I’m relatively new to dCS, and have an APEX Rossini and Clock. I’m really loving the sound I’m getting,
I wonder if there will be trickledown Firmware updates based on the Varése project coming soon that will bring even more sonic performance to the more established platforms? …do dCS have form for elongating and enhancing the life of their products in this way?
All of us with V/R/B are wondering this. As for “soon” that is an open question. dCS have promised forthcoming upgrades at some point but ,where they may be unit specific, probably starting with Vivaldi. To what extent they may be Varese based is not known and it is worth remembering that unlike, say, some Vivaldi upgrades trickling down to Bartok or Lina, Varese is a very different beast.
Yes. There are free firmware upgrades from time to time and even hardware upgrades though less frequently. For example the pretty major Apex upgrade was made available to older V/R/B units. However these are charged for.
I believe the distribution channels are also expecting these upgrades to happen.
Its clear to see how Vivaldi platform could get some architectural changes (mono DAC?) and then with the Rossini get some firmware updates driving them forward…so much power in those boxes.
The used prices on eBay are pretty low - for both Bartok and Rossini - so I was wondering if dealers were dumping to prepare for something new and shiny, but I think the reality is these platforms have got years in them.
The first question is how genuine those ebay offers are. One classic scam for high end audio is to make bogus low priced offers to attract the unwary.
Genuine private sales will, in any case, be cheaper than used units from dealers. For us in western Europe the dealer sale attracts VAT at circa. 20%.
I think that the idea of a phono DAC is not likely. It has been a recurring subject here over the years. dCS did, in fact, design one back in their earlier days, the Greig. However it was decided not to go further with the idea.
I dunno - I think eBay has long set the market prices for used gear, and they’ve done a lot to combat bogus items and sellers. It’s a pretty safe place to buy now in my experience. VAT is a complex area but not all used sales attract it. Probably for another discussion.
There are a couple of APEX Rossini on there now for what I’d consider to be great prices. One from a dealer.
Apologies I wasn’t talking about a Phono DAC - I was suggesting the MONO DAC architecture of the Varése could find its way into Vivaldi.
A few days ago my brother forwarded to me an advert scraped onto Hifi Shark, selling my system and using my own pictures from when I was in Kuala Lumpur 12 years ago.
Looked pretty good I must say 
Buyer beware.
Well anything might happen. However if you understand the design process of Varese it follows logically from the question " How do we improve on Apex?" This huge and costly design results from a process of realising that if you do this then you need to do that. So improving Apex meant a mono differential design which meant mono DACs and this required a rethink of timing to keep the two in synch and this led to Tomix etc. It is not just a question of adding a box but would be a major design rethink.
You also would end up with a business question. Why make what would be much of Varese but at a lower price? What would Varese customers have left to base their choice on as a selling point?
At some point there will be a Vivaldi replacement as the base model is now nearly 13 years old. Whatever that model may be called is where I would expect any such major changes to be. A replacement Rossini may follow a couple of years later.
Did he get a good price for it? 
I’ve never used any of those other sites - actually not true I did use PinkFish a couple of times to sell rather than buy - and would be wary distance buying for sure.
eBay on the other hand - I have reasons to be confident in that. My wife sold an expensive handbag - covered by authentication guarantee - buyer played silly buggers - got the bag back with a couple of small marks on it that (we think) the buyer had added themselves in order to try and claim “not as described” - eBay credited us with the full sale price of the bag. So we have the bag and the money. Decent. Would be great to see the authenticity guarantee extended to HiFi and electronics - cables etc.
Yes - this sounds about right.
Good to know there is a commitment to build incremental improvements into the architecture via software. Something that only comes with designing and building your own DACs I think - so only dCS and Linn have this level of control (probably others - MSB maybe - I just don’t know) and when I was a Naim user this was always something I coveted, as they used “off the shelf” DACs…. Having said this Naim DID have the ability to change their sound with software, making it considerably worse on at least one occasion (!!) and losing a lot of customers confidnece (and actual CUSTOM in some cases) in the process.
Haha yes Bazos is a site with those kinds of ads. Didn’t know it was your old system, I actually saw this ad some time ago
I wonder if they’re going to introduce DSD256 and 512 as the Varèse got it.
There are numerous posts on this on the archives which you may find interesting to search.
As I understand things the limitation to DSD rate is not an issue with firmware but hardware. The streaming board pre-Varese does not support these rates as they are more recent than the design of these products and would need to be replaced. Hardware replacements are not free and also require return to the factory or dealers. This is similar to the Apex upgrade and might have a comparable cost. Would there be sufficient demand considering the availability of native ( not upsampled) recordings? We would be talking several thousand pounds , dollars or euros.
I’m aware of those threads and there were several contrasting statements about the hardware actually being able to support those rates or not.
I guess only dCS really knows.
I don’t think I would send my unit in and spend important amounts just for this, but who knows, an Apex 2 revision (or whatever name they would choose) with more stuff put in could be interesting.
Don’t know about ebay, but my dealer traded in my 1 year and 8 months old Bartók for about the 80% of what I paid him for it new. And he’s not just the owner of a generic shop, he’s the official dCS distributor for Switzerland’s german-speaking part.
True, it was about getting a Vivaldi Apex One, but he offered me that amount when the discussion was about eventually “just” upgrading to a Rossini. Thus it looks like the value is still quite high.
Not sound related, but I wonder if the Mosaic and the Actus apps will be merged some day. I understand they serve different architectures, but the Mosaic one would deserve a refresh.
I’m curious; what aspect of Mosaic do you believe deserves a refresh?
I don’t think that they will actually be merged for the reason you say. However dCS have said that revisions of Mosaic may incorporate things learned from the development of Actus. So we will need to wait and see.
I don’t think anything functionally - although there are some things I’d like to be able to set in there, but they’re less App and more Firmware - but having seen ACTUS, it’s sharper looking. More modern.
I don’t disagree, in fact, I mentioned the same in the Varèse thread;