The used Scarlattis I am seeing are still $10K+. I wouldn’t spend that for a unit that was new 10 years ago no matter how good it was at the time given improvements in digital. Maybe they updated it since then but still. I would get the nicest units from Esoteric I could afford. They have a wonderful network player and DAC along with external master clocks, etc..

WIldhare wrote:

I am thinking of buying a factory refurbished dCS Scarlatti DAC and there are some options I have with different possible configurations and I am looking for some guidance on what would be best.

I have nearly all my music stored on NAS in either red-book flac rips or, increasingly, high-definition downloads. I have no SACD’s – which I would like to be able to play but its not a high priority. I am using the JRiver media centre on an NUC PC running Ubuntu. I like this setup as there is a good remote control for JRiver and it supports software up-sampling which I have found to be beneficial. It also has awesome cataloging capabilities. However I do think it can be improved by building a better quality PC around the SOtM tX-USBexp USB card.

Currently this feeds a Chord 2-cute DAC through a KT88 based class-A PP amplifier into a pair of Tannoy Kensington’s. The amplifier may get upgraded at some point but atm I think the source is the weak link.

I have identified some options around a refurbished dCS Scarlatti within my budget:

(1) Scarlatti DAC + Master Clock. Retain current media server connected asynchronously via USB to the master clock. Upsampling continues to be done in software by Jriver.

(2) Scarlatti DAC + Up-sampler. Retain current media server connected asynchronously via USB to the up-sampler with the up-sampler (or the DAC?) being used as the master clock.

(3) dCS Network bridge and Scarlatti DAC. No up-sampling except via Roon and the DAC acting as the master clock. This feels expensive for a media server which I can build cheaper and remain in control of. However I am sure that this would be a very high quality streamer.

(4) Something else?

Music is mainly classical with some Jazz and I value the way I can organize that in JRiver. For options (1) or (2) I would probably eventually build the new media server myself anyway and power the USB card with a battery.

Any thoughts on which would be the best option greatly appreciated.

If you have to get a used refurbished DCS Scarlattis I would recommend to go with either option 1 or option 3 considering that the DCS Scarlattis is a legacy product and quite old for a digital front end audio gear.
But like Bierfeldt already stated above that the DCS Scarlattis was at least 10 yrs old and digital front end audio gears evolved and improved over time. I'm sure the Scarlattis was one phenomenal back then and I still think it's still a great sounding digital front end component by today standard and would probably still sound better than most sub $10k DAC/streamer/clock or digital front end components....don't know.

But for around $10k or less you have so many options out there as far as finding newer DAC/streamer/clock components that would probably outperform the DCS Scarlattis. Newer products are usually (not always) MQA compatible that can elevate the quality and sonic performance of your streamings. I know few high end manufacturers would never adopt MQA decoding algorithm capabilities in their products and such high end manufacturers are Linn and Naim Audio.

DCS makes one of the best digital front end source components and are on par with Esoteric, MSB Technology, and Vitus Audio. Linn and Naim Audio are extraordinary as well and I would put them on second runner up.

If you want to look into buying new and current digital front end components I would seriously look into an entry level DCS Debusy if you could afford one. Look into a used market eg Audiogon. Sometimes you could find a used one. You could pair the Debusy with DCS Network Bridge or with other DCS clock such as the Rossini clock, etc. Rossini us a step up from Debusy, and Vivaldi is the flagship line from DCS. FYI, all DCS current products support MQA.

I do own the DCS Vivaldi full four stacks (DAC, master clock, upsampler & CD/SACD transport) in my own setup at home. They are phenomenal but very expensive ($125k for the full four stacks).
The Debusy, being an entry level line, is much much more affordable.

Another great option would be the PS Audio Direct Stream DAC with PerfectWave ll. Extraordinary product for sub $10k DAC. They are MQA compatible. Stereophile had rave review on these products.

Another great options would be various Linn DS (Majik, Akurate & Klimax). The Klimax will be way over your budget. Naim Audio also makes extraordinary streamer/DAC or separate streamer and DAC. But both Linn and Naim do not support MQA. I would seriously look into their products. I used to own Linn Klimax DS (previous generation or a non Katalyst DAC architecture) before upgrading to the DCS Vivaldi full stacks.

What is your budget for digital front end component(s)?