Has anyone been contacted as to when they should drop off their Vivaldi or Rossini for the APEX upgrade. Here we are in the middle of May and all has been quiet for some time now.
Not yet. My US dealer originally estimated the upgrade would take place by the end of May.
No word from my dealer either.
In Hong Kong the distributor said they would start in June.
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Yes. I am cutting it close, but I need to get mine to my dealer last week of May for upgrade in (hopefully early) June. I was originally scheduled to drop mine off May 3, due to some travel this month. But the arrival of the Black Cat cables caused me to delay that so I could get a few days of settling in and listening before leaving. Am traveling now, so will drop my DAC off at the dealer around May 27.
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No word from dealer yet I was thinking June/July given the # of units and techs qualified to do it.
All of these inputs lead me to wonder if dCS are simply waiting on a component supply.
My dealer confirms June as well.
My dealer, who will be doing the upgrades themselves, have said dCS has given them no further updates on when the boards would ship; previously they had been told “May.”
‘June’ is what I have heard and read. In general dCS do not have supply problems they have told me, although our conversation wasn’t specifically about the upgrade. They did say, though, that interest (and presumably orders) have exceeded expectations. A good position for them to be in. I and a friend recently bought clocks and they were delivered to the normal, pre-pandemic, schedule. I expect to visit the factory over the summer and get some insight into how dCS do things.
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I ordered a part from a German audio manufacturer in December. It’s being delivered this week 
Hope dCS have their bits sewn up. Or that they reset expectations well. Watching dates sail by isn’t fun for anyone.
I am wondering what is going to happen with the replaced Ring DAC boards after the Apex upgrade.
Are they going to be taken in by dCS, or do they bag them and give them back to the owner? @Phil
Well dcs can buy it back from me for £5000 lol
But seriously i would want it, as after all its mine
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I suspect the Apex upgrade cost is net of the board trade-in. Said with a wink and a tear. 
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So they can re use most of it?
More like “dispose of safely”, would be my guess. If I was dCS I wouldn’t want the key part of the dac hardware floating around for anyone to take a look at, even if it isn’t usable on its own. I suppose they could keep some to offer as (cheap) replacements for old boards that have failed and need replacing in units sent in for servicing.
I’m just glad it will be possible to get my dac upgraded some day for ‘only’ a 4 figure sum (£). And I hope we can rely on Erno to warn us of price rises before they happen!
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had a chat with my dealer today- 7500€ and 3 months waiting time…
It depends fully on distributors that accidentally misinterpret embargos.
The APEX upgrade kits for field upgrades are tested and prepared – these will start shipping next week. We will also be performing customer upgrades at the dCS factory beginning next week.
Any time we upgrade electronics we bring the old board(s) back to be disposed of securely. This was the same when we upgraded Vivaldi Upsampler to Vivaldi Upsampler Plus – the old network boards were returned to dCS for disposal. We would never use old components in new products.
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Does anybody know if upgrade delivery began already ?