dCS had another great show, as a matter of fact I cannot recall of a poor show for dCS in recent times, not even a mediocre one for the matter. Similar to last year’s set up, there were Wilson Alexia speakers with D’Agostino Momentum power amplifiers and Transparent cables (the ones with the attached BBQ grill).
dCS brought the upgraded 2.0 Vivaldi stack which now has new digital filters with 2x DSD upsampling, network capability, improved clocking, new USB receiver hardware, new control app, new you-name-it. In other words, every single component except from the clock has been redesigned for an end result being among Munich’s finest. Coherent and natural sound, excellent on voices and at the same time glorious on big scale orchestras the system played everything with grace and authority at the same time. Important, there was no preamplifier, meaning the internal digital volume control must be very well implemented as I could hear no loss of fine detail at all.
Also on display there was a small plexiglass sign saying “Roon Ready”. Apparently, if Tidal streaming was last year’s hot topic, Roon is monopolizing all 2016 headlines. dCS being an undisputed leader in digital audio, and caring to become Roon certified, is of some importance. Up to now, Roon made it to DACs and streamers from Auralic, TotalDAC, Exasound, iFi, LH Labs, Meridian and others with the list growing constantly.
Digital is the future, if not the present, and a better, more complete user interface is a must. Are you Roon ready?
