If you haven’t seem this yet there is fascinating news on their website from dCS about Varese, its development and the benefits it has brought and will bring to existing dCS products.
There’s no point in speculating what th future may bring but there is a strong hint that there will be advances in addition to Apex for existing owners.
An interesting and informative read. While I hope there are more updates to come for my Rossini APEX, this article still does not give me confidence to purchase a new Vivaldi 13 years into its lifecycle. I will continue to play the waiting game for its inevitable (and hopefully not too far off ) update.
Totally understand where you are coming from Gregg, but even ignoring the fact that the APEX upgrades could have been packaged as a new models but weren’t maybe we should ask ourselves if we wouldn’t have said the exact same thing already after 7 years**? 13 years (and counting) is afaik pretty much a record run for a digital source component to still be in production let alone still listed in Stereophile Class A+ and still winning POTY awards.
I bought in to Vivaldi after 12 years, but pre-owned. That is also a way to go. I had no idea that Varèse (which presumably heralds the start of a new generation but how and when are anybody’s guess) was around the corner but I still don’t regret my decision for a moment.
** Take, for example MSB Reference DAC introduced 2017, EOL 2024.
I can feel for you as the Varese has been released while you’re not into the Vivaldi yet, so waiting is a logical and reasonable choice.
But even when I bought my Vivaldi apex stack earlier this year as the first owner then to find out about the Varese just 8 months after, I am still very happy with my choice although I have to admit it was pretty upsetting when I heard about Varese as I would do the same by waiting a bit longer.
However dcs confirmed me directly that Varese is a completely new and separate line from V/R/B and the current products won’t be discontinued at all.
With the recent Apex upgrade, I hope something similar will happen mid or end of next year to improve the hardware/software of V/R/B even further.
Despite subscribing to Qobuz, I am spinning discs most of the time and keep buying CDs, especially SACD, while rediscovering ones in my collection. The Vivaldi apex stack has redefined what is possible with my beloved CDs. The vivaldi transport with vrds system is simply fantastic!
So will a Rossini Apex owner have any benefit of Varese’s hw/sw now? I don’t get it…
Did you read the article that Pete linked @T38.45? The APEX upgrade itself was a spin-off of the Varèse R&D project, as were the re-worked volume control and grid view in Mosaic. According to the article more trickle down is to come.
I don’t understand this comment. With Apex we all got new boards. The Vivaldi Apex is only two years old. Same for the Rossinin Apex.
I’m personally grateful to have a new product for far less money.
I’ve just upgraded, after much agonising (some Varese introduction related), from Rossini Apex and clock to a Vivaldi Apex triple stack. A very good trade in offer from my dealer for his dem system helped in the decision making…
Hopefully some Varese tech will trickle down to VRB but I’m guessing any all new sub-Varese lines are going to be much more expensive than current VRB, especially if they use mono DACs, so way beyond my purse, hence the reason to jump now.
Well for one thing the bought in (and rather old) third party streaming board in the Vivaldi Upsampler has now been replaced with a completely new dCS designed and developed replacement
Please expand on this as it is news to me. Apex did not involve the streaming board ( or Vivaldi Upsampler) AFAIK and the much discussed absence of DSD256 is still caused by limitations of this. What is used in Varese will process DSD256 but the type or origin of the relevant component or whether or not it is an in-house design is not known.
I will have to do further sleuthing however I seem to recall reading about this information. Disclaimer - perhaps I may be incorrect?
Try this:
By the way, pretty much every single high-end DAC manufacturer with a Streamer function uses 3rd party OEM Compute boards/software stack; typically StreamUnlimited or ConversDigital with their proprietary software stack, or a COTS compute module like a Raspberry Pi or ASUS with Open-source software stack.
Nobody builds their own (hardware) for the compute function.
I also was in the same boat as you, with my rossini.
But the question is how long do you wait, plus wait for what? The problem is you don’t know what it might be, if you will even want it, or afford it.
I certainly tried to talk my way out off the vivaldi a few times, too many cables, etc, etc. But i eventually sat down properly, when the apex upgrade was on the cards for my rossini. I compared apex’ed rossini against non apex’ed, plus a vivaldi.
It took me about 20 seconds to realise that the vivaldi was for me, it was that clear.
The vivaldi may well be 12 years old, but the reality is it isn’t. It had many upgrades along the way to inpove it, plus it will get more going forward.
So i would say do as i did, go try one and see how you get on. I certainly dont regret getting mine, and it will more than likely be my end game, as with the prices going up and up all the time, i can’t see me spending any more on mine, apart from probably upgrades like the apex was.
I think I may have been the source of this (mis)information Gregg. On the Varèse webinar David talked about a “new in-house developed network board” and I interpreted him as meaning this was a replacement for the Stream800 which as we know has become a bit of a bottleneck in the current Vivaldi Upsampler. However I’ve since learned that Varèse contains the newer Stream1955 board so that is evidently being used to support at least some streaming services. However IIRC David also mentioned that the UPnP functionality currently sits in the UI box so that is presumably not managed by the Stream1955. No doubt more info will be forthcoming in the fullness of time but the situation is not as clear cut as I had assumed. Apologies for the misinformation.
I bought my Vivaldi Apex just about a year before Varese was launched. Yes, it was 12 years old at the time but still by far the best sounding (to me) streamer/DAC combination that I listened to. I had no idea Varese was going to be launched and I don’t think it would have made any difference if I had, because whilst I was prepared to invest what is a lot for me in the Vivaldi Apex, the Varese is way beyond what I can justify in terms of cost. I am very happy with my Vivaldi and I am sure I will be for years to come.
BINGO! I knew I had heard this somewhere.
In fact, with reference to my previous post referring to lack of interest in a 12 year old Vivaldi, I remember saying to myself at the time that the older outdated board in the Upsampler was yet another reason to wait for something new.
As one who suffers from my Rossini streaming board sometimes losing connection and rebooting with the network (an issue discussed in another thread) this also contributed to the desire to wait for an updated (misunderstood as dCS re designed) network board.
I still profess my desire for a simpler 2 box Vivaldi system however looking at Varese I think that dream will never materialize. At least one can hope the V replacement will embrace the new single cable system - a nice move in the direction of simplicity.
No disagreement here and I hope dCS can keep a lid on things. While everyone is well aware of the inflationary results of Covid, it seems to me audio components have gone far over and above. Just look at Vivaldi and Bartok prices before and after. Comparing to, for example, other luxury items - say a Porsche - there has not been that degree of price inflation.
As an owner of the above mentioned vehicle I question the fact I can buy two more for the price of one Varese😌. Don’t even get me started on analyzing the corporate spend on R&D and parts cost between a Boxster GTS 4.0 and Varese.
Don’t we all. However it is not possible to judge pricing from the outside without relevant management information. There are just so many factors. As you raise Porsche as a comparator , one of these is economies of scale. dCS is a small company with ( from the information I can find) a manufacturing capacity of 300 units ( i.e.boxes) per month. Porsche delivered 320,221 cars last year.
Of course dCS could choose another route but the quality we enjoy comes from their decision both to invest considerably in R&D, producing hand made items and in serving the luxury end of the audio market ( they are not e.g. Cambridge Audio). What we value about dCS stems from these choices.
Of course whilst mainlining the profile of the marque, dCS have lowered the entry price with the Lina range.Still costly though ( I am told that there are good streaming DACs for less 
).
Although a Vivaldi replacement will emerge at some point we are in no position to speculate when.
For those who upgraded from Rossini to Vivaldi, can you breafly describe differences observed ?