Hi @Thierry-AM (and welcome!),
I’m afraid I went straight from a Bartók to a Rossini APEX, so I can’t be sure how much the APEX contributed compared to the upgrade to a Rossini. My dealer says the difference with APEX is substantial, however.
Jeremy
I happen to think your dealer is correct (certainly the case for my Vivaldi Apex upgrade), but being the dealer, he would be hard-pressed to be unenthusiastic, let alone critical. 
While I trust them (and, at this level, I feel trust is important), I agree they have a stake in the game. This is why I wanted to be clear I was quoting a dealer.
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Ditto. I have high regard for my dealer, and he has not steered my wrong. Though his biases are evident in his recommendations and manner, they are informed and not unfounded. But the proof is between one’s own ears. And how a dealer accommodates that part of the process is a big part of their credibility.
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Hi
Thanks for your welcome!
I was (of course?) talking about the differences between a Bartok Apex (without Headphone outputs) and a Rossini Apex.
Kind regards
Thierry
Pleasure!
I’m not sure many will have heard a Bartók Apex outside of dCS at this point, but it’s going to be an interesting question
If I did not miss a point, from specifications, they are the same. Only a different case. This is why I asked the question…
Ah, ok - if I’ve (now) understood your question correctly and you’re asking about the technical differences between the Rossini and the Bartók, I believe the Rossini includes an additional PSU to separate the analogue and digital sections. There maybe other differences, however, that I’m not aware of.
By comparison, the Bartók with the headphone output has an additional PSU purely for the headphone amp, but again only one PSU for the DAC.
If I’ve misunderstood your question, please let me know.
The rossini Apex upgrade carried out by Radar was 53k HKD early 2022.
Don’t think the Bartok Apex upgrade be much cheaper than this
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On the price of the Rossini clock… the price hike was exorbitant! I bot mine 40k ish HKD by 2020. Now is 1/3 more expensive?
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The 2023 revised prices are indeed high and would not enable many ( e.g. me 
) to access the products.
However I think that your question is really asking if the increase is too expensive rather than more expensive, the latter being self explanatory.
Prices to consumers in various territories are difficult to compare as they are set by the local distributor and have to account for local factors which are not easily discerned from abroad. Further we have no idea of the prices charged by the manufacturer to the local distributor. However it is pretty clear that there has been an increase.
Too much? Hard to say as we do not have all of the relevant information. Nevertheless we are aware that prices of raw materials such as chips have increased substantially . Aluminium prices have reduced but there may be a hangover from the large price raises in 2021 and 2022. Three further things are clear which will have affected dCS in the UK. Energy prices have gone up substantially but there is no price cap relating to industrial use, the overall cost of living ( inflation) has increased by 10% which affects wages above those originally budgeted for and shipping where the cost from N. Europe to China went up by 200% last year. Of course you are comparing with 2020 so increases will need to include sums brought forward from 2020-2021. Exchange rate fluctuations also need to be projected and catered for.
So what is a reasonable increase may be is difficult to judge but the increased cost of many relevant things have been significant in the UK leading to large increases here which are inevitably reflected in prices of those items in countries importing them.
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So just emailed my dealer in the UK, my Bartok is just over a year old and he quoted me £7500 for the APEX upgrade. Very expensive in my opinion, will have to have a serious think regarding any upgrade to Bartok apex/ Rossini.
Edit
Dealer email
There is a 2 tier pricing structure for Bartok only but it only differentiates on units bought since February 2022. Anyone who bought one in the last 12 months gets the upgrade a little cheaper but there is nothing in the price list we have about charging more for units that are over 2 years old.
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To the comments as to price for the upgrade, we have two issues to address, the price for the upgrade which is high but not unreasonable for a product of this caliber and, in my case, the doubling up that price for units purchased earlier that 2021. As far as I can determine the hardware has not changed necessitating a second board with additional cost so it appears this is simply mean-spirited and, in the absence of any justification from dCS, one can only surmise they have made this distinction that the doubling of price “captures” the price increase that the Bartok has seen over the last few years. This clearly penalizes early adopters without cause and makes the upgrade cost a significant portion of a new unit. So had I bought an item which has seen price and value increases during my ownership should my resale value be reduced accordingly? Of course not! Bad analogy but you get my point.
I have reached out to support but only received this mixed and patronizing response:
"The upgrade costs and availability are all being determined and handled by our distributors worldwide so for confirmation on pricing and availability you should contact either your nearest dealer or local distributor, information obtained from from any other sources should be regarded as speculative.
Obviously the APEX upgrade is something that you can choose whether to have done or not - it is completely up to you - so if you feel that it is not something that you wish to have done then that is totally your decision."
To the first above, it is clear this two tiered pricing has been defined by dCS as it has been reported consistently around the globe from many Bartok owners on this and other threads and to the second, well what can you say?
