dCS Network Bridge

[wdw]

2 minutes ago, rickca said:

I don't use TIDAL (I use Qobuz) so I really don't care about MQA.  What I care about is the USB output.

 

 

Yes, the MQA reference was in jest...just finished a long thread on the subject on Audio Asylum...sheesh!!!

 

Would use Qobuz in place of Tidal if it were available in Canada.

[mulberry bush]

How would you run Qobuz on the NB?    I've read it only supports Tidal and Spotify.

[mecani]

Hello, someone has experience in network dcs connected to a mutec mc3 usb, ref 10 as master clock?

[beessy]

Hi 

 

I am interested to do this but how to feed the bridge with word clock 44.1kHz and 48kHz with only one mc-3+?

External word clocking is possible from ref10 but it seems mc3+ word clocking out multiples of only one reference frequency.

 

 

[skatbelt]

On 10/25/2017 at 1:52 AM, AmusedToD said:

Paganini and Network Bridge in the house! May the warm up begin

 

 

 

 

And continue with speaker placement... 

[AmusedToD]

6 minutes ago, skatbelt said:

 

And continue with speaker placement... 

Unfortunately not possible at this point in time, but once we move to a new place - absolutely! 

[mecani]

I do not understand

[AmusedToD]

1 hour ago, mecani said:

I do not understand

 

Deleted

[AmusedToD]

I have some new findings I would like to share with you.

 

Since getting my new speaker and interconnect cables last week (Transparent Audio Super Gen5 bi wire and Transparent Audio Super Gen5 balanced XLR), I went through a rough week of burning them in, and I almost lost my nerves in the process. The sound I was getting from the system was playing tricks with my mind, one day sounding too dark, the next day sounding flat and lifeless, then too bright, then compressed etc. Absolutely mind boggling. Overall, I could say it was decent, but nowhere near the level I intended to have and wished for, especially having in mind the value of the components.

 

However, a “miracle” happened today. A digital AES/EBU cable I ordered almost a month ago was delivered today (Transparent Reference) to complement my Transparent Premium AES/EBU (lower in line than the Reference), so I could finally test the dual AES mode between the Network Bridge and the Paganini.

 

So the setup looks like this:

 

iMac (Roon core) -> Supra Cat8 Ethernet cable -> SOtM ISO-CAT6 passive isolator -> SOtM CAT6 Ethernet cable -> dCS Network Bridge -> dual AES (Transparent Reference & Transparent Premium AES/EBU cables) and silver BNC clock cable by Oyaide -> dCS Paganini DAC with its clock slaved to the Network Bridge  -> Transparent Super Gen5 balanced XLR (brand new, still burning in) -> Simaudio Moon I-7 RS integrated amp -> Transparent Super Gen5 bi wire speaker cable (brand new, still burning in) -> TAD ME1 speakers.

 

Up to this point in time I used a single Transparent Premium AES/EBU cable for connecting the NB to the DAC. After receiving the Reference cable, I put it to the test by playing a few tracks (Marvin Gaye - “What’s going on” in 24/192 from his 1971 album “What’s going on”; Oscar Peterson Trio - “You look good to me” in 16/44.1 from the 1964 album “We get requests”; Dave Grusin - “Keep your eyes on the sparrow” from his 1976 album “Discovered again”, etc.). The Transparent Reference AES/EBU proved to be a much more serious cable compared to the Premium (as it should be being more than double the price), giving a much more relaxed sound with a bigger soundstage, more precise imaging, deeper and better defined bass and a buttery smooth midrange. Wow! Very happy at this point.

 

Having established it’s a worthy upgrade, I went on to finally test the dual AES mode. I played the above mentioned 16/44.1 track by Oscar Peterson Trio - You look good to me. What surprised me was the sample rate on the Paganini - it displayed 16/88.2 instead of 16/44.1. I thought ok - it must be the settings, but I let it play anyway. The first thing I noticed was the completely incorrect positioning of the instruments in space! The acoustic bass was not playing on the far right but in the center, and there was a sense of extreme reverberation. What the hell!? Is this how the dual AES should sound? This isn’t right at all!

 

After confirming all the settings in the NB and the Paganini were right, I fired up google and started searching, and then stomped onto this on the dCS website:

 

Dual AES is a digital audio interface invented by dCS in 1995 to allow high sample rate data to be split between two base-rate data streams for easy storage on the digital recorders of the time. For example, a stereo pair of 96kHz data could be split into two 48kHz streams and recorded as 4 tracks on a 48kS/s recorder. To replay, the 4 tracks are transmitted over two AES3 cables to the DAC, which reconstructs the original 96kS/s data.

