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| April 2010 | Issue 4 |
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Debussy DAC launches | dCS moving factory | Guide to Computer Audio Released
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| PRODUCT
LAUNCH |
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The Debussy DAC is the future hub of your digital playback system. Debussy combines the legendary dCS Ring DAC and our patent pending (GB0817141.5) asynchronous usb technology in one box to deliver a DAC that will extract amazing performance from any digital source.
Debussy
features a sleek solid aluminium fascia, high grade aluminium casing,
all metal buttons and is powered by dCS electronics. CD or streamed
audio, Debussy will extract every last bit of detail from your music
collection. Read more about Debussy.
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| NEWS |
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New Factory
In
late June 2010 dCS will leave the site that we have occupied for the
last 13 years and move to a newly-built factory 13 miles north of our
current location. The new factory is in the process of being customised
to our requirements and we are massively excited about the prospect of
moving there because it will enable us to streamline our manufacturing
capability as well as provide purpose-built listening facilities.
Once we are settled into the new place we
will arrange factory tours so that you will be able to see dCS products
being built from the ground up and meet our team.
Reveries
Last month dCS, JM Focal, Blade Audio and The Audio Works presented a unique and intriguing feast of live and recorded music, bringing together musicians from the award-winning Britten Sinfonia orchestra and possibly the finest hi-fi system ever assembled in the UK.
The
event took place at the Auditorium in Fitzwilliam College in Cambridge
and featured live performances from Britten Sinfonia performers, led by the
renowned pianist Huw Watkins, as well as playback of recorded pieces through a system that comprised dCS Scarlatti front end, David Berning amplification, and JM Focal Grande Utopia loudspeakers. The whole system was set up on Stillpoints equipment racks.
Guide to Computer Audio
Although
the appetite for silver disc CD and SACD is still strong within the
music-loving community we are witnessing an explosion of interest in the
streaming of music from a computer acting as the source.
Our response to this has been to make dCS components source agnostic, so
that customers can use the computer hardware and playback software of their
choice - with dCS as the digital audio hub of the system.
We realise that there are a lot of unknown variables in
computer audio and also huge potential for people to configure their
computer in a sub-optimal fashion. For that reason we have partnered
with Chris Connaker, Editor of Computer Audiophile,
to develop a 'Guide to Computer Audio' that addresses some of the basic
set-up procedures and issues involved in optimising a PC or Mac for
audio playback.
You can download the guide from our website from May 4th.
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State of The Art CD, SACD and High Res
The
dCS Puccini CD/SACD Player and U-Clock was reviewed by Robert Harley in
Issue#200 of Absolute Sound. It was a comprehensive review that kicked
the tyres on the Puccini system playing Red Book CD, SACD and high res
audio from a computer. Mr Harley enjoyed the Puccini so much he
wrote:
'The
dCS sound was different from other top contenders I've heard, and I
struggled to put that difference, and its effect on musical
involvement, into words. But, if I had to boil it down to a single idea,
it would be that the Puccini/U-Clock simply presents more musical
information to the listener without calling attention to the fact that
it's presenting more information.
I can't overstate how much I
enjoyed music through the Puccini/U-Clock; it was absolutely
enthralling on CD, SACD, and high-resolution sources. This is a digital
front end I could live with for the rest of my life.'
Download the full review in pdf by clicking here.
Upsizing - dCS Paganini
David
Price, Editor of HiFi World and self confessed vinyl lover recently
reviewed the 4 box dCS Paganini system, and was impressed enough to
write:
A
seminal digital audio replay system. What this does to a string of ones
and noughts has not been heard before. But it’s not just superb
technically; the most remarkable thing it does is to make digital music
enjoyable in a self-conscious way, just like an excellent analogue
system.
Download the full review in pdf by clicking here.
More Awards
- dCS Scarlatti won Digital Source Component of the Year 2009 from Stereophile
- dCS Scarlatti and dCS Puccini won The Absolute Sound Editors Choice 2010
- dCS Paganini DAC won 2009 HiFi World Globe award for Digital Components
- dCS Puccini CD/SACD system won 2009 Product of the Year from HiFi Review China
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Pronto TSU9400 Update
A
new configuration file is available for dCS Scarlatti owners using the
Pronto TSU9400. This new update makes good use of the latest features
in the Pronto firmware (7.2.22) and the latest version of ProntoEdit
software (2.4.18). The update offers:
- A page of macros that
provide quick and easy reconfiguration of a Scarlatti or Paganini
system when upsampling to 176.4/192 or DSD
- Remote menu scrolling using the scroll wheel
An updater program is available from our website, together with instructions and the configuration file. For owners of Pronto TSU3500 and RU960 new configuration files will be released soon.
