Introducing APEX

[aman (Ady)]

Hi everyone,

After several months of intensive research, testing and development, we’re excited to share the latest innovation from dCS.

As some of you have deduced, we’re launching an upgrade for the Vivaldi DAC, Rossini DAC and Rossini Player.

Following the launch of our Ring DAC software update back in 2017, we’ve made some major changes to the dCS Ring DAC hardware. We’ve redesigned the Ring DAC circuit board and developed a new analogue output stage.

These developments have allowed us to further reduce distortion and increase linearity, resulting in a range of sonic and measured improvements. This, in turn, means we’ve been able to further enhance the musical performance of our Rossini and Vivaldi systems.

The new hardware will be made available to both future and current dCS customers. Alongside releasing new APEX editions of the Vivaldi DAC, Rossini DAC, and Rossini Player, we’re launching an upgrade programme for current Vivaldi and Rossini owners.

We’ll release more information about APEX and the upgrade programme over the next two weeks. We’ve prepared a range of content – including articles, and a short film - that we hope will answer all of the questions you might have about APEX, and give you a greater insight into its development, as well as the benefits it delivers.

For now, you can read a short statement over on our website – https://dcsaudio.com/edit/introducing-apex

We’re thrilled to share the results of this project with you - the feedback from our listening tests has been incredibly positive, and we’re delighted with what the new hardware has allowed us to achieve.

Now the secret is officially out, we’d also like to thank you all for your patience. We know some of you had heard rumours about an upgrade, and were anxious to find out more, but we try to avoid announcing new features, products or upgrades until we are in a position to start taking orders, and shipping audition units to our network of specialist retailers and distributors. This helps us to ensure that our launches run as smoothly as possible, and that we’re able to facilitate orders and requests in a timely fashion.

As we mentioned earlier this month, we are always working on new features, developments and upgrades, and we will ensure the dCS community is notified whenever we have something to announce.

If you’d like to keep up to date with APEX announcements, then please follow this thread. New information will be posted here on February 24th, March 2nd and March 4.

Best wishes,

The dCS marketing team

[aman (Ady)]

Learn more about APEX in our new short film

Following our announcement on February 22, we’ve released a short film to celebrate the launch of the dCS Ring DAC APEX.

The film features interviews with dCS Managing Director David Steven, Director of Product Development Chris Hales, and Technical Director Andy McHarg, as well as behind-the-scenes footage from dCS.

David, Chris and Andy reflect on the history and evolution of the Ring DAC, and the advantages this technology offers. They also discuss our commitment to continual product development, the benefits of APEX, and the unique mindset that drives our engineers to keep interrogating our designs, and pushing our technologies ever further.

You can watch the film in full here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZEKEYniLTo

More information about APEX will be released on March 4 – stay tuned for updates!

[aman (Ady)]

APEX: A Closer Look

Following the launch of our APEX film last week, we have created an article that provides a more detailed look at the development of our new Ring DAC APEX hardware.

The article features insights from David Steven, MD at dCS, and Chris Hales, Product Development Director at dCS, and covers the following topics:

-How we enhanced the Ring DAC’s analogue performance, including specific modifications made to the Ring DAC’s hardware

-How we approached the development process, from initial exploration through to listening tests

-The results of our work: a look at the subjective and measured benefits of the new dCS Ring DAC

-Why we developed APEX: our motivations and objectives

You can read the full article here: https://dcsaudio.com/edit/apex-a-closer-look

We’ll be releasing further information on APEX on March 4th - follow this thread for updates.

[aman (Ady)]

APEX: Your Questions Answered

Following our announcements on February 22, February 24 and March, 2 we’re thrilled to report that today (March 4) marks the official launch of APEX and the release of our next generation Vivaldi and Rossini APEX models.

We are now accepting orders for APEX edition Vivaldi DACs, Rossini DACs and Rossini Players. We have also begun taking orders for APEX upgrades, ahead of the launch of our upgrade programme in May.

We’ve been thrilled with the response to APEX so far and would like to thank everyone who’s expressed an interest in ordering an APEX unit, or upgrading their system.

To help address some of the queries you might have, we’ve created a short article responding to some of the FAQs we’ve received via email, our website, and the dCS forum.

You can read the article in full here: https://dcsaudio.com/edit/apex-your-questions-answered

Thanks again for your interest and support, and please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have further questions.