dCS Elgar plus vs. Delius - confused

Yes, Elgar Plus accepts 24/196 with their dual AESBU. And I also second Gtfour45 opinion in that replacing the stock firewire cable is a worthwhile upgrade. In my case using all Siltech cablings. Prior to fw cable change have always preferred their dual AESBU, whereas now, mostly listens to the DSD up-sampled format.

Do consider including their Verona master clock in the stack if budget permits. Another 'very worthwhile' difference! Making the whole musical presentation more analogue and relax sounding, with you feeling just more 'there' there.

Also pay particular attention to cabling - ICs, power cords and good AC too. Otherwise they might leave one the impression of being a tad cold / clinical as often wrongly perceived by some. Having lived with them happily for 5yrs now, I can confidently say that they are anything but "that". When optimally set up, imo it still is one of the better digital playback system worthy of respect today.

And I believe, with their newer releases, classic DCS stack could be snap up quite reasonably in the second hand market now (thus very good value). Hope all this help. Best!

To the best of my knowledge DCS DACs do not use a volume control in the digital domain, rather they use a switched analogue attenuation network. I have found the DAC attenuator to be less intrusive than any preamp that I have inserted afterward,

Murray

Hi audiobb,

You are right - if you have a Purcell and a 1394-equipped Delius or Elgar Plus, you can feed in native CD sample rate and choose which upsampled rate you want to listen to, all the way up to the DSD rate. So if you want to make the effort, you can decide "I like CD A best upsampled at 96kHZ, but prefer CD B at 192 and CD C, D, E and F at DSD".

The Purcell can also take a range of different rates as input (see the website for the exact values).

There's a good review in the on-line Stereophile archives (about 2003 I think) that goes through the possibilities.

You haven't said what you are considering as transport, so I should mention that dCS Verdi is a transport only and requires a Purcell for upsampling, whereas Verdi LaScala and its replacement Verdi Encore have DSD upsampling built-in.

That means you don't need a Purcell, but then your choices are limited to CD upsampled to DSD through the Firewire or CD at its native rate through another digital input.

You can still use a Purcell with the LaScala and Encore, to get the wider range of upsampling choices.

It gets a bit complicated...

Hi everybody,

Thanks a lot for your answers.Gtfour45,it does get a little bit complicated.Upgrade after upgrade after upgrade etc.I started searching for a good DAC,and Elgar plus and Delius emerged.I am looking for a DAC with volume control in digital domain.I think both of these DACs have digital volume control,as mentioned in Stereophile.

I am usually not a fan of digital volume control,but i will soon own a pair of mono attenuators using only Vishay S102,so it will be possible for me to adjust the volume using them. Dig. vol. control is there only to be used with remote near the top of the range,so i don't have to get up every time i want to listen a bit less loud.

I am still in doubt whether to go dCS or not,as it seems there is no end.First Elgar plus,then Purcell,then Verona,cables..Seems like a long way to go.

Bvdiman,thanks for the info.I like the idea of having the possibility to change the sound with different upsampling settings.You are right,this could be very good value second hand with the release of Scarlatti.
I am planning to use my Quad CD-P2 as a transport first (as a player or DAC the bass is somewhat slower,altough tolerable).Then later Verdi,if i go the dCS route.

Still not sure is it maybe better to go in "one-box-solution" direction.It started with P8i,but then i found out there is no Program,Repeat or Random functions.
I don't want to have a 14k player which is not capable of doing things 200$ player can.It just frustrates me.
Puccini has them,but 12.5k$ used is too much for me.
Accuphase seems also as a possible solution (DP-500,or DP-75V or similar,it depends),but i am searching for the fast,tight bass source (among other things).dCS seems more like that.
So many options and questions..
Thanks for the answers everybody!