This is my quick comparison between the dCS Varese architecture and the MSB Cascade:
(1) MSB Digital director = all core digital processing => Varese Core
(2) MSB DAC + internal clock = only d to a conversion (1 box) => Varese 2 mono DACs + 1 Master clock (3 boxes)
(3) MSB power module => dCS NA
(4) MSB NA => dCS Streamer/User Interface
(5) Both: custom cable interface to reduce (real or perceived) network noise.
My guess is that dCS saw some value being captured by Aurender and others on the streamer side, and the (very) large margins in cabling, and wanted its share.
I also see the value to the Uber high end purchasers, perhaps a new audiophile with $$$, to present one complete solution: āJust buy this and your done with the front end.ā
As others have noted, there is no real upgrade path from the existing Vivaldi so not necessarily intended for many of us active on this forumā¦ Just my 2c
Maybe intended as rhetorical but I canāt resist! I suspect that if you still have all your marbles you will still care, it may indeed be one of the few things you do still care about! My father will turn 94 next week and music, my sister and me (not necessarily in that order) are at the center of his rapidly shrinking universe. I recently fixed the display on his Uniti and had his Sondek serviced and he is back to listening to his own LPs and CDs and not just relying on radio. Hard to describe the grin on his face when I cued up one of his favourite recordings of Lizstās Hungarian Dances!
Love that puck remote! It would be nice to have a wifi enabled one that was compatible with the current line up. Iāve always love using a physical volume control
I venture that the Verese Core is akin to an upsampler so if the right expansion module(s) were made available it could be used to feed a Vivaldi DAC. Not sure how the clock would fit in though.
Alan Sircon at HI-FI + reports the cost figures are:
VarĆØse comprises a Ā£20,000 User Interface, a Ā£32,000 Master Clock and two Mono DACs (Ā£90,000 per pair), all driven by a Ā£75,000 Core unit (Ā£217,000 for 5 boxes or close to $276,000 USD).
The article is here:
At one point I thought a possible path to updating the Vivaldi would be:
eliminating the LED display User interface box
a stereo DAC instead of two mono DACās
a Clock
a Core
in other words a 3 box set (with the potential of a transport) just like the current Vivaldi DAC, Upsampler, and Clock.
With those prices it would mean potentially:
Stereo DAC - 45,000 gbp instead of 90,000 ??
Clock - 32,000 gbp
Core - 75,000gbp
ie 152,000 gbp - which unfortunately would represent a significant price jump over the current Vivaldi.
Perhaps a lower price Core would help.
And while we are at itā¦updated Rossini would simply be a lower spec version of the Stereo DAC above plus a lower priced version of the clock - two boxes as currently made.
And, imho, dCS better keep their eyes open vis a vis current Vivaldi owners. The complete new MSB Cascade solution is $90k ie less than the current 12 year old Vivaldi.
I agree with other comments here. Potential purchasers, unless they are completely new to this hobby, will stay away from the current Vivaldi and Rossini - both rather long in the tooth. My guess is one way or another this new technology will be trickling down towards Vivaldi and Rossini replacements.
If dCS waits too long they will have to deal with people cross shopping the Cascade, new Wadax etc.
I would have thought the concern for non-Varese owners/wannabe owners would be the reference to a āDifferential Ring DACā as highlighted in bold here. What does this mean for Apex owners?
VarĆØse utilises a suite of new technologies that have enabled us to further enhance performance and deliver sound with even greater precision and clarity.
These include dCS Tomix, a patented new clocking technology: ACTUS, a bespoke interface that carries audio, control and timing signals between components; and the Differential Ring DAC, a new version of the dCS Ring DACā¢ that represents the biggest change to our DAC architecture in a generation.
Yes. But that is normal ( and expected) as technology develops. Vivaldi made Scarlatti redundant as Scarlatti made Elgar redundant. Buying any digital technology comes with a guarantee that it will be superseded. The alternative is a technological fly trapped forever in amber (forgive the metaphor).
Vivaldi has had a great and, for this area, an unusually long life as top dog( launched in 2012). Donāt weep too much though as Vivaldi will sound as good this evening as it did yesterday. Tonight music lovers will be having a great evening listening to their Elgars from the turn of the century
Iām not sure anyone will argue that a manufacturer should be locked in to a particular technology for perpetuity, and any non-dCS owner fortunate enough to be weighing up an Apex unit can take it as is it presented, as a new whole product. I suspect this latest announcement might cause more ouches amongst those who forked out a substantial amount of money on the Apex upgrade to their existing kit. They wanted to ensure they had the very best at that level of the product hierarchy, the first radical overhaul of the RingDAC in decades (even though we know there have been performance nudges over that time), only to find that there was more in the pipeline.
I find myself wondering how many of those paying Ā£8,000 or whatever it was for the Apex upgrade wouldm have held back if theyād know that this Differential thing was in the pipelineā¦ even if it is unlikely that it will ever trickle downā¦
I was instinctively going to respond that this would be enabled by the optional Core I/O module but on closer inspection that doesnāt seem to be the case.
The I/O module seems to sport a dual AES input, a single AES input, a BNC word clock output (variable rate as enabled by Tomix) and an additional RCA not mentioned in the description but presumably a SPDIF input(?), plus a USB-B input, but no AES outputs. So it would appear to in fact be an āInputā module designed to accommodate USB sources and legacy AES sources such as Vivaldi and Rossini Transports but not offering interoperability with previous generation dCS DACs.
This could however presumably be accommodated in the future via a corresponding āOutputā module.
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just surprised to not see it right from the announcement. Iām sure my Vivaldi setup will make me happy for a lot of years