dCS Network Bridge

[stevebythebay]

Thanks.  That's what I suspected.  Not good and makes me even less likely to bite on MQA.  I rather use both DSP upsampling and volume leveling in Roon, especially to do so in the Nucleus rather than leave it to the Berkeley.  My listening to the limited MQA sources I have in my system has not engendered any clear and consistent benefit.  That could change over time, as better source material comes along.

[firedog]

6 minutes ago, stevebythebay said:

Thanks.  That's what I suspected.  Not good and makes me even less likely to bite on MQA.  I rather use both DSP upsampling and volume leveling in Roon, especially to do so in the Nucleus rather than leave it to the Berkeley.  My listening to the limited MQA sources I have in my system has not engendered any clear and consistent benefit.  That could change over time, as better source material comes along.

Roon now allows DSP together with full MQA functionality. I won't go into it here, but there is an MQA approved work around that they've implemented. 

[Pedro Romão]

On 10/05/2018 at 2:39 AM, AMP said:

 

I'm very sorry that you are frustrated, but we've encountered numerous hurdles with the USB output and until we're certain that the performance is up to par we aren't going to release the feature. We're targeting June for this, but until we've completed a full round of testing on the latest build we can't be certain of that date.

Ok, thanks. So this means that USB output IS coming and it will not be dropped as the WiFi connection seems to have been?

 

[Vule]

[Patatorz]

Good to see 

[AMP]

On 5/9/2018 at 6:36 PM, AMP said:

We've identified a workaround and hope to have that implemented soon. In the mean time functions like volume leveling, parametric EQ, headroom adjustment, etc will collide with the MQA signaling information. Best to leave them off if you're looking for the full MQA experience.

 

We have released updated firmware for the Network Bridge to address this issue. There are no changes to the app associated with this update.

 

This update will yield the following versions:

 

Main Board: 1.00
Network Board: 375
iOS App: 1.4.8

 

The only change in this release is proper function when Roon’s MQA decoder is engaged. This is typically when some Roon DSP function is employed (volume leveling, EQ, room correction, etc). In this scenario the MQA signalling information is properly passed to a downstream MQA-capable DAC.

 

To update the bridge please do the following:

1. Within the dCS Network Bridge app go to Configuration -> Information -> Version and tap on “Check for Updates.”

2. Download and install the update when prompted. There is no need to close the app as the instructions indicate.

3. You will receive a connection error in the app when the update is in process. This is normal.

4. Check back in approximately 5 minutes. When the app can re-connect to the bridge you’ll note that the versions now state “no entries.” This indicates that a reboot of the bridge is required.

5. As long as the app can connect to the bridge you are safe to reboot it. Power off using the rear panel switch, wait 10 seconds, and power it back on.

[stevebythebay]

Great!  Will continue doing more critical listening.  Have disabled the main MQA switch in Roon's Advanced settings in Device Setup, as well as disabling all DSP and volume leveling. 

 

Unless and until I can get Tidal to allow me to sign up for a subscription (seems I get errors after log in trying to get one "Could not start your subscription. Reason: "Not allowed". Please contact customer support.").  Maybe support will get back with me some day...

 

Not absolutely sure what's changed in terms of sound quality with this new firmware, but I detect a lowering of the noise floor, which allows more distinct and clearer low level sounds than before.  Drum kits seem more realistic (various cymbals are noticeably different) and are cleaner and seem to have more impact and decay.  Seems to allow for greater depth in the sound-stage.  Either I'm hearing all of this or imagining it.  Guess I won't know unless someone from dCS spills the beans -- unlikely

[Darryl R]

On 5/10/2018 at 8:01 PM, The Computer Audiophile said:

That’s a strange one I’ll have to test when I get back from Munich. If the HDCD indicator isn’t illuminated then the LSB isn’t getting through properly and the music isn’t bit perfect. 

 

The usual suspect it volume attenuation somewhere in the chain. 

 

Chris, I wish I'd known you were in Munich.  We were vacationing in Bavaria and I was able to come Thursday and meet most of the guys that made my system components.  I met John Quick up in the dCS room and he told me about the updates.  I put them on today and my system sounds terrific.

[Darryl R]

I'd also like to add that the dCS app had been working fine for me, and even better now with the latest changes, a few things in the play queue were improved.

[Marcin_gps]

19 hours ago, Darryl R said:

 

Chris, I wish I'd known you were in Munich.  We were vacationing in Bavaria and I was able to come Thursday and meet most of the guys that made my system components.  I met John Quick up in the dCS room and he told me about the updates.  I put them on today and my system sounds terrific.

