For those of you interested in all the new gear presented at High End Munich 2025, including dCS, here is a preview photo report to enjoy, over 500 photos:
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PS Audio - Vivaldi copy? I don’t get it… Oh wait, now I see the wave in the fascia.
It’s when they take their pricing cues from dCS that I worry.
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So nice to see the Lina at the core of a high end system!
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Several visitors have commented that they’ve never heard Lina sounding this good. Well I’m not surprised, I rarely see Lina presented in the context of systems this good. Some might say it’s ’unbalanced’ price-wise, I would say that in this system you can really hear what Lina is capable of!
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I guess that risk is low since they save on development cost/time-to-market by taking design cues from elsewhere? 
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Here is a new photo report with some novelties at HEM 2025:
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Well Munich is a wrap. The first for me and the last for everyone. What an experience, especially Saturday when our room was standing room-only for most of the day.
Huge thanks to everyone who stopped by to say hi. I know there are several of you whom I missed and I am really sorry about that! And special thanks to @all2ofme and @August for their company. 
We got some really nice feedback on the sound of the system in our room (in fact really positive feedback about Lina DAC X across the board) and plenty of ooohs and aaahs from folks seeing Varèse in the flesh for the first time.
Thanks also to my wonderful colleagues who helped me through this obstacle course. Here we are on the first day:
Front row (L to R); Mark, Rav, Ali, Ross, [a partner]
Back row (L to R): Me, Ady, Emron, James, Phil, Mat
And here we are on Sunday evening after triumphing over the re-packing and palletizing of a record number of units lent out to partners:
L to R: Mark, Alex, Ady, Phil, Rav, me, Emron, James
Wait, who’s that?
Now I think most of us need to sleep for a week!
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Thanks @AndrewS !
Can you please add a whoiswho to the photos? I recognise most, but… Of course, after a week of rest 
My pleasure!
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So listening to this summary it seems the Lina Dac X is more than just form factor alternative to the Lina…
With the aluminum chassis and housing the toroidal PSU in a separate chamber (is this one of the nice blue PSUs we see in the BRV?) Is it possible the Lina X will get pretty close to the Bartok Apex in sound quality?
Also I’m making an assumption here… given that the original Lina was developed during the Varese, is it possible the Apex enhancements we see in VRB were already based into the initial Lina design?
The problem with the question is that I do not know what you consider as “pretty close”. It’s a personal judgement. dCS always have an audible difference between units as they sell by demonstration. So I would expect Lina Dac X to be sonically very similar to Lina. As dCS DAC /streamer units are based on similar technology there is going to be a family resemblance however in all cases.
This point was raised a few days ago. There still has to be a demonstrable difference between units and this means that features may be omitted in lower cost items.So I think not.
You seem to be asking that if by buying Lina DAC X you will be getting a Bartok on the cheap ( “cheap” is a relative term here). Simply, no.
Retail pricing suggests that the two are not that far apart: the Lina Dac x is about $5K off the Bartok Apex retail where I sit.
My hunch is that one looking at the Lina Dac X vs Bartok Apex as the centre of a hi fi system, may not be missing out on too much sonically, The Lina certainly has the advantage from a UX perspective.