Puccini U-Clock

Puccini is a revelation - a high end system in one box - combining the aesthetics of the Paganini with all of our upsampling, DAC and CD/SACD player technology in a single, easy to set up unit which delivers unbeatable performance.

The Puccini range now features the award winning Puccini U-Clock which is separate grade 1 system clock to further reduce jitter and improve performance. Matched with the Puccini Player it improves on an already spectacular sound and takes it into an entirely new domain. With a clock added to a dCS system images snap into sharper focus and the music displays a substantially greater sense of authority and power as well as, most importantly, offering noticeably higher resolution of detail.

Puccini U-Clock also features a USB to SPDIF converter, which enables Puccini owners to present sound files from a PC or Mac to the legendary dCS Ring DAC inside the Puccini.

dCS equipment is designed to generate and accept industry standard Word Clock on 75 ohm co-axial cable. Our Clocks will drive other manufacturers' equipment designed to accept standard Word Clock. Non-standard clock formats must be assumed to be proprietary to that manufacturer.

Asynchronous USB Mode
In USB, there are numerous modes for synchronising the audio between the PC (the host), and an audio device. The most popular of these, "adaptive", involves the audio device synchronising itself to the USB "frame" provided by the PC. This tends to give poor jitter performance. Puccini U-Clock operates in "asynchronous" mode (NOT to be confused with asynchronous rate conversion), where the audio device synchronises the audio by providing a feedback pipe to the PC. The PC then is effectively locked to the audio device, which can have a much more accurate clock and much lower jitter.

Using the Puccini U-Clock
USB is isochronous. This means that the host (PC) and client (Puccini U-Clock) both know how much bandwidth is available at the outset, so the host can guarantee that bandwidth will be available all the time.
Your music may be stored on an external Hard Disc Drive (HDD) or Network Attached Storage (NAS) in a different room, networked to a small, silent PC connected by USB cable to the Puccini U-Clock. When the user selects the audio for playback, the Mac/PC streams all of the selected data from the HDD or Network Assigned Storage (NAS) device, then outputs the data on USB.

Note: The audio flowing between the PC and Puccini U-Clock is packetised PCM at 32, 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4 or 192kS/s. It is the job of the codecs installed on the PC to decode the data and present it to Puccini U-Clock in a standard PCM format.