TSS Casework

In the prototype TSS pictures, it appears that both the digital and analog boxes will have a screen. I would suggest that form should follow function and that only the digital box should have a screen.

That is in fact what we did, though both TSS boxes have the black front panel glass. Behind the glass on the digital board is a screen, and behind the glass on the analog is a view inside the the unit where there are a few LEDs glowing.

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with the analog view area, would one be able to darken the screen so the LED’s are not visible (my taste craves an invisible display…most of the time)

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Hi Paul – Any update on the TSS? Also, will the new disc spinner have the same casework as the TSS?

Good luck with getting an answer to the second question…I asked it already but didn’t get an answer. We don’t even know if the new disc spinner will support SACD. I suspect it will, but from what @jamesh has said, they haven’t decided on that yet.

Will there be an Obsidian Power Plant 15 to match the casework of the TSS?

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Hi Paul,
Could one get the TSS analog box first and use it with an existing DAC (ie DS Sr.), or the 2 TSS boxes - analog + digital only work together?
Also, does the TSS analog box offer a Home Theater passthrough for use with a Surround Processor?
Thanks.

The digital and analog boxes of the TSS are designed to work together. They are connected via a proprietary optical connection. No extant transport or other digital source can provide the properly formatted signal to the analog box. The digital box wouldn’t be useful without the analog box.

The analog box isn’t a preamp nor does it have preamp like features. The digital box does provide a volume control, but the analog box doesn’t know anything about that.

Perhaps the thinking of them as a better version of the digital and analog cards in the DS helps.

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Thanks Ted for the detailed explanation.

Stepping back to the big picture… the thing called “TSS” is essentially a DAC that for engineering reasons comes in two boxes rather than one.

The “digital” box is where it takes inputs from your digital sources, the “analog” box is where you get the analog signal out of the DAC process. There are no analog audio inputs on the TSS at all, on either box. The connection between the two boxes is a very high speed optical digital link using a propriety coding scheme.

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It would be very subtle if that’s the way we go, but probably not adjustable since the LEDs inside serve a purpose.

The new disc spinner will be in the same PerfectWave chassis as the DMP and not in the TSS. We are still negotiating with suppliers for a SACD transport so we can offer SACD with the new transport but they are far and few between and the tiny handful of candidates
are tough to work with (so far). But, we’re trying.

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No plans as of yet but eventually we would want to see an entire line of Obsidian products in matching cases, yes.

That’s what I strongly expected from the beginning. Wouldn’t make that much sense otherwise.

Will the BHK phono stage be another product of this range already?

Probably. If Bascom finishes his design of a two-chassis vacuum tube phono stage as planned then definitely it’ll go into an Obsidian chassis. We shall see.

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