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| August 2009 | Issue 3 |
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Paganini Upsampler debuts at Hong Kong AV show and news of changes at dCS
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| PRODUCT
LAUNCH |
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August sees the launch of the patent
pending (GB0817141.5) Paganini Upsampler,
a dedicated upsampler or digital to digital converter (DDC) that
converts digital audio data at one sample rate to a higher sampler rate.
Upsampling
to progressively higher sample rates makes progressive improvements to
fine detail, sound stage depth and image separation. As well as
the usual inputs the USB input on the Paganini Upsampler now forms a gateway for server-based music to be presented to the dCS Ring DAC and completes the Paganini range.
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| NEWS |
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Changes at dCS
As you know my father and our Managing Director, David M Steven (right),
passed away unexpectedly in February. We would like to take the
opportunity to thank everyone in the business, from dCS owners to
friends of the company, for their kind words and messages of support.
His
love of music and hifi meant that he was in his dream job at dCS and he
approached every day with energy and a smile on his face. He was also a
man of great warmth and humour as well as great humility.
Proud
though he was of dCS achievements, he was always quick to acknowledge
that our success was born of team-work and never took the credit for
other peoples contributions. It is partly as a result of these
personal attributes that we now have tremendously strong design,
manufacturing, sales and support teams within the company. Though
the loss is keenly felt by us all, we are ever more committed in our
pursuit of digital audio perfection, quality and reliability as these were the foundations of his vision for dCS.
On
a personal level I have now taken on the role of MD, moving from
Director of Sales and Marketing. I am taking on this
position with a mixture of excitement and sadness. Excitement
that I am leading dCS and that the future for the company presents many
opportunities in such an exciting industry. Sadness that my father is
not here alongside me to share the experiences and fruits of his
tireless work these last years.
It is now my job to lead dCS
and build on our excellent product base and stellar reputation.
With my background in Marketing and Product Development and the
fantastic team here at dCS I am excited and confident about taking on
this challenge and making sure that dCS remains at the forefront of
digital audio.
David J M Steven, Managing Director
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A Formidable Stack
Our
flagship 4 box Scarlatti range was just reviewed by Michael Fremer in
the August 2009 issue of Stereophile and its fair to say that he was
impressed. In fact he went as far to say that:
The dCS Scarlatti is the best-sounding, most satisfying digital playback system Ive heard
As
you know at dCS we like to get the science right before we listen. This
means that measurements are important and we were delighted to read
John Atkinsons comments on Scarlatti:
The
dCS Scarlatti may be the most expensive disc-playing system Stereophile
has reviewed by far, but it offers state-of-the-art measured
performance
To read the review and check out the measurements in full click here.
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Puccini Player - Software Update
July saw the release of v1.12 software update for Puccini CD/SACD Player. This update is free of charge and available through your local authorised dCS distributor.
The changes that v1.12 provides are:
- Lock time for digital inputs is substantially improved
- A menu allows the user to lock to wordclock on per-input basis for digital inputs
- It is now possible to turn off the LEDs when the display is set to Off
- DSD upsampling of audio receievd on the digital inputs will now be
possible, dependent on the user purchasing a unit-specific license from
our website.
Why is there a charge for the upsampling feature?
At
dCS our digital processing circuitry is based around Field Programmable
Gate Array (FPGA) chips, Digital Signal Processing (DSP) chips and a
microcontroller system, all of which runs code developed, tested and
maintained by dCS.
We dont use any off the shelf chips or software and
our PCM interface and Phase Locked Loop (PLL) circuitry is essentially
discrete. This means our hardware is completely controlled and
reconfigurable by dCS software.
All of our test stations, hardware and software are
still designed, built and maintained in-house and it is this approach
to design that allows us to provide current products with new features and functionality and
ensure our products remain at the cutting edge of digital audio.
However,
developing these new features takes considerable time and effort and on major
projects our development costs need to be recovered.
Upsampling from the digital inputs on the Puccini CD/SACD Player
was a major undertaking for us. Secondly it is being offered to customers as
an optional extra as dCS Puccini is first and foremost a CD/SACD Player.
For
that reason it would be unfair to expect all end users to pay a premium
for a feature they will not use. The price of enabling upsampling on a
Puccini CD/SACD Player is 350 GBP and is available directly from dCS.
Please note that your unit must be registered with dCS before you can recieve the license key.
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| NEW PRODUCTS |
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Our newest component, the Paganini Upsampler,
allows Paganini owners to move the sample-rate-conversion process from
the transport to a separate unit. We think this results in
significantly better sound and also lets users experiment with
different sample rates from 88.2, 96, 176.4 and 192 kS/s PCM to DSD
(1-bit data at 2.822MS/s).
As in the Scarlatti Upsampler the USB connection on the Paganini Upsampler
operates in the preferred asynchronous mode, where the Upsampler
controls the streaming of data from the computer, resulting in very low
jitter. Click here to read more about Paganini Upsampler.
What is Upsampling?
Upsampling
is the process of converting digital audio data at one sample rate to a
higher sample rate. The term Upsampler was first used by dCS in
1998
during development of the dCS Purcell. There have since been a
large number of imitators, most of whom use a single chip Asysnchronous
Rate Converter (ASRC ).
