 or so…
DSD = The emperor has no clothes (almost). There are virtually no pure DSD 256 recordings out there - only a hand full of live recorded and un edited stuff up on Native DSD. Everything else captured in DSD 256 has to be converted to PCM for editing and then transcoded back to DSD for resale and consumption. Even the Native DSD site is transparent about this. And they themselves do the transcoding and upsampling to higher DSD rates for many releases. Which leads me to a potential compromise…
If a lot of the higher res DSD catalogue is PCM -->> DSD transcoded, why not let dCS do it for you. We can do it today up to DSD 128. I believe dCS confirmed that they could do dSD 256 in software. If dCS decided to release a new mapper in the future that upsampled to DSD 256 - would this satisfy the community? We could simply buy the DXD release and have dCS transcode it for us rather than purchasing the Native DSD version that they transcoded from DXD to DSD via software. Same result - different path.
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Because people are buying DSD 256 files today that play just fine on their $109 Topping DACs or DSD 512s for their $229 Topping DAC/Pre.
If they ever get to the point they want to upgrade to a dCS, the correct answer is not “DSD > 128 is just silly, come back with music in a real file format and our incredibly expensive machine will play your files.”
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And it’ll quite possibly sound better as well! Good out-of-the-box thinking there 
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