I think that AD just added “Apex” to the name and listed the new price. The description below is for the current Vivaldi model, it’s just copy/pasted from the dCS webpage.
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Yes it could very well be it.
I was under the impression dCS simply redesigned the boards to use new components to replace those rendered unavailable due to supply chain issues.
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If that’s the case they should have called the new model the Opex 
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Are the prices for upgrades out now - or is this not in plan?
Please wait a few more days. It looks like on the 1st February the full story will be out.
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I have a one year old Bartok and I called my dealer to order a Rossini. They apparently have a stock of the current model at the factory. He advised me against ordering now as he feels the moderate improvement in SQ will come to my Bartok soon enough. The other significant benefit of the Rossini is the ability to use ir as a pre-amp. I have a Conrad-Johnson GAT so have no need for the preamp capability. All that may have been his way of telling me not to order an expensive product about to be last years model. I sent him the Apex info. We will know next week. The new top Wadax DAC considered by some as the best available, better than the top MSB, is now over $100K.
I’m not sure I understand this entry. The Bartok can be used as a preamp too. The Rossini is not different in that respect. And “the moderate improvement in SQ will come to my Bartok soon enough”, how will that happen and if it does what improvements will the Rossini undergo at the same time?
I upgraded from Bartok to Rossini six weeks ago. All very frustrating. It puts me off dCS actually. Probably not what they intended or expected.
Sorry, it is annoying.
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It is a grotesque piece of design. I have no idea who the target customer is. Maybe hardcore ‘Dr. Who’ fans?
I need to admit though that I am interested in their Atlantis music server. Fortunately that casing is a middle of the road high end audio box.
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Your 6 week old Rossini can be sent in for the Apex upgrade. You loose nothing - in the meanwhile you have the choice on timing so you actually have more flexibility then the new buyer next week.
Ben , unless you know something that nobody else here does the upgrade has to be paid for. The Dutch distributor is apparently pricing this as the difference in price between the old Rossini ( or Vivaldi) and the new Apex one. That is, even though you own an existing piece you are being asked to pay the full price increase not all of which is caused by Apex.
Guys, please wait a bit, for Tuesday, 1st February, for further news. The Dutch distributor’s webmaster is our forum member @ruudvde , so no doubt he, or dCS themselves, will inform us by that time.
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Erno happy to accept your little rebuke there. But I would mention :
You follow up with a comment about price and I may well have mixed the two posts together and assumed that imprezap2 was talking about the Netherlands distributor for which I apologise.
Still let’s see what transpires in the next 36 hours or so.
Timing markets and product life cycles is an unwise habit that more often than not results in self-inflicted aggravation. There is always going to be a new product. I don’t get the shock at the as of yet still hypothetical Apex variants. Did anyone think dCS (or any other company, for that matter) will just stop working on new products for the sake of not upsetting existing client base? So what if one just bought a product right before the new one is released? News flash: happens all the time. Big deal. It is what it is, it’s called life. Count your blessings instead. Are you or your children going to bed hungry, or cold, or ill? Let’s prioritize things, folks. Is your hearing still able to discern fine details up to 20k? If so, bless you, you have a one up on me. Enjoy your crappy non-Apex obsolete dCS already for there’s nothing wrong with it.
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The sound quality improvement to the Bartok probably refers to a Software update (free), same as the ones at Vivaldi and Rossini (Mapping, DSD F5 filter, DSDx2 upsampling …).
Thhat update has benn hold on so far not to get too close to the Rossini.
If now the Rossini gets the hardware update (Apex) it makes sense that the Bartok gets it’s long-awaited software update, keeping the distance with the Rossini.
Bartok has no Apex upgrade, it seems the whole thing makes sense.
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Any new info about the Apex models ？
Thanks for that Manel. Yes, if it is a software upgrade it will be free unlike the (as reported but unconfirmed) Apex hardware upgrade.
We are all confused which some kind of statement from dCS would sort out !!
So no Apex upgrade for the Bartok, which would make sense given how new it is. But I wonder if the Bartok price will go up?
The Bartok gained a lot of exposure for dCS for a lot of new people, people like me (I knew of them for years, but it was always at stratospheric realms, never something I could seriously consider), and in the head-if community too. I bought mine before the last price increase. Increasing it’s price another 25-30% (as stated in another thread) would take it out of reach for a lot of those new people.
The Bartok is a gateway device for dCS. Very good, and achievable, but there’s better if you’re interested. If the Bartok price increases, the gate gets harder to reach, the funnel gets smaller.
In any case, wen have to assume dCS know what they’re doing or what they have to do to remain profitable within their segment. They know their brand and they know how to market their products. They may have done the math and research and determined that for their customer segment price is irrelevant; they can absorb price hikes (new customers may even be completely unaware that there was a price hike).