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ARE DCS Dacs worth the high cost?

Looking at a new DCS Rossini and wonder if anyone has compared other Dacs to the DCS line and if they come close to the performance.
128x128samgar2
phantom_av's avatar
phantom_av
326 posts
 
I did a few installs and room acoustic design for clients who own the DCS Dacs. Personal opinion of mine and those who work with me, the DAC is not worth the money and is marketing is very clever and more focused to those with high-income salaries or business owners who have no time to sit all day reviewing or comparing dacs. The marketing is focused more on Bragging rights and Magazine Reviews which i assume is paid somehow.

Simply put it if you Own a DCS DAC you have the utmost bragging right as you can afford to pay silly amounts of money on something very expensive. 

Want something musical? There are many DACs now on the market which can beat and compete with DCS at a much lower cost.
phantom_av's avatar
phantom_av
326 posts
 
I also think if it was MSB vs DCS, to me MSB always sounded fuller and less fatiguing 
hgeifman
2,237 posts
 

@samgar2, The DCS Rossini DAC is only one piece of the entire audio system chain including the source, amplifiers, speakers, cables, power cords, the room and other things. The DCS Rossini DAC may sound great in one system and horrible in another. In some cases, the listing room may also influence the overall sound quality.

The answer to the question of price vs. sound quality depends on the person listening. If you like the way the DCS Rossini DAC sounds and, can afford it, then you purchase it. Everyone on the forum knows that there are many DAC’s available at many different price points and, obviously, many different levels of sound quality.

For me, it is a balancing act between what I can afford and what sounds good. I cannot afford the DCS Rossini DAC, so I ignore it. The difficult part of any DAC decision is the auditioning of many DAC’s in your system to decide what DAC sounds best at your price level. Unfortunately, in this hobby, it is very difficult to audition 5+ DAC’s in our home audio systems so we read reviews, talk to retailers, friends and comments posted on Audiogon, etc.

This makes the purchasing decision process even harder since no one has the exact same equipment, room, or listing tastes. OR, in other words, everyone has a ’different opinion’. For me, it is more important to hear the equipment in my space so I can best judge what sounds good (to me!). I purchase equipment that sounds great at my price point in my audio system.

This hobby is weird. It is very easy to look at the next purchase, the next DAC or another mod, and forget that what you already own sounds excellent.

I own the Bricasti M21 DAC with the MDx board upgrade and like it very much. This DAC has both a signal delta DAC and a laddered DAC so you have 2 options. I usually listen to the laddered DAC option since it sounds the best to me.



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ejlif's avatar
ejlif
1,375 posts
 
About a year ago I took a leap and bought the DCS Rossini and clock after reading many many reviews and thinking long and hard.  My first evening listening all I could think is guys have no idea what they are missing.  I've tried many sub 10K DACs etc... and have had a lot of gear for a lot of years but this thing really rocked my world.  Yeah it's a ton of money but for me it's worth it, it exceeded my expectations.  I don't think you need the clock just the DAC is good enough.  The clock makes it better but I didn't even hook up the clock for a while and just listened to the DAC and wow what a great piece of gear.  After using for a year it's just been totally solid not a gitch or hiccup such a well built piece of machinery.  Guys hate on this expensive stuff and say we are dumb braggers just for buying it.  It's a shame we can't all have one because after many years of upgrading and trying tons of stuff I still had a lot of room left to be surprised by something.  
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