 

Dual AES was offered as an open standard and it was added to the AES3 specification. Almost 20 years later, we use Dual AES at sample rates as high as 384kS/s. Dual AES features lower jitter than Single AES or S/PDIF, so there is a sonic benefit.

 

The raw data must be specially formatted as a Dual AES pair at the transmitter and then decoded at the receiver. Two identical Single AES streams used together will be decoded by the DAC as a strange ‘phasey’ mono – this is not the same as Dual AES at twice the sample rate.

 

What the hell? Phasey mono? That’s exactly what I heard. No trace of the “lower jitter playback with a sonic benefit”.

 

But then I thought - perhaps the NB can’t split a 16/44.1 file into “two base rate data streams”. So I fired up Roon again and set it to upsampling mode to the maximum 24/384 rate that both the NB and the Paganini could read.

 

Guess what? Bam! Holy moly, I was absolutely stunned by the sound quality I received from my gear within the first second of playback! The soundstage exploded in all 3 dimensions, with glass like clarity and superb imaging/layering and texture. It was so good that I was left speechless. What the hell happened??? 

 

So now, after a whole hour of experimenting, I am still amazed by the improvement I got from the dual AES mode. My system finally sounds “expensive”! The benefit from going dual AES far exceeded the benefit I got from upgrading the SOtM sMS-200 to SOtM sMS-200 Ultra (my previous streamers).

 

P.S. Unfortunately upsampling in Roon is necessary for it to work properly, so no bit perfect streaming in this scenario. I don’t know why this is the case, I thought it would work as in a dCS CD Transport - dCS DAC setup, but obviously it doesn’t. The files need to be upsampled in the audio player for the Network Bridge to properly split the rates into 2 streams and extract the maximum sound quality with the lowest possible jitter. And it’s a huge sonic upgrade indeed!

 

So this matter requires further investigation as well.

[xtraktz]

Has anyone tried dCS NB with dCS Debussy DAC ?

[AmusedToD]

So just to confirm my findings: 44.1, 48, 96, 176.4,  192 and DSD64 sample rates do now work properly through the dual AES outputs on the NB. However, when upsampled to DXD (352.4 and 384) - dual AES works magically. I still can’t say whether this is due to the settings (I tried all possible combinations) or the Paganini DAC.

[AmusedToD]

Update to the dual AES saga. I finally managed to get it working without upsampling hi res files (only redbook and 24/48 need upsampling in Roon).

 

This is what the manual says:

 

 

So first I reduced the dual AES sampling rate to the minimum possible in the Network Bridge settings, which is 88.2.

 

 

Anything lower than 24/88.2 will not work right over dual AES, so I had to set the upsampling options in Roon to  “custom”. As you can see from the picture below, only 44.1 and 48 are upsampled (because they lower than the minimum dual AES sample rate in the NB settings), all other sample rates starting from 88.2 and higher up to 384 (including DSD64) are played bit perfect!

 

 

I hope this will be helpful for others who are using the NB with a dCS DAC capable of dual AES connection. 

 

 

[Julius]

Hello everyone,
I just bought a dCS NB a few days ago and would like to have information from those of you who already have one for some time.

1) Is there a sleep mode on the unit?
Mine seems always on (up and running) with  its solid blue light.
2) Is Wi-Fi available? How? Did you get an antenna in the box?
3) What is your Main Board version? Info available in the NB IOS app.
4) Did you ever get updates (Software/Firmware)?
 

So far, I'm very pleased with the sound, still have a few days of breaking to come...!

Thanks a lot.

[wdw]

6 minutes ago, Julius said:

Hello everyone,
I just bought a dCS NB a few days ago and would like to have information from those of you who already have one for some time.

1) Is there a sleep mode on the unit?
Mine seems always on (up and running) with  its solid blue light.
2) Is Wi-Fi available? How? Did you get an antenna in the box?
3) What is your Main Board version? Info available in the NB IOS app.
4) Did you ever get updates (Software/Firmware)?
 

So far, I'm very pleased with the sound, still have a few days of breaking to come...!

Thanks a lot.

 

Have one....best digital my system has produced!

 

1. haven't looked for nor found a sleep mode but would likely never consider using one so to keep the unit in a steady state.

2. wifi is rumoured to come in the firmware update expected this month, as well as MQA.  The antenna was not included in my purchase but I was told it will be issued at some later date.  (I understand there was some licensing issue in the UK concerning wifi so the feature was withheld)

3.  should be readable in the IOS app.

