Great news for Bartok owners!
Now dCS, can I please have a Crossfeed feature added to Rossini, as I listen to headphones a ton!
Thanks
I’m really excited about this!! Now that Rossini is further differentiated with APEX hardware, Bartok 2.0 (I hope) will nudge us closer to an original Rossini-like experience in the Bartok package.
Thank you dCS!
Agreed — hubba hubba!
I hope not, I upgraded from Bartok to Rossini not so long ago 
but isn’t an APEX upgrade knocking at your door? 
It’s marketing genius how dCS has blessed us all with an upgrade path and at the same time increased the sales price of all products between 5 and 10k USD or Euro. All legacy Rossini owners now own a Bartok 2.0 and if I want my product to keep its value I have to invest 8k in the APEX upgrade. I believe it’s called yield management.
How about moving to a subscription model like the software industry?
… end cynical mode …
And in a few years time, when supplies are no longer a problem, all Apex owners will see the new dCS line-up being presented, replacing Vivaldi Apex, Rossini Apex, and… a bit later Bartok 2.0.
That answers your question 
Hi Ermos, fair point but the converse is probably also true - without those same supply issues, I suspect we may not have seen the APEX upgrades, DCS may have moved straight to the new models. So you could argue that we’ve benefitted from an extension to the lives of the Rossini and Vivaldi, should we wish to pay for the upgrade.
I also wonder if Bartok 2.0 would have been released if there wasn’t an upgrade option for the Rossini, otherwise there wouldn’t have been much of a gap in performance between Bartok and Rossini. So we’ve all benefitted from having upgrade options (admittedly the Bartok upgrade is free) should we choose to do so. And of course our “old” Rossinis are still superb DACS and we can always decide to wait for new models further down the line.
Just another perspective.
I will probably chose not to do the APEX upgrade and wait for the new product
This is good news for Bartok owners. I also purchased a Rossini recently after owning a Bartok for 12 months and home testing a Rossini alonside Bartok for two weeks experimenting with the mapping differences to check that the performance gap from the Bartok to Rossini was not exclusively due to the S/W. I knew that eventually a Bartok upgrade would happen but I still chose to buy the Rossini because it sounds way better than the Bartok even running Map2. Rest assured the Rossini has noticeably lower noise floor, is much more dynamic and has better timing than the Bartok - it makes more convincing music. Bartok 2.0 is great news for Bartok owners but it wont really close the gap to Rossini in terms of musicality’
Agreed. Six months ago I upgraded from Bartok to Rossini for about £10,000. Now I hear the Bartok 2.0 upgrade almost reaches my non Apex Rossini for zero cost. And an Apex upgrade for me is about £6,000. So dCS how does that make your loyal customers feel? Not so loyal actually.
I’d go with - all the dCS DAC’s are excellent.
You can get the shades of grey as you go up the list but you need an increasingly expensive rig to pull out the resolutions. If you get lost in your music you’re in a good place. The upgrade lust is powerful I know.
I’m a bartok user and I’m in heaven. thank you so much dcs, you are the best!!
I can understand your frustration, but what exactly did you expect? dCS can’t stop upgrading their product line and you just happened to upgrade near the end of a cycle. Are you saying they don’t deserve your loyalty because they offered upgrades across their product line? Would you prefer they discontinued the Rossini and replaced it completely with a new model?
I expect your Rosinni will still outperform the upgraded Bartok, just not quite as much as before. Plus you now have the option to upgrade to APEX in the future if you choose. I’m not sure how dCS could be more customer friendly than this (aside from maybe making the APEX upgrade a bit cheaper…)
This end of the cycle for Rossini was not expected, it came very early. Now, in 6 months time, we are supposed to be happy ditching an almost new Ring DAC board, and exchange for the Apex version, at 8K plus…
There always becomes a point where things change, unfortunately for you you’re timing was not great it seems for you.
But if you had stuck with the bartock and got the free upgrade the jump to an apex rossini would still be the same price, its just that you might have been happier saving the money the rossini cost and just staying put at bartock 2.
I would just try and put it all to the back of your mind, enjoy what you have as it is simply wonderful, plus you have the opportunity to inpove further if you wish at some point.
I have had my secondhand rossini and clock now for about 2 years, not sure if the apex is worth the outlay for me yet, but its nice to know i have the opportunity if i want
I’m hoping dCS comes out with a 3.0 software update for the Rossini!
Now I hear the Bartok 2.0 upgrade almost reaches my non Apex Rossini for zero cost.
That’s a big assumption since nobody’s even heard Bartok 2.0 yet. As a Bartok owner, I would be happy with that, but I’m not going to kid myself. Bartok has been compared to Rossini on the 1.0 mapping and it is said the gap is still wide.
Agree. I’m excited about the Bartok 2.0 software upgrade. But viewing in context of a Bartok upgrade is the best way to look at it. I shouldn’t have compared it to the Rossini in my post above.