As I understand it, pricing is provided by the distributor for each region and can be obtained from a dealer. I don’t think dCS publish pricing directly.
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I’m not following this but I may be misunderstanding it. What does the cost incurred in having to throw away the previous board have to do with the 3 upgrade price tiers for Bartok owners? Does it cost more the older your DAC is?
I think these are best treated as two different questions, the first about @miguelito 's response and the second about tiered upgrade pricing.
For the first, I think @miguelito was responding to the following post:
This post assumes (as one might) that the increase in price is directly related to the cost of the new Apex board, but forgets that dCS already provided a RingDAC in the original unit, which obviously cost something for them to manufacture.
To try and address the second part of your question, it looks like dCS, recognising that some recent customers (having already seen appreciable price increases) might not be happy with the fact their new DAC is now no longer the newest model, decided to take a hit for their most recent customers (and, possibly, some less recent customers too, although I’m not clear on the details).
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I hope to hear the Bartok Apex at the CanJam NYC event in just over a week. Does anyone know how long we have to wait until the first reviews hit the net?
Add up the cost of an old Bartok. Lets say it is $20 for everything but the ring DAC board, which is $10. Lets say there’s no depreciation. Now lets say the cost of a new Bartok APEX ring DAC board is also $10, same as the old board.
Effectively when you upgrade you have to pay $20 + $10 (original cost of Bartok) plus $10 - that’s $40, whereas the cost of a Bartok APEX is $20 + $10 - that’s $30.
For me it’s quite simple really. Grateful to have options and choice.
Choice to adopt, or not to adopt, an in-place upgrade without having to replace the entire component.
Choice to move up, or down, across four different dCS product lines.
Choice to buy from dCS, or not buy from dCS.
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Forgive me for not including the second half of your question as this seems aimed at dCS and not my reply to Diego.
You may have missed that my response was referring to the post from Diego where he said ‘It would be fair that the price of the upgrade would match the price difference between the Bartok Apex (19000) and the old Bartok (end 2022 price, 15750 £)’.
In other words, all other things being equal, it’s being suggested the cost of the upgrade should be no more than the sales price had to increase to cover the cost of the new board.
But the old board that is already in the DAC (and being replaced) also cost money to build. So, the upgrade price needs to either include this cost too, or dCS are likely going to end up selling the upgrades at a loss, which isn’t sustainable.
While it strikes me as prudent to subsidise customers who just bought their units, I don’t think dCS should be expected to contribute towards every customer ever to upgrade to Apex regardless of how long they’ve had their unit.
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Whether the asking price is seen as fair has to be decided by each individual owner - and I completely get that it’s seen as an expensive upgrade.
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That’s exactly what someone suggested (which is why I highlighted their post in my initial response).
By comparing the previous price of the Bartok with its new price, but ignoring that the unit was already delivered to the customer with the original RingDAC board, the author is subtracting the cost of this board to dCS from the equation.
It’s a bit like saying ‘I bought a camera from you last year for £30 which came with the older version of the lens. I now want to upgrade to the new ‘pro’ version of the lens which costs £10, but as the old lens was already paid for, I’ll take the new lens at a discounted price of £3, feel free to bin the old one’. This ignores that the old lens still cost money to design, test and manufacture - and only focuses on the fact that it was paid for.
If retail is set at one price and it’s being offered for less than that to some customers, then I would suggest these customers are being subsidised.
BTW I’m not suggesting such a subsidy is wrong.
I’m going to stop here to point out that my original comment was responding to the OP, not you or anyone else. I’ve tried to draw your attention to this, even quoting the original post a couple of times, but it seems to have failed, so I’m stopping.
I didn’t say anyone asked for a free upgrade, but that the OP was asking for upgrades that were likely unachievable. My analogy wasn’t (and still isn’t) perfect, but I’d edited it while you were writing this response.
I bid you good night.
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I have placed an order for the upgrade and now await a RA from the dCS US base in Delaware to send it to be upgraded. The cost to me is US$4,500 plus tax (I bought my Bartok in December 2021 for $16k). So, for $4,500 upgrade cost I will have invested approximately the same amount ($20,500) as I would if I just bought a new Bartok Apex ($20,950). Pretty much a no brainer for me. Here are some thoughts for others whose upgrade cost, plus original outlay, might end up costing more than the cost of a new Bartok Apex.
When we buy high end audio equipment we get the value of enjoyment of the product’s performance, plus an asset that has financial value that can be partially recovered when sold on the used market, plus an intangible called “pride of ownership” which might not have financial value, but does have psychological value to the owner never-the-less. I think of my Bartok as providing all this value, so I am very happy with my original purchase. I also think of the upgrade cost as having increased the value of it in each of these ways. Financially, as many have noted in this thread, The $4500 cost is protecting my investment. If I don’t make that $4500 investment my Bartok is now worth $4k to $5k less on the open market. So, if I do invest $4500 I will get most of that back if I were to sell it before the next upgrade is announced. Again, easy decision.
But that investment also provides a huge increase in SQ (according to Rossini and Vivaldi Apex reviews), which is hard to put a financial price on, but will provide a big increase in listening enjoyment. If I don’t make the investment I will always be wondering what I am missing. And, think of this: is there any other change you can make to your system for $4500 that will make as significant an increase in SQ as the Apex upgrade? Honestly, I cannot think of anything else that will come even close to the upgrade.