I have only come across this two tiered pricing in relation to the Canadian distributor. I would be interested in links to the pricing in other territories. It is not clear to me that tiered pricing has been “defined by dCS”.
At this point I have no official price listing from the UK distributor. However one UK audio magazine, HiFi Pig, mainly aimed at the trade, does show a price for the upgrade here (7500 g.b.p) and no two tiered approach is mentioned.
@PAR In the case of tiered pricing see posts above. In the Canadian market case we are served by the US distributor and they have carved out this two tiered pricing for North America. Clearly one of the largest market for dCS. As to other locales, I have seen posts from the Far East and elsewhere claiming similar pricing which tell me this is not a local market issue and so appears to be driven by HQ.
Nevertheless, why is there a doubling of price? How is this justified if not due to additional cost for older units? Clearly dCS can charge whatever they choose but these decisions must appear to be fair and reasonable unless they intend to alienate their customer base and lose market share.
Well perhaps I am wrong on this so am hoping for a response from dCS and/or dCS America if truly specific to our market only. Nevertheless, it is just boneheaded.
This will kill the market for Bartok as many will flood the used market unloading their unit for alternate products before value is lost. I will never pay $12,150 CAD for the upgrade and will look for alternate DACS.
I will happily pay:
***LIMITED TIME – orders must be placed by March 7, 2023: For for Bartok units purchased New from a dCS Dealer since September, 2021
**$6,100 CAD MSRP
To my last statement concerning loss of value, many will simply advise that we just enjoy the Bartok as is (as an exceptional DAC) but we cannot disassociate current value especially in an ever changing design environment like digital. Any future change is also predicated on the value of your current hardware as a trade or sale. We audiophiles are fickle bunch likely to be considering some upgrade or other.
Well I ain’t complaining as such as Brexit +
Real inflation really do make everything more expensive. Supply chain disruptions across the world didn’t help in the past 2 years.
Price rises were steep nonetheless…. In other words inflation really was and still is running very high. This hurts!
Question about APEX for Bartok headphone listening: has anyone seen any particular elaboration how APEX affects / improves the Bartok HP channel, as opposed to two channel output which I assume works similar to Rossini and Vivaldi. Appreciate any pointers.
In continental Europe the Apex upgrade is 9900€ for all the dCS line of products.
For a Vivaldi owner it is expensive but more or less reasonable, for a Bartok owner it is very questionable !!! But it is rather fair from dCS not trying to make super profit margin with Vivaldi and Rossini owners…I appreciate.
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Interesting…so uniform pricing for Europe…high for the Bartok, no doubt, and this shows that it is the North American distributor that is asking for the two tiered pricing. Hmmm.
I’m not in the Bartok boat, though almost was in 2020. But Warren captures here what I’ve been thinking about. I get that dCS has to draw a line somewhere, and frankly, as a Vivaldi guy, I’m not sure that the Bartok owners have much of a case for complaining about the cost of the Apex board. Just because Bartok is cheaper than Rossini and Vivaldi doesn’t make a case for making its Apex upgrade cheaper. Yes, as a percentage of initial capital outlay, it’s much more expensive. But it’s the same cost for what appears to be largely the same service and hardware (speculation on my part). If one has two cars of two different price points but with the same engine, with a turbocharger option, should the turbocharger added to the cheaper car also be cheaper? Not IMO, though I admit it is an imperfect analogy, and you might see it differently. Conversely, some car makes sell the very same part for progressively higher prices as you move up the luxury scale in their lineup. As do some audio manufacturers.
The superficially harder question is the line-drawing. The earlier Bartok adopters see punishment. And I understand that. But the later Bartok adopters—who also paid a higher price than the earlier folks and who have enjoyed their Bartok for a shorter time—get a discount against the upgrade. And it doesn’t look unreasonable to me given the current retail of Bartok. This notion of providing a discount to the most recent purchasers is nothing new. It happens with computer hardware and software quite frequently. And I think it’s mostly about revenue capture, but secondarily about not wanting to punish the most recent adopters. One may not like it, but it’s a reasonable way to do business. Earlier Bartok adopters have gotten the full benefit of their box for a longer time. But now, there is a hard cutoff on value in the resale market; pre-2021 Bartoks, will likely never be more valuable than they were say before yesterday, and that’s assuming this tiered pricing is reality. If one’s pre-2021 Bartok is in good condition, it is probably worth the current retail of Bartok Apex, discounted by some percentage to reflect its used status and age, minus $9k. That may be a bitter pill, and one can make an argument that it’s not good business by dCS. I can see both sides here.
Interestingly, I saw no Bartoks on Audiogon or US Audio Mart. I saw one on eBay for USD$20k. The upgrade pipeline could well work to the benefit of current owners who want to sell/upgrade. I think it’s pre-2021 Bartok HP owners who are in the most difficult spot here. Upgrading to Rossini might make economic sense, but losing that headphone output may not.
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