But aren’t all dCS DAC’s high-end 
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Hi Phil,
Many thanks for your prompt and kind response. Greatly appreciate the support! Can’t wait to get my Bartok back with the Apex upgrade. I have tried to make up for the Bartok’s absence by using a Sonos system to listen to my music. I’m not even going to attempt to describe here how far off this is compared to listening to my music rig. 
Once again, thanks for the very kind support.
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You may be on to something. ;-0
dCS vs Sonos. I feel your pain…
Jeff
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This would seem to be leading us to an Orwellian “Animal Farm” type paraphase of …
“…but some are more high-end than others…”
…would it not? 
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Never mind your highfalutin’ Brit literary references — this is the Colonies’ day! 
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I’ve been waiting 8 weeks for mine… Got the nod my dealer in May to bring it in. I was told they were being shipped as a lot of 6 or 7 from Canada to the UK factory for the APEX upgrade and it would take 2 weeks! I figured 2 weeks was optimistic! Hope to see it soon.
I was again deeply impressed last night with the Bartok headphone output. I’m really bad at describing such things, but the music had a vitality and aliveness to it, as if the musician(s) was right there with you. But it was more than that; you just sink into and engage with (connect with) the music. I wish I could come up with a word that describes the sensation.
This was with DCA Stealth headphones, which are simply amazing headphones. They could probably use a little more power from the Bartok HPA but it works just fine (clearly). Many claim they scale to continually improve with more and more power.
I wish I could find more personal subjective impressions of the Bartok APEX upgrade. It’s a big investment in relation and I would love to read between more lines about how others feel after upgrading. More evidence. From those who had gone from Bartok to APEX Bartok.
The standard Bartok is (clearly) already very good and I wonder where it goes from there with APEX.
Tangent, but I have totally backed off from using Roon and only using the Aurender transport.
It is also worth your time reading the reports posted about the Apex upgrade to Vivaldi and Rossini as it is the same upgrade for all.
Interesting but how does Aurender now sound compared to Bartok’s native Mosaic app? UpnP or streaming service or both?
After a couple weeks of listening I’m a fan of the Apex upgrade! Well worth the $4500 upgrade price! Don’t ask me to detail the differences I hear because I struggle putting what I hear into words. It’s almost meaningless… Every system, room and listener are different. My advice is if you can get it for $4500, Go for it.
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Well it’s finally here. My dealer and I swapped my black Bartók for a Silver APEX. 24 hours later and it’s sounding even more luscious. I’m blown away by the depth and separation to the composition in the music that I’m hearing. There’s more detail evident and decay of notes is more audible. Very pleased at the contribution!
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Just hooking mine up now…
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you are using a clock too?
I’ve never used the Mosaic app (except to manage the Bartok). I used Roon with attached USB storage and for streaming services (Qobuz). TBH with the Aurender I’ve been listening mostly to local files so far.
That’s great! It was clever of you to do the color swap. As you know, I prefer silver too.
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Are you using 2V or 6V for your Line Outut?
Quick question. Apart from the back panel, I can’t see any reference to APEX on the software side. Should the upgraded unit show up as Bartok Apex in Roon and Mosaic? Mine shows up as dCS Bartok HDAC.
Sounds wonderful right out of the box…
My Rossini Apex DAC does show up as such in Mosaic, not in Roon.
On which screen, Erno? I can only see “Rossini” for mine.
Mosaic on my iPad shows (literally): dCS ROSSINI APEX DAC.
Roon on PC shows (literally): dCS Rossini DAC. But in the zone settings I have changed that myself in dCS Rossini APEX DAC.
But now I remember that I changed that also myself through the web interface of my Rossini. However, there it says dCS Rossini APEX DAC, so Mosaic makes it dCS ROSSINI APEX DAC (all capitalised).