caseyse

You can still find new and used PS3 systems with the older firmware required. For those skilled, a PS3 that has updated firmware could be reverted back to the older firmware via some soldering allowing for reflashing of the required older firmware. The problem with the PS3 was that the original thermal paste was drying out after about 3 years. Old thermal paste and heavy gaming would result in the Cell CPU or RSX GPU overheating causing the solder to crack on these BGA chip pins. I suspect one using these older PS3 only for ripping SACDs would not experience this problem. It's heavy gaming taxing the CPU and GPU resulting in the overheating issues. I purchased four new PS3 systems with the older firmware just for SACD ripping. I have modified two for ripping and have only used one, keeping the three in reserve. Although new units, I did some preventive maintenance on the two that I modified for ripping. I installed one of the higher flowing fans purchased from eBay. I also replaced the dried thermal paste on the CPU and GPU with some Arctic Silver 5, I upgraded the thermal pads on the other chips, and I drilled holes in the bottom of the plastic case just under the fan to provide added air flow. I verified my units had the newer more efficient power supplies, otherwise I would have replaced these to further reduce heat within the case. The last and least significant change was swapping the hard drive for a cheap SSD to further reduce heat. I have also purchased a few replacement Blu ray laser diodes as these do eventually burn out. I have ripped over 180 SACDs with the one PS3 and it's still going strong. I purchase the other 3 as spares thinking these were the only devices that would ever rip SACDs, but it's highly possible my one PS3 will be all I'll need into the future.

It's their 2011 SACD release, ripped via a PS3. Considered better than their DVD-A release.

Same here....and a 29-year career in an office that could double as a crisis center. Many choices in life, and some could have been better. On the plus side, I can now unwind for about an hour a day with some great music.

Having lived with the Debussy for a while, I came to the realization it wasn't for me. I decided to cut my losses, sell it, and move on. I'm not an audiophile, but I know what I like, and the Vivaldi rectifies what I was missing in the Debussy. Listening to my better SACD rips through an Eddie Current Electra electrostatic amp and SR-009 cans, I can clearly hear differences in the Vivaldi over the Debussy. One of my favorite songs is the Eagles' Hotel California. The Vivaldi reproduced the song unlike the Debussy, where I could hear resonating shimmer in the cymbals, and a more hollow "echo-ey" sound from the hand drums. Recordings that sounded like crap on the Debussy still sound like crap on the Vivaldi, but the better recordings sound much better on the Vivaldi. I'm not thrilled with the Vivaldi's price, but I'm finally happy with the sound.

I'm looking forward to finding a dealer near me where I can hear the new Alpha. Regarding the Vivaldi, I'm home today waiting for my new Vivaldi DAC to be delivered. This will replace a Debussy I have been using for 18-months. I only stream digital music, a mix between Red Book and ripped SACDs, and my Red Book is sourced from the digital out of a Logitech Transporter at the moment. I might consider dCS' upsampler in the future and remove the Transporter. While I do have a lot of Red Book CDs ripped, my focus is towards DSD, so having to bolt on a DSD solution to the Alpha wasn't something I wanted to consider. For native PCM, I anticipate the Alpha sounding fantastic.

I have the AK120 and frequently listen to SACD ripped DSD (with 1plus2 silver/gold cable IEMs). I prefer the sound of the converted DSD over PCM. I also have the HM-901 which has dual Saber ES9018 32-bit DAC chips that natively support DSD. Firmware for the HM-901 is still WIP, and DSD support has just been added to the beta firmware with mixed results. I'll wait for the next release before giving DSD a try on the HM-901.

Hi, Yes. I have a cron job set up that mounts a network file system (NAS) and replicates my music directory. I'm slowing purging mp3, so I wanted any deleted files from my music directory to propagate over to the NAS. The code below will mount my NAS share (/mnt/music) and synchronize the contents of my server's /music directory to /mnt/music, leaving no differences between the two directories. If rsync finds that /mnt/music has a file that /music does not (i.e., those mp3 files I'm slowly deleting), it will delete it. If rsync finds a file that has been changed or created in /music, it will replicate those changes to /mnt/music. root@sentinel: cat rsync.sh #!/bin/bash status=$( mount | grep /mnt/music ) if [ "$status" !="//xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/music on /mnt/music type cifs (rw,username=guest)" ] then mount -t cifs //xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/music -o username=guest /mnt/music 2>&1 if [ $? = 0 ]; then echo "**** Music share successfully mounted starting rsync ****" rsync -av --delete /arch/music/ /mnt/music umount /mnt/music 2>&1 exit 0 else echo "**** NAS server is not online ****" fi fi if [ "$status" ="//xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/music on /mnt/music type cifs (rw,username=guest)" ] then echo "**** Music share already mounted starting rsync ****" rsync -av --delete /arch/music/ /mnt/music umount /mnt/music 2>&1 fi

I'm keeping an eye on this thread as I'm interested in the update for my Debussy (manuf. in November and delivered early January). dCS America had contacted me about 5 weeks ago to confirm my shipping address for the CD-ROM update, so I'm patiently waiting. When I receive my disk, I'll post an update.

I purchased a PS3 in December to rip my SACDs and have ripped 90+. I have about 20 more to rip. Contrary to what the studios think, now that I can rip SACDs, I'm interested in purchasing more SACDs. I don't consider myself an "audiophile", but I can definitely hear a difference in streaming SACDs from my computer to my DAC (dCS Debussy) using HQPLayer and Stax SR-009 headphones. When I'm not listening with headphones, I stream my music via LMS (Squeezebox) using a couple Transporters and Paradigm S8 V3 speakers, which aren't as revealing as the Stax cans. My music taste is more 60's and 70's rock, a market SACD caters to (and classical.) SACD has ignored modern pop, which would be a problem for most, but then most people listen to pop with portable music players/phones and earphones. With the new proposed open DSD standard developed by dCS and the slew of new DSD capable DACs, I'm keeping my fingers crossed we'll see more DSD.