dCS shows the way at CES 2001
 

(CES-messen i Las Vegas i januar 2001)

A special thanks to all who came to see us at the CES 2001 and made it our busiest and most successful CES ever.   The full range of dCS audiophile products was demonstrated and with a little  help from our friends,  we managed to produce what many visitors told us was the best sound in the show and who are we to contradict them.

Special treats included:

		SACD playback a la dCS
New		dCS Grieg
		dCS Elgar plus
		SACD versus DSD master comparison

SACD playback a la dCS

To demonstrate the DSD decoding ability of the Elgar plus D/A converter, we brought along a laboratory development SACD player that we put together especially for the show.   The DSD data from the player was sent, in encrypted form, via an  IEEE1394 interface to the Elgar plus.   IEEE1394 was chosen, as it is the digital  interface that Sony will use to transfer DSD data between its audiophile products and it will therefore become the standard consumer DSD digital interface.  We developed our IEEE1394 interface hardware and software entirely in house, something that those of you in the know will admit is non-trivial.

We will release the dCS SACD/CD transport later this year. If the performance of our show special SACD transport was anything to go by, it will be well worth the wait.

dCS Grieg Upsampler and ADC

The dCS Grieg has all of the upsampling functionality and performance of the dCS Purcell AND, it also has a built in A/D converter.  This makes it  yet another dCS world first, being the world's first audiophile 24 bit 192kS/s & DSD A/D converter.   The Grieg's A/D converter is not just any old A/D converter however.  It is exactly the same dCS Ring DAC based A/D converter that is used in the dCS professional A/Ds that may be found in top studios around the world. 

The Grieg's A/D converter has three analogue inputs:

	A phono input with adjustable sensitivity to cover cartridges from low output  MC to high output  MM and with adjustable load resistance
	A balanced (XLR) line level input
	An unbalanced (RCA) line level input

It can provide a 24 bit digital output at 32, 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4 or 192kS/s.  It can also convert the selected analogue input to DSD, and output this to a dCS Elgar plus, or dCS Delius  D/A converter via an IEEE1394 interface.

The Grieg allows you to dispense with your analogue pre-amplifier. Instead, you feed your analogue sources via its A/D converter,  where they are converted to a suitable high resolution format such as 24/192 or DSD;  then directly into a dCS Elgar plus or dCS Delius 24/192-DSD D/A converter and from there, directly into your power amplifier. Vinyl purists may prefer to stick with their analogue pre-amplifiers, but visitors to our room who heard a range of LPs  being played back via the Grieg at 24/192 seemed quite happy. They all had what we have come to refer to as the dCS rictus.  This is the smile we have grown used to seeing at shows around the world, when visitors really start to hear and enjoy the music.

Another use for the Grieg is to archive valuable vinyl collections.  These can be digitised at 24/96 or 24/192, fed into a PC via a suitable sound card and then burnt onto a DVD-R.

Expect to see the Grieg in your local  dCS dealer in April this year.

dCS Elgar plus

The Elgar plus is the latest evolution of our long running and very successful dCS Elgar 24/192-DSD D/A converter.  It will be celebrating its fifth anniversary this year and it has maintained it's position as the state of the art D/A converter throughout this time.  No mean feat in today's rapidly changing digital world.

New features include:

	Provision to add a IEEE1394 interface for consumer DSD
	2 extra digital filters
	Balance display in dBs
	RS-232 input for software upgrades via a PC

The ability to add an IEEE1394 interface in the future is important, as this is how we will get DSD data from our forthcoming SACD transport into the Elgar plus (and dCS Delius).  The IEEE1394 digital interface will become the official standard for DSD and that is the major reason why we are supporting it.  It also offers enormous bandwidth where future multi-channel applications, such as 6 channel DSD, will still only use a fraction of its capability.

The Elgar plus was demonstrated playing back  24/192, both upsampled from CD and A/D converted from a vinyl source, from the dCS Grieg and DSD from our demonstration SACD player.

The Elgar plus is available now. 

Elgar plus users who wish to upgrade to the latest software and obtain the benefit of the new digital filters and dCS Elgar users who wish to upgrade to Elgar plus, should contact dCS at upgrades@dcsltd.co.uk for more information.  Please do not forget to give us the serial number of your unit.

SACD Vs DSD  master comparison

As a demonstration of the high quality of  SACD playback possible using dCS converters, we first played a track from the DSD layer of the Tony Overwater SACD, Op, (available on Turtle Records*),   using our show special SACD transport and dCS Elgar plus D/A.   We then played the DSD master of the same track from a Genex GX-8500 studio digital recorder.   Everyone agreed that the two were very close indeed, with the master just beating out the commercial SACD in terms of absolute transparency and detail.  It is exciting that with SACD,  what the consumer can hear in their own  system, is now potentially so close to what is heard in the studio. More exciting is that this experience will actually be available to audiophiles when the dCS SACD/CD transport is released later on this year.  

The usual suspects

 
With a little help from our friends

Putting a show together always involves a lot of people outside of dCS and it would not be fair if we failed to acknowledge their contributions.

Top of this list is Michael Broughton, who transforms what starts out as  boomy and hard sounding hotel room, into a very good sounding show room.  Every CES for several years now,  we have  turned up with our equipment and done the basic set-up.  We have then left Mike in the room with a supply of Echo Busters room treatments, whilst we went off to enjoy dinner at a nearby restaurant.  Upon our return several hours later, we have always found that Mike has skilfully tuned the room and system to produce just the sound we wanted. Mike, who is an Audio Consultant, also runs a high end retail studio, The Audiophile's Source, in Silverthorne, Colorado.

We would also like to thank:

Arcam for the loan of their CD92 player, which was used as a CD transport.

Echo Busters for the loan of their extremely effective room treatment materials.

Grand Prix Audio for the loan of their equipment rack.

Harmonic Technology for providing their cables.  The digital cables and audio cables were the new Magic series;  the speaker cables were the Pro 9 series and the power cords were the Pro AC11 and Magic series.

Nagra for the loan of their excellent amplifiers. We also thank them for their loan of equipment for previous shows.

Star Sound Technologies for the loan of their Sistrum SP4 equipment rack.

Verity Audio for the loan of their Parsifal speakers.  Not only did these sound great, but they also looked gorgeous in their new maple finish.  This is the third year we have used the Parsifals and they have more than met expectations every time. 

Last but not least our thanks to our US distributor Audiophile Systems,   especially Tony Gregory, for bringing it all together.

See you there again next year.

*  Our thanks to Turtle Records for permission to use the masters and to Bert van der Wolf  who made the original recordings and provided the master discs used at the show.