dCS Puccini Clock

I don't have experience with it but my dealer said that the cables do not have to be expensive.

Elgar, if you have the stack without firewire, that means that you aren't upsampling all the way to DSD? I would think Pagannini would be a considerable upgrade just by adding the DSD functionality.

A very reliable source who has extensive experience with this equipment told me that the Puccini is not quite as good as the separates, even the old separates, and that the Puccini clock makes a dramatic improvement.

I just heard an A/B comparison of the Puccini with and without the clock, and it offers a substantial improvement.

The clock is more than just a clock, however. The biggest selling point in my opinion is that it unlocks music server functionality because it has a highly perfected asynchronous USB interface. This would allow any USB capable computer to serve as a transport. The asynchronous USB allows the computer to basically override whatever clock signal the computer would normally generate and use the Puccinni's vastly superior clock. What you then have is a music server TRANSPORT that is clocked by Puccinni--something a conventional Squeezebox device cannot do.

Not to mention, I believe, that asynchronous USB is supposed to be a better sounding interface than coax to begin with.

Sorry what I meant to say was that asynchronous USB allows Puccinni to override the computer's clock signal. Basically it tells the computer that it is the clock.

Elberoth2- I haven't made an actual comparison with the Squeezebox yet because the U-Clock is not yet available. My dealer had a "CES" demo and they were actually still breaking it in when I heard it. The U-Clock was actually being fed by the Puccini one box player, not a music server. The A/B comparison was with the Puccini with and without clock.

My understanding is that dCS did not have this USB technology readied in time for the launch of the Puccini and Paganini lines. The Scarlatti Upsampler and Puccini U-Clock are two new devices designed with music servers in mind. My dealer left me with the impression that a USB computer and U-Clock would be better than the SPDIF Squeezebox in the same way that a word clock synced transport would be.

Arthur I should probably leave this question to people who have actually fully auditioned Puccini at their home. I'm not THAT familiar with it. My intuition from hearing it is that it is not quite as good Delius + stack and certainly not as good as Paganini. A pretty reliable source hinted he does not like Puccini as much without the clock compared to the old separates. I can't confirm that. Don't hold me to that you'd have to test it yourself.

I normally wouldn't taint your audition with my opinion but this won't be the type of change you have to strain to hear, especially if you are upsampling to dSD. As far as the overall dCS sound, the imaging is pretty uncanny. The upsampling to DSD makes CD sound like a different format to my ears. The imaging and separation is something you have to hear for yourself, and the overall presentation is smoother than you might expect from digital. It is extremely neutral, however, and you might find it a little cold and analytical sounding if your amps and speakers aren't on the warmer side.

90% of the time, dCS DACS sound better with no preamp straight into the amp. There are exceptions but probably not many.

Delius by itself is very good but without Purcell in front of it I thought it sounded a little brittle. With Purcell it is out of this world. You just have to try it yourself. You need extremely refined amplification, cabling (including digital), and speakers to get the FULL benefit though. I find with my Squeezebox, even using a secure ripper like EAC is a dramatic improvement over the standard iTunes ripper.

I agree with JB0194 that it is hard to image vinyl being much better and I am not even using Scarlatti or clocking--just the Purcell+Delius.

It is possible there is some licensing related explanation for this upsampling firmware thing, but I'm not sure what that is exactly. I suppose it is possible there are intellectual property issues at work here beyond dCS desire to simply charge more for the functionality. If that is the case it would have to be evaluated in that light.

What a bunch of nonsense.

It is gouging.

I think dCS is sort of a joke, at this point. I mean the prices for their products, as good as they are, are so disgustingly inflated now that they are basically the exclusive playthings for oil sheiks and other greedy corporate types. At a certain point, "high-end" just becomes "high-falutin" nonense. Selling a licensing for firmware that enables functionality that the unit should have included to begin with? The only reason for requiring such a license is that they know that once the upsampling functionality is enabled, users will be able to use music server on the cheap products like Squeezebox and Transporter to great effect, bypassing the need for U-Clock, Scarlatti Upsampler and whatever other outrageously overpriced USB to SPDIF converter they can cook up this year. They are basically holding proper music server functionality hostage.

If Microsoft could enable true 1080P output on its standard XBOX with the flick of a switch but we were expected to pay them a license for the firmware update there would be mass upheaval. I have $100 sound cards and $300 PC graphics cards that get almost monthly driver updates free of charge. My computer motherboard practically gets a free firmware update everymonth--in some cases enabling radically new functionality. But as an audiophile, I am supposed to simply lap up David J M Steven's marketing bullshit and pay for a basic functionality fix--why exactly? I can only conclude that dCS finds its customers to be saps who are easily parted from their money.

I wouldn't give them another nickel.

Well I only know about from this thread. My reading of it above was that it is enabled through firmware. "License" means software, in my mind. Unit specific license means software.

When I first heard about Puccinni/Paganini, the very first thing that came to mind was "but does it upsample external sources?" I actually commented in another thread, quite a while ago, that the whole Paganini/Puccinni line was decidedly music server unfriendly because of the way the upsampler is built into the transport. This was, in my mind, an obvious and (probably an intentional) omission on the part of dCS. Are you telling me that the hardware exists for upsampling of external sources but they have only recently developed the firmware for that? I think not. Most likely they saw/see servers as a threat to their high-end cd transport business and intentionally omitted this functionality. It gives their transports a built in performance advantage. It also allows them to sell a redundant (but possibly improved) upsampler in their Scarlatti line.