Welcome dCS Mosaic 1.2

I never heard so much music with my set until this day.
transparent, dynamic, natural, better 3d imaging,…
Thanks a lot to the team for this work
it’s a big step
Pierre
(network bridge + AMR Dac)

Steve, that’s my use case as well. Interesting thought about the transport of Roon into the Upsampler. But I am at a point where no amount of critical listening can restore to me a reliable memory of what my system sounded like pre-update. Ah well . . …

I’m kinda liking this idea of induced hearing state changes through pharmaceuticals, though. :wink:

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I’m guessing it’s very system dependent. I believe at one point you were using an etherREGEN but put it away for another switch combo. But I’d be quite surprised if that difference between our setups is meaningful. However, I’ve always wondered about how the RAAT protocol layer plays, if at all, in how the TCP/IP stack is handled on both ends of the Roon Core and subsequent endpoints.

I’ll listen and determine if my Trinnov endpoint system (ATI AT4000) to Revel Salon setup is affected by the Upsampler firmware update, if at all.

Right on the EtherREGEN. Anyway, I am in the camp that believes the Roon RAAT protocol is largely irrelevant. Certainly, Anup’s experiments have convinced me of that. Nothing seems as compelling to me in the comparison between Roon and UPnP setups as human bias. We each hear what we hear, and I hope everyone enjoys what they hear.

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I’d be interested in looking at that. Any pointers please?

Here is a reference. But there are many more comments here than just this one.Probably have definitely achieved 100% thread drift at this point. :wink:

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James,

Does this apply to the difference in data stream readouts displayed when using Mosaic versus Tidal Connect? On non MQA tracks, Mosaic alone shows PCM while it shows FLAC and a modulating bit rate when Tidal Connect is engaged. Phil has addressed this l but just wondered whether you could confirm his logical supposition that different displays reflect the same file playback and SQ is identical. Thanks!

Can you identify the changes that came with the Vivaldi Upsampler network board? I know I updated that yesterday, in conjunction with the Mosaic app update. I’m now on version 1.2.0 (507). And that’s seemingly the change that has improved sonics. I especially hear it consistently in the bass region which is more clearly defined, with jazz albums most obviously. Ah Oscar Peterson…

Thank you James, I have a Rossini Player. Is it possible to know what kind of update for the control board?

Andrea

Sitting here listening to Boz Scaggs’s “Dig” I’m beginning to think there may be some correlation or trickle down from Chris’s work on APEX which wound up in the new firmware for the network board. Bottom end impact has been elevated. Feel it in my chest on “Thanks to you”!

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Talking about Boz, “Lowdown” has never been so detailed and dynamic. And the same goes for “Stop, look, listen” (Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross). “No more lonely nights” now (Paul Mc Cartney with David Gilmore). Never been so beautiful, natural voices, the great guitar solo.
Ok, nothing happened, the new firmware doesn’t affect SQ, but don’t ask me to go back to the old firmware on my Rossini player.

Andrea

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We need to be clear here: 2 different things took place in these recent updates. The one that updated the Mosaic app, and the other that updated the network board. It’s this second one that changed sonics. The first is nice but I rarely use it when playing my library through a Roon Nucleus player feeding a Vivaldi Upsampler, or anyone using a Rossini DAC. Each of these have the Roon endpoint function which passes the resulting bitstream to the DAC’s processing which ultimately does the digital to analog conversion.

To be even more clear, this is the change that you believe changed sonics. dCS has demurred repeatedly, and some of us don’t hear it. I love Dig and Thanks to You that you referenced earlier, and my system reproduces that low note at 00:26 superbly, but on my system, there is no additional bass extension. Think about the implications of that assertion regarding increased extension within the 20-20kHz band. From my point of view, it makes little sense, especially when the transmission was already bit perfect before the upgrade. I believe you hear it Steve, but that doesn’t mean the upgrade produced it.

It’s not bass extension that I’m hearing but more the impact on many recordings as well as definition. When I hear Ray Brown’s stand up bass, I’m getting more overtones and extended decay. And any instrument that is percussive in nature, from piano to cymbals and even violin bowing are produced with more realism. So, I can’t argue that I’m getting frequencies above and beyond what was already there, only that something changed allowing for more realistic sonics.

I’m getting deeper/more pronounced bass too.

I can’t state whether it’s the firmware update or just the power cycle that is responsible.

I noticed it immediately as I was watching a TV show and had my TV audio going through my Rossini while I did the upgrade, and once the upgrade was finished I immediately noted the bass change after the reboot.

One thing that is most revealing is a lower noise floor, that allows a lot of details to emerge from the background. Others I’ve spoken with liken it to the last DAC software upgrade, in terms of the level of impactful change. I cannot speak to that as I purchased my units after that occurred.

And, as with anything, this is very often system dependent - “your mileage may vary”.

Prior to moving to a Rossini+Clock in my Naim 500 system I had a Linn Klimax DS perform duties from 2011-2020 (it now resides in my headphone systems). Linn FREQUENTLY updated firmware for their DS players (4-5 times annually) and they have consistently maintained sound is not affected. It is universally accepted wisdom, both by end users and dealers, that the sound has changed (for the better) over the course of the years. Not every firmware release changed things however a certain amount did.

Some have speculated that sound changes resulting from firmware updates are sometimes “beyond the control” of the manufacturer and are unintended consequences.

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I seriously doubt that the change to the firmware on the network board would create side effects, positive or negative, that would be somehow unknown to the dCS engineers. I do agree, having been through numerous updates of firmware on the network board of my Vivaldi Upsampler, that they have not made any noticeable sonic changes. But this one certainly did! I made a few calls today to others with both Rossini DAC and Vivaldi Upsampler’s who confirm much that I’ve experienced.
And I want to be clear, this has nothing to do with the Mosaic app changes that affect the systems “control” functions, but the very separate firmware update affecting the “network board”.

I was up at 0300 (old man’s curse), and turned on the stereo, to be met with a message an update was necessary for my Vivaldi Upsampler. The notice had an option to download the update, so I went that route.

I’d been lurking on here absorbing all the download/update info and solutions to problems offered on this update. I live in trepidation of mucking around with the controls on my dCS Vivaldi stack for fear of changing a setting, getting no sound and then figuring out what I screwed up. Been there, done that, turned down the t-shirt and don’t wanna go there again.

Anyhow, lots of instruction here and elsewhere on finding the unit’s IP address, inputting that into a web browser and performing the download in that manner. About halfway thru the one-button update I selected from the screen described in paragraph 1 above I panicked - did I screw this up?

I think I’m okay…after the update everything returned to normal working order, and I might hear some improvement in SQ. That might be confirmation bias, I dunno.

I need to do some further checking but it seems the dropout of the first part of songs if a change from PCM to DSD is fixed too…all the DSDs I have on my NAS play perfectly and a couple experiments on DSD to PCM switching seemed to be seamless…I’ll have to do some more investigation.

Below are screen shots of the version pages from Mosaic, and I think I’m okay, other than the DAC is showing an unknown Control board version. But, everything sounds fine so I’m not gonna stress over that unless any of y’all think I should…

Slainte,

Mitch


The lack of information about your DAC: Assuming you’re using a dCS Vivaldi DAC it might be either not having connected the RS-232 cable from the Upsampler to the DAC or if it is wired up correctly, you might have to ensure that the DAC is running and properly wired with the RS-232 cabling before a power cycling of the Upsampler. Otherwise everything looks correct.