Finally, the investment allows me to psychologically have an increase in pride of ownership, thinking that I’m doing everything within reason to get the maximum quality of listening experience by making wise choices in my audio purchases.
Of course, many on this thread have a much higher outlay, so you are processing this decision differently. However, if your total outlay of the original price plus upgrade is close to the new Bartok Apex price, you might arrive at a similar conclusion to mine. I find most of the community members to be solid analytical thinkers.
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I mean no disrespect, but for what market do you think Apex was intended? Improving the performance and extending the product life cycle of the flagship unit—when there may not be a successor to it in the near future—makes complete sense. Rossini and Bartok owners benefit as well, because Vivaldi Apex improves the brand overall and keeps all segments of the line competitive. Just read the reviews.
[In contrast, note how Expanse is moving up the line. Validated in the headphone market through Bartok, it’s now being offered for free to existing customers of Rossini and eventually to Vivaldi (I hope; I don’t need it but others might). The approaches for upgrading hardware and software/firmware options naturally will differ. But both these approaches make sense to me.]
Do you think dCS should just ignore someone willing to spend those dollars in 2013 as a future customer? Please provide an example of someone who sells a premium product or service but doesn’t care where those customers spend their money in the future?
I bought my Vivaldi in 2020. Should dCS not have pitched Apex to people like me who might be very happy to upgrade their system and validate that upgrade?
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As I have stated previously here, great that dCS have been able to produce an upgrade that has been widely viewed as very positive via both Vivaldi/Rossini owners and numerous audiophile press reviews. Makes sense for them and dCS owners. I’m guessing APEX will provide a similar degree of improvement to Bartok over pre-APEX Bartok. Seems reasonable that post-APEX upgrade, the previous gap in SQ will exist in Bartok vs. Rossini as was the case pre-APEX. That would justify the price gap of essentially $12K more for the APEX version of Rossini over that of Bartok APEX. Waiting to see what Bartok owners that evaluate the upgrade think, as well as the audiophile press.
I think a very real factor that is generally missed here in terms of the 3 levels of Bartok APEX pricing dCS has implemented in the US is inflation. My Bartok w/HA is just now three years old. It retailed for $15K when I bought it. Inflation has widely thought to have increased about 20% in the U.S. over the course of the past 3 years. So using that assumption, here’s the true value math:
$15K x 20% inflation = $3K
$18K + $9K (for APEX upgrade) = $27K
That’s $4K in today’s dollar value I or other Bartok owners in the same boat over the same time period would have invested over what a brand new, equivalent Bartok APEX costs.
Even if inflation over the past 3 years in the US was only 16% or 18%, the reality is similar to the above example.
That’s what I really object to—I’m being penalized for buying the Bartok sooner than others that purchased more recently. Actually $3,100 more + tax than someone who bought one year more recently than I did. I don’t have an issue with the limited-time offer of $4,500 for recent purchasers, it’s this extra amount triggered by 2 + years of ownership that doesn’t make sense to me. According to my local dealer, dCS offered a similar initial upgrade price for very recent purchasers of Vivaldi and Rossini prior to the APEX upgrade, but those two tiers were it—no third tier based on 2 years or more ownership. Now that I have digested all of this for a week, I would pay the $5,900 upgrade fee offered to Bartok owners who bought in the past 2 years, but very unlikely to pay $9K.
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I’m sorry, you’ve lost me. You’re tacking on inflation to the money you spent in 2020? But you didn’t spend $18k, and you didn’t lose it by not investing it. You spent 15k, and you didn’t “invest” it; you spent it. Plus, you received the benefit of three years of listening to Bartok under warranty that others who bought later did not. Asking dCS to give you credit for the inflationary version of your 2020 spend is voodoo economics. If anything, you need to factor in depreciation, not inflation, because what you are really doing is “trading in” your Bartok for a new model; you could dicker about what your old model might be worth, but it’s just not going to be more than what you paid for it [that weird period we lived through in the pandemic where some used cars were worth more than their original retail was a result of production shortfalls, and not applicable here]. Your 15k Bartok is probably at best worth 12k in the market now, if that. Adding 9k to it to get it to the same sonic performance as a brand new Bartok Apex HA at $22,950 strikes me as making perfect economic sense. Penalty? Hardly.
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As per the comment above, this is to be expected….this three tier upgrade program will destroy the Bartok market. One would expect dCS to offer a uniform price to bring all owners forward as part of their general pledge to offer an upgrade path but obviously this is not going to happen. Discussion about the earlier costs or inflation or price points paid for Bartoks are completely irrelevant to this current discussion as to the upgrade cost.
To each his own opinion, there is no absolute here, there are obviously different views on this upgrade pricing program. I have mine—you have yours.
Most posts here seem to question the program with regard to the 3 pricing tiers.
BTW, the gentleman I deal with at my local dCS dealer, a fine, knowledgeable man with long years of successful experience in high-end audio volunteered that he didn’t agree with the 3 pricing tiers. Called it a “head-scratcher”, said he supported the temporary $4,500 for very recent buyers but thought dCS should have set the same price for all other Bartok APEX upgrades. Indicated the $9K pricing wasn’t going over with his Bartok customers, particularly in light of the $5,900 price.
Apparently local dealers are free to just offer a flat dCS MSRP to all Bartok owners, or tier the pricing, it’s entirely within their discretion. 
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Where did this come from?…l have spoken with two dealers and both expressed their displeasure with the third, highest, price. Never implied it was negotiable as it is the distributor setting the price.
Have you spoken to the Distributor?