 

[OT]

Was there too  

[/OT]

[Darryl R]

Hey Marcin!  I thought about you, but didn't know how to find out if you were there at the last minute.  This was purely coincidence that we were vacationing in Bavaria at the same time as the show.  I was only there the first day before we flew home on Friday.

 

How are you doing?

[Marcin_gps]

Well, maybe next time then  

I'm good, busy, developing new products. 

 

Not to hijack the thread completely, the Vivaldi One is a great DAC. 

[Beolab]

Im was waiting for a SQ performance enhancement with the new FW, were the voicing and dynamics should have slight more weight, but dCS may think it will  cannibalise on the Vivaldi upsampler/streamer then? 

 

Hoping for a slight voiced FW tweak nevertheless. 

[Darryl R]

3 hours ago, Marcin_gps said:

Well, maybe next time then  

I'm good, busy, developing new products. 

 

Not to hijack the thread completely, the Vivaldi One is a great DAC. 

 

I keep thinking about that monstrous new creation Dan D'Agostino had with him.  Did you see amp-zilla? 

[Marcin_gps]

10 hours ago, Darryl R said:

 

I keep thinking about that monstrous new creation Dan D'Agostino had with him.  Did you see amp-zilla? 

Yep  

But I wanted to hear the YG's BilletDome tweeter in the first place. Now I know I want it  

[paulmckwan]

Hi all I've place an order for NB on 20 April in Hong Kong and still pending for it, hope that the Munich show will not cause delay for my order 

[Patatorz]

@AMP any plan to integrate Qobuz streaming like Tidal ?

[Chiong]

On ‎05‎/‎19‎/‎2018 at 12:40 AM, Patatorz said:

@AMP any plan to integrate Qobuz streaming like Tidal ?

 

Yes, I would like to have Qobuz support too. I tried other UPnP server/controller to play Qobuz with NB in my system (including BubbleUPnP server+OpenHome and Logitech Media Server with UPnP plugin), gapless playback is never correctly supported. And to my ear, the sound is also not as good as native app.

 

Another annoying problem is the new app is still not stable (as old one) and lost connection to the server sometimes. I guess it is something to do with data retrieving. Album browsing may be suspended for hours once it happens. Restarting app and turn on/off iPhone/iPad also do not work. My temporary solution is use other iPhone/iPad and wait for its coming back.

[Cebolla]

4 hours ago, Chiong said:

 

Yes, I would like to have Qobuz support too. I tried other UPnP server/controller to play Qobuz with NB in my system (including BubbleUPnP server+OpenHome and Logitech Media Server with UPnP plugin), gapless playback is never correctly supported.

 

Absolutely amazing! What were dCS Ltd thinking in apparently designing the Network Bridge to not support gapless playback when operating as a standard UPnP/DLNA renderer?

 

The UPnP A/V Standard SetNextAVTransportURI method is required by standard UPnP control points and renderers to support gapless playback, as implemented by both the BubbleUPnP Server and the UPnPBridge LMS plugin.

 

Does the dCS Network Bridge not actually support the SetNextAVTransportURI method at all, or is it just that it's not implementing it correctly?

[Darryl R]

20 hours ago, Chiong said:

Another annoying problem is the new app is still not stable (as old one) and lost connection to the server sometimes. I guess it is something to do with data retrieving. Album browsing may be suspended for hours once it happens. Restarting app and turn on/off iPhone/iPad also do not work. My temporary solution is use other iPhone/iPad and wait for its coming back.

 

The dCS app has worked fine for me on an iPad.  I built a fast, Ubuntu file server with SSDs, WAV files, and direct Ethernet.  The sound is superior to anything else I've heard.

[Beolab]

@AMP

 

The new app have crashed about once every listening session as before, it occures when i am searching for music on tidal or in my playlists, then the cash memory seems to over float and crashes as a result. 

 

The ground voicing / soundquality sounds exactly the same as before, slightly to less weight vs Aurrender W20 , and Innous SE , dCS Rossini playing a CD , Puccini playing a SACD ,  in the same system with the same interconnects, and i have adressed this a few times to dCS that they should fine tune this slightly, when playing from the dCS NB App. 

If i use Roon i get a slight warmer apperance, so it is when i am using the app the slightly thinness appears more audibly.

    

Then take advantage of the Ram memory with some dedicated space as a RAM buffer , that should also be a great fw upgrade. 

 

Focus on this and the NB would be the greatest streamer/renderer money could buy most probably, and become a even better money maker for your company. 

 

You would also got mine and most sertenly the rest the owners full respect, if you should do this procedure.  

