We’re all set up and ready for you in the Preston Trail 1 room. We’re showcasing the new Lina 2.0 upgrade as part of the full Lina stack, as well as the Bartók APEX Headphone DAC and Rossini APEX DAC paired with the Lina Master Clock and Headphone Amplifier. We’re thrilled to have the new Meze...

Thank you for your kind comments! It's always a pleasure interacting with the folks on here - passion for the gear and music makes it a super easy group to talk to :) We have a very good coupling transformer that we use on the network circuitry to remove any electrical noise on the interface...

I totally get you on analysis paralysis, so I’d definitely say start with the Mappers and then take a look at some of the other new settings after a day or two once you’re more used to the sound - and with fresh ears. Both the Mappers and Upsampling are ‘set and forget’ settings, so if you...

Mapper 2 is the 'Classic' Mapper, which is the same as your Lina will have had before the 2.0 update. Mapper 1 and 3 are the new ones, so they will be where you want to experiment, with Mapper 2 as a good baseline comparison. Typically I find Mapper 1 is more musical and Mapper 3 as more...

Lina as the DAC going into the analogue inputs on the HE 1 👍

What software versions is it running? You can see either from the front panel or via the Mosaic app - be good to make sure it is up to date (and particularly that it has had the 2.0 update).

Introducing Lina 1.1 We are pleased to announce the release of Lina 1.1. Available for download on Tuesday 21st March 2023 10am GMT. Like all dCS streaming DACs, Lina was designed with upgradeability in mind. Flexible firmware provides unlimited scope for future improvement, with new features...

That's a really good question. The hardware in the Vivaldi Clock is unique to the Vivaldi range (so the power board itself, and naturally the Vivaldi Clock uses the Vivaldi processing platform so can among other things perform more sophisticated DSP) - how exactly that filters down to specific...

Rossini Clock will give better performance than Lina Clock. Same again for Vivaldi Clock, and we do have customers who have paired the Vivaldi Clock with the Bartók. To try and contextualise the difference, Bartók < Bartók + Lina Clock < Bartók + Rossini Clock < Rossini DAC with no master clock...

In terms of straight D/A conversion (so headphone amplification aside), the Bartók 2.0 definitely has the edge. That is true even with the pre-APEX Bartók (which I am assuming this is if it is on the 2nd hand market currently). An APEX upgrade on the Bartók, particularly if using an external...

We’re setting up for CanJam NYC in the Uris Room, and we can’t wait to share the Lina experience with you! The full Lina stack will be available to demo with a large selection of high-end headphones - you’re also welcome to trial your own. Our team will be on hand to answer your questions, or...

The full benefit of the APEX upgrade is definitely through the line outputs of the Bartók (so with an external HP amp) as the upgrade includes a rework of the analogue line output stage. However, there are changes that absolutely benefit the in-built headphone output stage, as they are...

There are engineering explanations for it – I would invite you to take a read of the Clocking posts aimed at exactly this here. In short though, the Lina DAC does use two high quality VCXOs, the same used in our other DACs. No compromise on hardware. Using external Master Clocks solves a...

Thanks to all those that have read and commented – we hope you’ve all enjoyed the series. For those of you who would like to find out more about dCS products, we’ll be heading to CanJam New York this weekend with the Bartók Headphone DAC. You can find us at the New York Marriott Marquis, Times...

Part 5: Asynchronous Sources – USB & Network Audio Audio sent over an asynchronous format (such as streaming to a smartphone via Spotify, playing content from a NAS via Roon, or playing music from a computer via USB) is, to an extent, the exception to the rules stated in the previous posts, in...

Part 4: Clock Synchronisation There is a problem posed when multiple digital audio devices, each with their own internal clocks, need to work together. Take the example of feeding a CD transport into a DAC. The DAC has a buffer – a section of temporary memory which stores the audio samples it...

Part 3: Jitter (Interface) If a product is locking to the clock signal of an external source, such as a CD transport connected to a DAC, interference picked up by digital audio cables between the products can smear the transition times of the clock data within the signal – essentially, changing...

Part 2: Jitter (intrinsic) There are two main kinds of jitter: intrinsic and interface. Intrinsic jitter refers to jitter which is produced inside of a product like a DAC, through effects like phase noise on the oscillator. Interface jitter refers to jitter which is picked up by the...

Part 1: The Basics of Clocking Clocking is an integral part of digital audio, and almost all audio products have a clock inside. As discussed in our previous series on digital to analogue conversion, digital audio recordings are made up of a series of samples. An audio product such as a DAC has...

Hi folks, Following our series on D/A conversion, we have a new set of posts to share. These posts will focus on another important aspect of the D/A conversion process, which is clocking. Whilst a DAC’s circuitry is responsible for making sure the right voltage is generated on conversion...

Part 6 – Filter Design in ADCs and DACs How do the digital audio filters discussed in Part 5 work, and how should they be designed? This may sound counterintuitive, but the filtering required in both ADCs and DACs is actually very similar. In an ADC, the audio is coming into the converter at a...

The crucial point to consider from part 5 is that the digital audio has already been through a filter in the ADC before it reaches the DAC. The ADC is exposed to the real, analogue world, which isn’t bandlimited. Audio above 44.1kS/s Nyquist may well contain musical information (cymbals...

Part 5 – Filtering in Digital Audio Most DACs will have some information in their specifications about the types of filtering they use. As these filters are an incredibly important part of the product, it is worthwhile explaining why and how they are used. To understand why we need a filter...

James here with a quick update on this series. Thanks to all those of you who've submitted comments so far. We'll be bringing you another post very soon, but we're working on preparing some additional information that we hope will address some of the questions that have come up over the past few...

Well, it’s been a busy weekend and this week has completely gotten away from me so far, but I’ll attempt to cover some of the points raised: Firstly, there seems to be a misunderstanding about what we are trying to achieve – we are not trying to “fix” R-2R, or “fix” Delta/Sigma – we are trying...