To all dCS Puccini owners : sharing of experience

"That's what happens when you get too intoxicated by music,
dead drunk, that I am!"

[Hickup!. . . a little slurred. . .] Ill drink to that! G.

Jon, can't help observing that you are likely another Die Muzick lover. . . I am using Mahler 1.5 right now. . . but might be able to migrate to the awesome Muzick by year end. . . never heard speakers that I love better than Vienna Die Muzick. The rest of my system is different from yours. . . TEAC Esoteric X-01 Limited CDp, Rowland Criterion pre, Rowland Model 312 amp. X-01 not having variable output, running without a pre is not an option. . . used to use ARC ref 3, but is very subtractive compared to the pres I used after it. . . Rowland Capri, and even more so Criterion. Difficult to say of course what the effect of any of my pres would be on your system. . . synergistic. . . or just introducing problems. Guido

Hi John. . . my secret hope is your good wishes about my speedier conversion to Muzick can come true (trins). . . by the way I am also a great fan of Shunyata PCs, particularly the newest King Cobra CXs. . . there is some awesomeness to them.

About your observation. . .

"I find that sometimes upconversion to DSD does not sound as it should until I go the Menu -> Setup -> PCM first then switch to DSD."

This is very interesting, and may indicate that the procedure activates a particular signal processing path not available any other way in the user interface. It may be worth while you contacting the DCS importer, or DCS UK even better. . . they might be able to create a direct shortcut to the option in a future UI firmware refresh.

Jon2020, in general, if you ever use a Shunyata wire on Puccini, I suggest you do not adopt a VX variant. . . VX contains pellets of a FeSi filtering compound. . . it is meant to shield the system from incoming and outgoing stray high frequencies. It is my understanding that the series was developed when a lot of CDPs were supersensitive to grunge, and in turn tended to inject grunge back into the AC. Outwardly, VX does have a smoothing effect, but at least on my TEAC Esoteric X-01 Limited, it tends to lacquer away extremely fine detail, and paradoxically introduces some minor hardness in the mid treble. Puccini being in the same league as X-01 is likely to experience the same issue. The Shunyata Alpha variants and the recent CX series have no FeSi filtering and do not cause any loss of fine detail. . . on the contrary, CX is uber-scrumptious! G.