4.  we are all awaiting the rumoured firmware update but by the time it arrives I suspect some of us may be less keen on the MQA feature since following the discussion on this site and others.  The update will also enable USB digital out connectivity.

[iefbo]

I've been looking for an answer to this question but it is hard to find ...

Has anyone compare the sound quality of the Aurender N10 and the DCS Network Bridge on the same system?

If so what were your findings?

[xtraktz]

It would also be interesting to compare dCS NB with Bricasti M5, Ultra/Signature Rendu, Aurender W20 and Onset by StackAudio.

 

P.S. Full review https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2017/11/05/review-dcs-network-bridge-the-swiss-army-knife-of-streamers/

 

 

[KunterK]

2 hours ago, iefbo said:

I've been looking for an answer to this question but it is hard to find ...

Has anyone compare the sound quality of the Aurender N10 and the DCS Network Bridge on the same system?

If so what were your findings?

After testing in my system I "upgraded" to dCS Network Bridge from Aurender N10. Since dCS is playing from the Network or from an attached USB drive,  not from an internal disk,  one should be careful with the surrounding items (network, data source etc)  when doing the comparison. Both were connected to a TotalDAC D1-six (which is now up for sale, to be replaced by a Vivaldi DAC) via transparent XL AES. Proper network feed performs better than attached USB) 

When driven from roon (linear powered NUC i5) the sound is sublime with the NB on all dimensions. 

To my ears it even challenges W20 quite nicely.

 

Cheers

[AmusedToD]

23 minutes ago, KunterK said:

After testing in my system I "upgraded" to dCS Network Bridge from Aurender N10. Since dCS is playing from the Network or from an attached USB drive,  not from an internal disk,  one should be careful with the surrounding items (network, data source etc)  when doing the comparison. Both were connected to a TotalDAC D1-six (which is now up for sale, to be replaced by a Vivaldi DAC) via transparent XL AES. Proper network feed performs better than attached USB) 

When driven from roon (linear powered NUC i5) the sound is sublime with the NB on all dimensions. 

To my ears it even challenges W20 quite nicely.

 

Cheers

 

Congrats on getting the Vivaldi! I heard the full stack recently and was blown away by it.

 

You should definitely try the dual AES, the improvement over the single AES is simply stunning! Especially since you already have one of the best digital cables in the world (Transparent Reference XL). 

[KunterK]

30 minutes ago, AmusedToD said:

 

Congrats on getting the Vivaldi! I heard the full stack recently and was blown away by it.

 

You should definitely try the dual AES, the improvement over the single AES is simply stunning! Especially since you already have one of the best digital cables in the world (Transparent Reference XL). 

I did try it hence the change. Dual Aes and clock from NB to Vivaldi with roon upsampling was very bad for the wallet. 

 

I will use Shunyata sigma for Aes and clock though. Will report performance once I have them. 

 

Xl trio is too expensive. 

[iefbo]

1 hour ago, KunterK said:

Since dCS is playing from the Network or from an attached USB drive,  not from an internal disk,  one should be careful with the surrounding items (network, data source etc)  when doing the comparison.

 

That is one of my concerns. With the NB SQ will be influenced by many more components affecting end result.

 

[AmusedToD]

24 minutes ago, KunterK said:

I did try it hence the change. Dual Aes and clock from NB to Vivaldi with roon upsampling was very bad for the wallet. 

 

I will use Shunyata sigma for Aes and clock though. Will report performance once I have them. 

 

Xl trio is too expensive. 

 

Please report how the Shunyata’s fare against the Reference XL. They really are darn expensive. I am using a regular Reference plus Premium for dual aes until a good deal for a used Reference aes emerges.

[Beolab]

My mainboard version is 1.4, but in the manual they display version 1.45 ?? 

 

Then the NB App need to read in the Tidal playlist and tracks over and over again, it cant rember it, and it crasches often, is this something the rest of you also have discovered? 

[AmusedToD]

My mainboard version is 1.0, and I bought a brand new unit last month. The network board version is 324.

[Julius]

My Mainboard version is also 1.0 (1.06 in the manual) and I bought my NB last week .. Curious !
Did someone ever got an update Firmware/Software using the IOS NB app?

Otherwise, a fabulous streamer, really high-end..

Thanks !

[stevebythebay]

In reviewing the dCS website for firmware/software updates it does not appear there has ever been any for the Network Bridge.  We should see one this month, according to various reports.  But I take that with a grain of salt.  Only recently has one been spotted in the wild for the Rossini, but that's not widely available as yet.  The last official software happened in May for the Vivaldi DAC.