These
work by estimating the ratio between the input and output frequencies,
and generating the audio using this ratio. While these are perfectly
adequate for the job for which they were designed, unfortunately
that job is not high fidelity reproduction.
dCS filters are
all designed and implemented in-house, and all are synchronous we
know exactly the ratio between input and output, which is guaranteed to
be constant. Additionally, all dCS filters are optimized for the sample
rate at which they run (many DACs, for instance use the same filter for
44.1 and 48k).
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| EVENTS |
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Hong Kong AV Show 2009, Hong Kong
HKCEC, Hong Kong
7 - 9 August 2009 | Website
Top Audio Video Show 2009, Milan, Italy
Atahotel Quark, Milan
17 - 20 September 2009 | Website
Tokyo International Audio, Japan
Tokyo International Forum, Japan
2 - 4 October 2009 | Website |
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TAA Show Taiwan, Taipei, Taiwan
Room 851 Sheraton Hotel Taipei
7 - 10 August 2009 | Website
Audio 09
Whittlebury Hall, Northants, UK
26 - 27 September 2009 | Website
Please contact
us if you want to meet our team or listen to dCS products at
the show.
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| OUR TEAM |
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Richard Lewis, Operations Director
When
Richard left school (which happened more years ago than he cares to
remember) he trained as a Mechanical Engineer before joining British
Aerospace. There he had a successful career ending up after 10 years as
Chief Buyer responsible for four different BAe sites. That was followed
by another 10 years in the aircraft industry in and around Heathrow
Airport.
His next move was northwards to Cambridge Systems
Technology (then better known to the hi-fi fraternity as Audiolab) that
eventually became Tag McLaren Audio. With that broad and high level
business background dCS were delighted when he joined them in 2005 as
Operations Manager. Within 2 years he had been promoted to the role of
Operations Director and is now wholly responsible for all our
Purchasing, Stores, Production and Logistics.
He feels strongly
that his mechanical engineering background and his deeply pragmatic
nature serve as the perfect complement to the electronic, software and
research expertise of his colleagues at dCS.
When not at dCS
Richard likes to travel, is a keen clay pigeon shooter,
enthusiastically plays the guitar and has been known to enjoy the
occasional alcoholic drink. His wife Caroline and his two children
spend much of their time trying to stop him indulging in all four
simultaneously!!
What is Richard Listening To?
Ill
try to keep this saga to a minimum but for me all great recordings
evoke powerful memories both personal and professional and Steely
Dan's great album Gaucho is no exception.
I was 19 and still
buying cassettes when I discovered Steely Dan and first began to enjoy
their jazz-infused rock sounds and I still do today as a
50-something-er. As far back as 1980 I was one of the sad sods who
queued to lay my hands on a 12 version of Gaucho. Ten years later it
was lost at a party somewhere and I replaced it with the 1984 CD
version. The years have not been kind to it and my CD is now a sad beer
mat and, like me, somewhat scratched and battered. So, in 1997 I went
out and bought the 5.1 Surround Sound mix as a DTS Music Disc. However,
three versions was still not sufficient because in 2000 I acquired the
re-mastered CD and in 2008 bought a fresh, clean and rare copy of
the 2003 MCA SACD version and thats the best of the lot.
The
first thing that you notice is that the sound stage appears much
deeper, richer and warmer on the SACD something that seems to be true
of most SACDs when compared with RBCDs. For example, I love the way
that the chorus on the title track spreads out in front of me in an arc
that seems to go over and beyond the speakers. Further, there appears
to be so much space between the electric piano, the voices and the
drums. Then theres Steve Kahn's muted strumming on the rhythm guitar
providing some nice depth to the mix and you can add to that the fact
that the tenor sax sounds more brassy and the electric pianos tone
is just a lot purer.
If you love the smooth sounds of Donald
Fagan and Walter Becker (a.k.a. as Steely Dan) this is a classic album
and, while their later album Everything Must Go and Fagan's solo
album Two Against Nature are both available in DVD-Audio format,
Gaucho is the only one available as an SACD. Its not my favourite
Steely Dan album (that has to be Cant Buy Me a Thrill) but it is
still quite outstanding and contains two FM classics Babylon
Sisters and Hey Nineteen.
Take, for example, the SACD
version of Babylon Sisters. The drum and piano come in at the
beginning (as they do on both CD and LP) from the left channel
with a little reverb from the right channel. Fagan's lyrics come from
the front right but, as they reach the chorus Babylon Sisters, a mix
of instruments join in from the rear. Then, as the female chorus starts
to sing about Santa Ana winds from the rear channel, a sax comes in
from the rear channel and Fagan begins the second verse. Behind you is
an electric piano. The overall effect is that you are sitting in the
middle of one of their jam sessions.
This album remains one of
my personal favourites and sounds wonderful playing on my home system
that comprises a Puccini Player into an Audiolab 4000P amplifier and
Tag McLaren Calliope speakers.
As a footnote (and to demonstrate
my eclectic tastes) I also love listening to Phil Spector's Greatest
Hits album (circa 1962-68) and anything by Amy Winehouse but theyll
have to wait for another day.
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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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