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| NEW PRODUCTS |
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Debussy DAC is the future hub of a digital playback system, combining the legendary dCS Ring DAC and our patent pending (GB0817141.5) asynchronous usb
technology in one box. Debussy features a sleek solid aluminium
fascia, high grade aluminium casing, metal remote handset, all metal
buttons and is powered by dCS electronics.
Debussy DAC features
standard AES3, Dual AES, SPDIF and word clock inputs in addition to the
USB2.0 interface. It will be available in silver only at present.
Two new DSP filters are provided offering listeners the choice of
linear phase with pre-ringing or non-linear phase without pre-ringing.
Watch your inbox for news of software updates to enabe new features in Puccini, Paganini and Scarlatti!
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| EVENTS |
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Munich High End 2010
Munich M.O.C., Germany
7 - 9 May 2010| Website
Top Audio Video Show 2010
Milan, Italy
16 - 19 September 2010| Website
audio 10
Whittelbury Hall, Northants, UK
25 - 26 September 2010| Website
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Rocky Mountain Audio Festival
Denver Marriott, Denver CO, USA
15 -17 October 2010| Website
Munich High End 2010
Munich M.O.C., Germany
7 - 9 May 2010| Website
Please contact
us to meet our team or listen to dCS products at
any of these shows.
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| OUR TEAM |
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Andy McHarg, Director of Software Development
Andy
graduated with Honours in Applied Computing from UEA and joined dCS in
1993 as a software engineer. He was a member of the design team on:
950, 952, 954, 902, 904, 905, 955, 972, 974, Elgar, Elgar+, Delius,
Purcell, P8i and dCS Test Equipment.
In 2007 Andy became
Director of Software Development and is now responsible for all signal
processing (FPGA & DSP) inside a dCS box (which is a lot!).
Andy was the architect behind the latest range of dCS products
including Scarlatti, Paganini, Puccini and Debussy as well as the 978 (Exclusive for
BBC). Andy was also the co-inventor of the patent pending
asynchronous usb interface used in all dCS product ranges.
At
dCS our software architecture is based around the concept of the dCS
control board - a large board that is used in almost every product we
make. This is designed in house and has power supplies, the assorted clocks we require, a
microcontroller subsystem that handles housekeeping and the User
Interface, some DSPs for filtering, FPGAs which are used for all
the other aspects of digital audio ( e.g. SPDIF decoding/encoding, DSD
processing, the Ring DAC modulator ) and a discrete Phase Locked Loop.
This type of system is known as heterogonous - all the different tasks
are handled by different processors, and they are all running code
developed in-house by our development team. This means an awful lot of code on lots of
different architectures. So making sure the development team fit these
disparate elements together seamlessly is probably the biggest
challenge Andy faces!
Aside from the control board the dCS
Ring DAC has also been evolving throughout Andy's time at dCS. We
estimate there have been over a hundred thousand man hours invested in
the evolution of the dCS Ring DAC technology and one of Andy's key
projects is to make sure that the dCS Ring DAC remains at the
forefront of digital audio technology.
When Andy is not acting as the
left brain of the dCS Design department and looking at FFT's he likes
to relax by shooting vast hordes ofassorted evil-doers in HD on
his PC, watch Blu-Rays or testing his constitution with assorted
combinations of hot curries and strong drinks.
What is Andy Listening To?
The Resistance, the latest album by Teignmouth trio Muse. I've
been a big admirer of Muse for quite some time and this, their latest,
has come in for some criticism by many fans for moving away from Matt
Bellamy's trademark guitar sound. Its certainly different, but still a
great (if slightly bonkers) album, from the Doctor Who inspired
opening, "Uprising" through to the closing 3 part space opera
soundtrack, "Exogensis" .
If you're in the mood for something
more poppy, another album that's been getting a lot of time on the
design office system is "La Roux", by La Roux - if you can ignore the
hairstyle, you'll find some excellent 80's-synth style pop that has
been described as "retro-futuristic" and well worth a listen!
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Look out for another Bits
newsletter in the Autumn. Enjoy the summer!
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Copyright
© Data Conversion Systems Ltd. Mull House, Great Chesterford Ct.,
Saffron Walden, CB10 1PF, UK |
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