audioman321

Hi All, Please allow me to chime in. I have owned to spend significant time with most of the dCS products over the years. I previously owned a Delius with a grey Purcell. I currently own a Elgar Plus and a Purcell with DSD. I don't own a dCS clock because the Verona just can't compete with third party brands like Antelope. I run the Antelope Pure 2 for USB conversion and as a master clock. The Antelope was a huge upgrade for the other two and made them very similar to the Scarlatti stack in terms of sound quality. I have spend hours of demo time with the Scarlatti and Puccini. Both are an improvement on the older digital volume control of the Elgar or Delius, but in terms of sound quality you will hear much the same characteristics and in no way was it worth the upgrade. Looking inside both you get the feeling that they made the Scarlatti because components were becoming end of life and they needed to refresh. I've listened to both the Vivaldi and Rossini for some time and I'm going to purchase a Rossini when one comes available used without the clock. The Vivaldi is excellent, but I don't see it as the several times better that some here have said. The Rossini has upsampling built in which is where it should be. There's no reason to sell you another box, other than generating revenue. It annoys me on the Vivaldi that they put the network connection on the upsampler. That just says to me that they were worried with HQ audio files nobody would buy an upsampler. I didn't do a with and without clock demo, but it's disappointing that so many are reporting improvements with the clock as this means that they included an inferior unit with the stock Rossini. There's no reason an outboard clock would be any better, and the proof of this is the Vivaldi One. If I wind up needing a clock, I will buy another Antelope. There's no way I will spend dCS money for a clock I can't re-calibrate myself. ( I have a Rb. Feq. Std.) The sound is definitely different between the current generation and the previous generations. The sound is more fluid and less hard etched. The volume control is leaps and bounds better than on my older hardware. It would be really interesting to a comparison between the three generations of upsamplers to see if there's any difference. I have my doubts....

The one I don't see anywhere in the thread is the Anelope Audio Pure 2. It's a master clock, with oven controlled occilators, along with USB conversion. When used with a high end DAC like a dCS it creates audio nirvana. I use with with my ElgarPlus and Purcell. It's next level good. With the master clock distributing to the other components and the digital side synched up, you can forget all the others. Not sure about DACs without word clock, but with it, I would say that it makes the dCS U-clock look like a joke.

I'm selling my complete computer digital front end. You would have to spend well into the 5 or six figures to do any better. This is everything from source to preamp in on package. For computer audio it doesn't get any better. The transporter works better with the dCS gear than dCS's own U-clock. You get: dCS Elgar Plus 1394 dCS Purcell 1394 dCS Verona Master Clock Rubidium Reference - Lucent Tech Atomic Clock Slim Devices Transporter - Clock links to the dCS equipment $8500 Firm Paypal Extra dCS equipment looks almost new except the remote which has a scratch. The Lucent reference is beat up but is intended to be hidden behind the rack. The Transporter also looks almost new. All equipment functions perfect.