As a longtime Rossini owner, news of the Rossini APEX upgrade is exciting, but the lack of detail is a turn-off.
Dribbling information out over the next week-and-a-half is more likely to kill my appetite than to whet it.
What precisely don’t you know now, that you will know in ten days?
Tell me now how much the upgrade will cost, and how to get the new DAC board installed, and I will do it.
Keep me waiting and I may not do it at all. Think not? Wanna bet?
Ditto. I just upgraded from Bartok to Rossini not so long ago
This piecemeal release…… hm
And where’d they get the components for this “upgrade” during the worldwide chip shortage?
Or are these just some old parts they had lying around, that they are using to gouge money from their existing customers?
Something’s fishy.
The way manufacturer are coping with the global chip shortage is to outbid each other for the limited supply, and to stockpile those chips.
In order to keep customers happy with reasonable lead times, dCS would have had to pay a heft premium to get a hold of chips. Not to mention the much talked about price increases; Xilinx for example has significantly raised prices 4 times in the last 3 year, the last two at 25% each time 
Some hardware manufacturers have a 52 week lead time because of supply shortage that they’re not willing to pay for.
Nothing fishy at all.
Yea Anus, and dCS passes the additional cost onto their existing customers.
So we all get to pay for their poor planning.
Their poor planning??? 
Nevermind the Covid disruptions and poor global chip fab diversification, it’s all dCS’ fault. 
Who releases a new circuit board in the middle of global chip shortage?
Seems like pretty poor planning to me, Anus.
I’m not sure that there are so many things that aren’t affected by supply chain gotchas at the moment.
I’d hazard a guess that a large part of what makes dCS DACs sound good is down to the boards, the chips and the code they execute, so it doesn’t leave too many options!
(While I don’t think Anup deserves it I’m loving your autocorrect, @dsnyc 
)
Antipodes are another high end audiophile company who have had to redesign the boards of almost all their units as a result of the chip shortage. I have friends who had their new cars sat at their dealer waiting for delivery because the manufacturer was missing the electronics to make them drivable. Chip shortages are a real issue.
It’s not bad planning, no one could have anticipated a pandemic occurring when it did. I agree the price increases sting, but I believe we’re getting a better product in return. Given a number of not so great options, I believe dCS are making these decisions for the right reasons (what is best for us customers, alongside what is best for them to keep them profitable).
My only concern is a Bartok with an increased price will remove the entry level that got me on to the dCS ladder and my hope is we see a new entry level once the Bartok is upgraded (there was talk of the Rossini software potentially becoming available once the Rossini and Vivaldi were upgraded).
Manufacturers who want to delight their customers. No doubt that won’t be obvious to you 
Clearly reflection of the personality type 
Inflated costs seldom delight me, Anus.
So the entire global economy should just stop until additional chip capacity comes on line? Autos can easily have more than 30 chips installed. Washers, dryers, coffee mug warmers too. More and more products are bidding on limited capacity for chips. It could be years before supply meets demand.
If dCS sat and waited any longer to update their products that would be poor planning.
“Inflated costs” suggests that you know that the prices are actually inflated, rather than just higher than before. Unless you know something that we don’t, I’m not convinced that’s a fair assessment.
Upgrade is $9000. Only change is Ring DAC board and back panel lettering. Price and board are the same for Rossini and Vivaldi.
And a new analog board. The part that makes the output sound so good. They have a business that needs to remain competitive as to product capability and price. If it’s not competitive in both areas they will cease to exist. If you don’t like the price there are plenty of competitors. Cheaper for the same quality? Maybe not. My Bartok upgrade is now on hold…. So be it.
For 9000€ I rather go for a Innuos Statement or the new Melco unit
I did a little comparison of price between new and July 2021 :
| Price | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 2022 | Delta | %age | |
| Rossini DAC | 22.900 | 30.500 | 7.600 | 33,19% |
| Rossini CD/DAC | 25.900 | 33.500 | 7.600 | 29,34% |
| Rossini CD | 21.900 | 25.800 | 3.900 | 17,81% |
| R_Clock | 8.900 | 10.800 | 1.900 | 21,35% |
| V_DAC | 30.900 | 39.500 | 8.600 | 27,83% |
| V_Tpt | 35.900 | 43.000 | 7.100 | 19,78% |
| V_Clock | 15.500 | 20.400 | 4.900 | 31,61% |
| Bartok DAC | 14.900 | 19.900 | 5.000 | 33,56% |
Where I am surprised it’s increasing of Bartok , not impacted by Apex. Same observation for Vivaldi Clock. So really I could go for upgrade, but certainly not for difference between version without and with Apex. I have a a Rossini CD/DAC. When you observe increasing of Transport, which is not involved in the new APEX version, I couldn’t pay the total of the new and old price. I hope that if it is the case, DCS has a good explanation…
Thanks, @miguelito.
At $9,000, the APEX upgrade would be priced the same as the Rossini clock.
Or, a fairly decent record player.
That makes the upgrade far from a “no-brainer”. Not even close.
In order to decide, I will need to:
Visit my dealer and compare the sound of my Rossini DAC to the sound of
The DAC with APEX;
The DAC with the clock;
The DAC with APEX and the clock, and,
All of the above with a fairly decent record player.
That’s a lot of work, and time, for both me and my dealer.
And that doesn’t even factor in the inconvenience of having the new DAC board installed,
or the added cost of taxes and shipping.
Hm.
Don’t do the record player or else you will ditch your DAC… 