Cirrus vs Crystal DSP Engines

[Adz]

The 1066 and 1068 use Crystal Semiconductor to handle the DSP processing, while the 1098 uses Cirrus Logic to decode the material. At first it just seemed obvious that the Cirrus Logic is a better chip since its the one used by Rotel in its reference player, but then I came across the fact that more expensive pre/pros such as the Krell line use the same Crystal Semi chip as in the 1066/1068. Can someone please clarify why this doesn't add up.




Adz

[Aussie Geoff]

Adz,

You will be pleased to know that Crystal is a brand name used by Cirrus for their earlier generation DSP processors (1999 to 2002 or so). They seem to be phasing it out with their newer products. The CS49400 processor in the RSP-1098 was the best that Cirrus sold until January 5 this year with its 8 channels of 192Kz / 24 bit up sampling for all inputs etc and 770 MIPS of processing power - when they came out with an even better one (the CS49500 with 16 channels and 1440 MIPS!) that no one is using yet. Cirrus are very aggressive at coming out with better and faster processors every year. I boggles the mind what we will have in 3 or 4 years (think real time 8 channel parametric equalisation on 16 discrete channels for a start)

However sound quality is a product of many many things, DSP speed and resolution is just one factor, A/Ds, op amps, power supply, component quality etc all play a big influence.

But you can rest assured that in terms of DSP specs and grunt the Rotel RSP-1098 is up their with the best and technically one or two generations ahead of those used in the Krell, the Parasound etc.

Besides (and most importantly) the RSP-1098 sounds magnificent

Geoff Costello