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I am considering to buy the dCS Purcell. However, I am using
the Mark Levinson 360s DAC at the moment and hence the most I can get
out of the purcell is 24/96. If anyone of you has experience in matching
Purcell with other brands, please kindly share your experience with me.Besides, how does purcell sound?
I would agree w/ DK on this as I've heard the Purcell on other 24/96 dacs and it is nowhere near its potential. Definetly have to match that item up with 24/192 of which there are few choices (the matching one from dCS goes for $7k I believe.) However, if you're planning to get there in steps and you enjoy the upsampler w/ the 360s then go for it because that will be one hell of a ride. I suspect though once you heard it matched with a dac that outputs 192 wordlength, you would find a way to come up with $7k real fast. Please let us know how you progress with this as I for one am quite interested.
There's another consideration as well. From what I could gather on the dCS website, the traditional digital interfaces are limited to 96kHz--i.e., SP/DIF, EIAJ (Toslink), AES/EBU, and glass optical. The only way they can get upsampling over 96kHz is to run dual AES/EBU digital links in parallel. And since the dCS DACs are the ONLY DACs that have dual digital inputs, they're the only DACs currently capable of doing 192kHZ.Even though at some point Analog Devices, Crystal Semi etc. will have a "192 kHz" DAC available for OEM manufacturers, there's no way to get such sampling rate data to the DAC in the absence of a new interface, unless you run these paralleled digital links. So when you start seeing DAC manufacturers touting "192kHZ DAC" in big, bold letters, it's about as meaningless as their shouting "24-bit DAC".
IIRC, the I2S interface will pass 192 kHZ, which is why so many people are going to it. But it says right in the P1-A user "manual" [actually a 2-page pamphlet :( ] that if I2S in and out is used with the P1-A, the sample rate converter in the box is completely bypassed. So what's the point? There'd be no upsampling!! It would pass original 192kHz data through the P1-A box, but where are you going to get such data in the first place? That's what the box is supposed to do!
So new sample rate converter chips are needed. Which don't yet exist. Meaning the P1-A and D2D are already hardware-obsolete if you want 24/192. Which shows how TRULY FAR ahead of the curve dCS are here. If only the damn things didn't cost so much...
> > > > So new sample rate converter chips are needed. Which don't yet exist. Meaning the P1-A and D2D are already hardware-obsolete if you want 24/192. Which shows how TRULY FAR ahead of the curve dCS are here. If only the damn things didn't cost so much... < < <Interesting. I was actually reading in 2 seperate mags last night about the dCS products and both were reporting much the same as you posted, to paraphrase: Yes, indeed you need the dCS DAC processor as its one of 2 that truly output 192 wordlength. YOur conclusion sums it up: if onyl the damn things didn't cost so much.
I believe I am going to go after the $12k combo myself and wait perhaps until 2nd generation SACD machines make their way out (if they make their way out) from the high end manufacturers before I become involved again. I have an abundance of discs that I know will take forever to see the light of day on SACD that I am just dying to hear on the upsamplere and I believe my pal (who owns both the dCS products and the SCD-1) is getting mighty sick of seeing me showing up at his front porch 3 times a week with a handful of shiny discs. I also just discovered Monday that my dealer began carrying the dCS line last week which means I have trade in availablility towards these products which should come in handy.
The logic here eludes me. There is nothing in what DK wrote to indicate that if you hook up a transport, say via coax, *to* the P-1A and then hook up the P1-A *to* a 192-capable DAC via I2S, that the DAC will do other than crank out 192 KHz upsampled sound. If you have a 16/44 CD in a transport, in to the P-1A comes 16/44; the P-1A interpolates and upsamples and then sends 24/192 out the I2S; the 24/192 goes to the DAC via I2S, and the DAC converts it to hopefully glorious analog. Assuming your 192 DAC doesn't do its own upsampling etc. better than the P-1A, you *want* to bypass any upsampling the DAC might do.
Larry,
I wish the Perpetual would do what you say. It does not. The P1A interpolates to 24 bit and then upsamples to 96K via coax or AES output. It does not upsample when using I2S output (talked to Mark Shifter and Peter Madnick [the designer] last week). They are doing this so they can pass pure 192K info with I2S when it becomes available via DVD-A later this year. This is not a big concern. An upsampler should ideally be located right inside the DAC for best sound. The low jitter clock that runs the output of the sample rate converter is then very close to the DAC chips lowering jitter for more info retrieval. By the way, I will be modifying the P1A for much better sound and sending it to my DAC with a hardwired(DAC end)I2S cable right into the Crystal upsampler chip running at 130K. The fun has just begun!Ric Schultz
EVS
Curious, and thanks, Ric. So when their P-1A and P-3A are being used together --- they *do* say in their literature that the P-3A "gets the most out of" the P-1A --- then the P-1A is *only* doing interpolation (to get more bits) and possibly speaker/room correction, and the P-3A is doing all the upsampling that gets done, right?
Since the Levinson DACs are (currently) limited to 24/96, I would advise you to save your money on the Purcell ($5K, ouch!) and explore the Perp Tech P1-A or Assemblage D2D upsamplers. Both do 24/96 out and cost under $1K.BTW, I've heard the No. 360 several times, but never the 360S. Have you heard both? I've wondered whether the differences between them are all that important sonically. IIRC, the Stereophile reviewer didn't think it was that big a difference.
The No. 30.6 OTOH, that's a different kettle of fish.....
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