 

 

 

 

 

[Patatorz]

A bit difficult to compare in a fair way the NB to the Innuos SE as the outputs are not the same (respectively AES/SPDiF and USB). I owned a innuos Zénith SE mk2 and i sold it quite quickly. Not disappointed so much by the sound but using an external passive server (fedora/SSD/intel Core i5) to run LMS/Roon/minimserver bring much more dynamic and silence than internal innuos server that is quite optimized on LMS and UPnP running with ram buffer but not for Roon and too limited in power. And what to say about usb connection that is often a difficulty. The innuos is not synchronizing with some DACS or interface like mutec mc3+ usb. Innuos knows that and propose to use a ifi purifier 2 (the 2 is important). With the indecent price for upgrading from 2 to 4To and the example before, it made me move to a solution to split the renderer and server function that request more cables and perhaps IT knowledge compare to innuos/Melco solutions. 

 

The chance is that dCS seems to invest in people managing software not like other companies that never manage any updates and does not understand the requests of customers. As you mention with ram buffer management, usb outputs etc...this renderer could become a real money maker.

 

i use essentially Roon but what you mentioned with the dCS app makes me think that I should spend more time on it.

[AMP]

On 5/21/2018 at 8:01 PM, Chiong said:

I tried other UPnP server/controller to play Qobuz with NB in my system (including BubbleUPnP server+OpenHome and Logitech Media Server with UPnP plugin), gapless playback is never correctly supported.

 

Thanks for mentioning this. Gapless was working with third-party apps, but it looks like a change made last year had an unintended side-effect. I've replicated the issue and created a bug report for it. We'll address it during our maintenance update project which is starting this summer.

 

On 5/21/2018 at 8:01 PM, Chiong said:

Album browsing may be suspended for hours once it happens. Restarting app and turn on/off iPhone/iPad also do not work. My temporary solution is use other iPhone/iPad and wait for its coming back.

 

Are you saying that one device loses the ability to interact with the bridge, but you can still connect to it and operate it with a different app? If this happens and you re-boot the bridge are you able to reconnect and have the original device function normally?

 

In general, if the app starts acting up then rebooting the bridge tends to resolve the issue. I haven't seen a problem like this in a long time, though.

[AMP]

On 5/22/2018 at 5:03 PM, Beolab said:

The new app have crashed about once every listening session as before, it occures when i am searching for music on tidal or in my playlists, then the cash memory seems to over float and crashes as a result. 

 

We have a few known issues relating to searching and these are slated for our maintenance release development this summer.

 

On 5/22/2018 at 5:03 PM, Beolab said:

The ground voicing / soundquality sounds exactly the same as before

 

Nothing in this update would have had any impact on sound quality. This was just the streaming component, not the code that runs the FPGA which produces the digital output. In general, for this device, you likely won't see any major changes in sonics from a software update.

 

On 5/22/2018 at 5:03 PM, Beolab said:

Then take advantage of the Ram memory with some dedicated space as a RAM buffer , that should also be a great fw upgrade. 

 

This won't happen for a variety of reasons. There's not enough RAM on the card to be able to cache a large file and, beyond that, there's no reason to take this approach as long as buffers are managed appropriately. Some manufacturers have made a big deal out of this functionality, but that was usually to front spinning disks located inside the device itself. Beyond that it's just marketing.

[Beolab]

7 hours ago, AMP said:

 

We have a few known issues relating to searching and these are slated for our maintenance release development this summer.

 

 

Nothing in this update would have had any impact on sound quality. This was just the streaming component, not the code that runs the FPGA which produces the digital output. In general, for this device, you likely won't see any major changes in sonics from a software update.

 

 

This won't happen for a variety of reasons. There's not enough RAM on the card to be able to cache a large file and, beyond that, there's no reason to take this approach as long as buffers are managed appropriately. Some manufacturers have made a big deal out of this functionality, but that was usually to front spinning disks located inside the device itself. Beyond that it's just marketing.

 

 

Thanks for your answers, then i looking forward for the summer release for a more stabile product without the crashes and minor bugs. 

 

 I also have a quest about Tidal in NB app, that it should be great if you just type in Song name in the search bar , and start play that song, that it should be possible to go to that song’s album so you can listen to the whole album.

Today you have to look at the album cover and search by the artists all album, and then play it. 

 

About the ”Voicing” i think it would be possible for you guys to tweak the FPGA slightly in the upcoming summer release, that would score many points in my book if you just made that effort to perfect it even more. Nothing huge thoug, just slight more weight, and it should be a ”killer” renderer.