Erno is well informed, as usual. I’ve just been contacted by my dealer (in the UK) with this information: the new price of the Apex upgrade will be £7500 (vs £6000 now). And he says: “If you want the Apex upgrade at the current price, we will need to book them on the system as soon as possible. There are only a few left at the old price and they will be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis.”
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That is the equivalent of € 8600. Over here I got quoted € 10.500… (from € 7900).
I upgraded from Bartok 2.0 to Rossini APEX a couple go months ago. I’ve posted my APEX impressions on this forum already, but specifically against the Bartok it breaths fire and energy into the sound - its bolder, more palpable - but also more engaging.
The Bartok definitely sounded best with its 6v output setting. Also I found it best with a pre-amp (ARC Ref.6 in my case). With the Rossini APEX though, the analogue output seems much improved.
I’ve been experimenting with connecting the Rossini APEX directly to the power amps (Pass Labs mono blocks in my case) by-passing the pre. And it’s clearly more successful in this mode than the Bartok. Also the 2v output seems enhanced, so I no longer feel it necessary to use the 6v setting.
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Thanks all! I’m sure there should have been no surprise at all that the Rossini APEX is better, but I appreciate the personal experiences.
Regarding the Bartok and 6V, I have also found it to be improved over 2V. ATM I run it into a headphone amp and 6V adds energy, spirit, dynamics into the mix and allows me to run the headphone amp at its ideal gain setting with hard to drive headphones.
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I paid €9000 for the upgrade (Rossini dac). I placed the order in September. There are big differences from dealer to dealer, that’s for sure.
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Welcome to the community, Vladimir.
The distributor in a certain area sets the prices, the local dealers have to follow.
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I have decided not to go for the Rossini Apex upgrade, at my dealer I could compare a non Apex Vivaldi (no clock and upsampler) against a Rossini Apex with clock, common streamer was the Aurender N20, there was no contest IMHO, so much preferred the Vivaldi. (and the gap grew after the Vivaldi got the Apex upgrade)
Back to the drawing board, probably will end up with a second hand Vivaldi and upgrade my Aurender N10 to minimal N20 (or W20SE)
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So you used USB from Aurender to dCS?
Your strategy is the best I think. The gap between a Vivaldi and whatever Rossini is so big, that saving for a Vivaldi is the way to go.
I ordered the apex upgrade today on a Rossini player and was charged £6,000. The upgraded unit is scheduled to be delivered mid January 2023.
I had an Aurender n20 on home loan for around 2 months and connected it to my bartok / Rossini clock combo via shunyata usb . I heard no improvement to the sound quality compared to simply plugging a portable usb drive into the bartok and so I returned the Aurender .
I then got hold of a Melco N1A ( so an older version ) which sent music to the bartok over Ethernet / uPnP and the sound quality was much better than the Aurender . I have just placed an order for a Rossini player with the apex upgrade and will consider upgrading my Melco to a more recent version with the improved software .
My experience is very different with the N20, but will depend on different systems I guess.
N20 was connected with AES and USB cables.
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It’s a big price difference. 2200e 
I first home loaned the Aurender n150 which was connected via usb to my meridian 808v6 dac and wasn’t impressed at all. Then I home loaned the n20 and n200 and they both sounded much better through the 808 compared to the n150 but I heard no noticeable difference between the n200 and n20. Even through a better dac ( the Nagra HD dac ) I heard no difference between the n20/200. I really liked the stability of the Aurender and their app but for me and my ears ,the sound quality was just not impressive at all and that’s despite My downstream components being fairly revealing ( CH Precision amplification and Stenheim soeakers ).
In my dealers system the N20 sounds fantastic, only slightly less then the W20SE but much better then the N10 I have.
His reference system is very resolving, changes are very easy to hear.
I have listened to a few other good streamers in his system, also Melco (have to admit that was a few years ago)
But in the end I still think that system/room synergy is very important, that’s why we can have different experiences with audio equipment, and that’s fine.
same here…tested the Aurender N10 (I used USB) and preferred the Melco with Ethernet.
I’ve gone from bartok to bartok 2.0 to bartok / Rossini clock and yesterday placed an order on the Rossini player apex which is scheduled to be delivered Jan 2023. The Rossini player will replace my meridian 808v6 CD player and the bartok which I use for streaming only . I’ve heard clear improvements to the sound with every change and am very excited by the Rossini player apex which I will run in without the clock initially . More importantly my wife is delighted by the reduced box count !
I lived with my Rossini + Clock for 5 years in the same system. The sound signature was recorded in my brain pretty deeply. When I got the APEX upgrade the difference was not subtle at all.
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@miguelito , you have a highly resolving system that was very carefully and tastefully selected.
Unfortunately, I still run my Rossini (non apex) into a 15yo Jadis integrated (DA88s), which is a level below the majority of systems owned here. Just making the age-old point that others may perceive very different results w Apex based on their respective audio chains.
Aurender: to each his own but if dCS says they buffer the input stream (they do), then I’m sticking w Roon over Ethernet.
If fact, the shortest signal path (with no cabling or network issues) would be a TB thumb drive direct to the USB-B input, but, alas, James has admonished that Rossini/Mosaic was not set up accept large libraries in that manner.
