Paganini Upsampler

Our design philosophy behind the Paganini range was to build a system as close as possible in performance to Scarlatti, but more accessible. The same high engineering standards and electronics are common throughout the dCS product ranges.

The Paganini range has a similar feature set to Scarlatti with the main differences being in the chassis, transport mechanism and the remote handset. These differences mean little is lost in the resulting musical performance and we think Paganini has a very special kind of magic.

The patent pending (GB0817141.5) Paganini Upsampler or digital-to-digital converter (DDC) converts digital audio data at one sample rate to a higher sample rate, providing listeners with higher levels of performance from any industry standard digital source, including PC/Mac and Media Servers.

Upsampling to progressively higher sample rates makes progressive improvements to fine detail, sound stage depth and image separation. This means the sound quality increases as you upsample CD data first to 24/88.2, then to 24/176.4, then to DSD.

Using Paganini Upsampler to present data with a higher information capacity to the dCS Ring DAC^TM results in extraordinary performance as our patented dCS Ring DAC^TM, which is a discrete balanced design, does not use any off-the-shelf DAC chips commonly found in other manufacturers' product.

All of the Paganini products benefit from our ‘soft' approach to programmable logic, which allows new software to be loaded from a dCS update disc to add new features or adapt to changes in digital formats.

The Paganini Upsampler's USB interface operates in "asynchronous" mode (NOT to be confused with asynchronous rate conversion), where the Upsampler synchronises the audio by providing a feedback pipe to the PC/Mac. The computer then is effectively locked to the Upsampler, which can have a much more accurate clock and much lower jitter.

• type
• Digital-to-Digital Converter

• finish options
• Silver or Black

• dimensions
• (W) 460mm x (D) 400mm x (H) 110mm
  (W) 18.1" x (D) 15.8" x (H) 4.4"

• weight
• 10.6 kg/ 23.3lbs.

• CD mechanism
• N/A

• converter type
• N/A

• analogue outputs
• N/A

• digital I/O

• Inputs

  * USB2.0 interface on a B-type connector. Operates in asynchronous mode.
  * AES3 on a 3-pin female XLR connector.
  * 2x SPDIF on 2x RCA Phono connectors.
  * All digital inputs will accept PCM data at up to 24 bit PCM at 32, 44.1, 48, 88.2 or 96kS/s.

  Outputs

  * IEEE 1394 interface on 2x 6-way connectors. In DSD mode, the interface outputs dCS-encrypted DSD (1 bit data at 2.822MS/s).
  * 2x AES3 on 3-pin female XLR connectors. Each outputs 24 bit PCM at 32, 44.1, 48, 88.2 or 96kS/s, OR as a Dual AES pair at 88.2, 96, 176.4 or 192kS/s.
  * 2x SPDIF on RCA Phono connectors. Each outputs 24 bit PCM at 32, 44.1, 48, 88.2 or 96kS/s.

• word clock I/O
• Word Clock Input on 1x BNC connector. Accepts standard word clock at 32, 44.1, 48, 88.2 & 96kHz.
  Sensitive to TTL levels.

  Word Clock Output on 1x BNC connector. Outputs standard word clock at a frequency equal to the (single wire) output data rate, or 44.1kHz when set to output DSD.

• clock frequencies
• N/A

• residual noise
• N/A

• spurious responses
• Better than -100dB0 @ 20Hz - 20kHz for Fs> 32kS/s, 20Hz - 14kHz for 32kS/s.

• filters
• PCM mode - 4 filters give different trade-offs between the Nyquist image rejection and the phase response when converting 44.1 > 88.2, 44.1 > 176.4, 44.1 > DSD, 48 > 96, 48 > 192 or 88.2 to DSD.

• software updates
• Loaded from CD-R.

• software version
• 1.10

• local control
• An optional metal cased IR remote is available, or RS232.

• power supply
• Factory set for 100, 115, 220 or 230 V AC, 49 - 62Hz

• power consumption
• 12.7 Watts typical/ 15 Watts maximum.