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, CD/SACD 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 dCS Ring DAC found in all of our DACs is a discrete balanced design which does not use any off-the-shelf DAC chips commonly found in other manufacturers' product. Paganini DAC uses an enhanced version of our patented Ring DAC, improved through increased processing power, faster FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays), updated power supplies and a quieter electrical environment.

Paganini DAC features standard AES3 and SPDIF inputs in addition to the IEEE1394 interfaces. The digital volume control allows direct connection to a power amplifier, there is no need for a preamplifier. Maximum output can be either two or six volts to suit different amp/speaker combinations. Four filters are provided in DSD mode to allow listeners to tailor system response.

The unit can be used in Master mode to provide a clock for source components, and can be locked to an external word clock signal generated by a dCS Master Clock - this produces a substantial performance improvement.

Paganini DAC is intended to be used with the matching upsampling Paganini CD/SACD Transport or with any industry standard CD Transport.
The PCM inputs on all our DACs are industry standard AES/EBU, SPDIF or SDIF interfaces. There should be no difficulty using them with other manufacturers' equipment, provided it also complies with industry standards.

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 and adapt to changes in digital formats.

• Paganini DAC uses the latest version of the patented dCS Ring DAC, which has several detail improvements over earlier versions.
• The dCS Ring DAC is a discrete balanced design which does not use any off-the-shelf DAC chips commonly found in other manufacturer's products.
• Our proprietary 5 bit oversampling topology produces exceptional linearity across the dynamic range.
• All dCS products use a sophisticated multi-mode phase locked loop (PLL), which significantly reduces clock jitter.
• Faster, 100% accurate DSPs (within the bounds of their resolution) give improved filters, revealing yet more fine detail.
• Higher capacity FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) give more logic capacity and increase the scope for additional features and enhancements.
• Improved power supplies give lower running temperature and increased tolerance to AC supply variations.
• Our 'soft' approach to programmable logic allows dCS products to adapt to changes in digital formats and add new features by loading new software from a CD.
• High grade aluminium chassis and laminated acoustic damping panels reduce magnetic effects and vibration.
• The Paganini range features a low-power LCD display that makes the user interface easier to read, keeps the power requirements down and minimises electrical noise.