That was fake news.
the same price for all updates.
Dutch distributor pricelist https://www.moremusic.nl/prijslijsten/dcs.pdf
Wow…45k€ for a Vivaldi now…
Spoke with my dealer in Canada. I’ve booked my Bartok upgrade.
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That makes sense.
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get the feeling that dCS slowly is killing the market of their “best selling” unit
The only way to verify your assertion would be getting their sale statistics…
I have Bartok w/HA and Rossini Clock. Added the Rossini Clock about 4 months after purchasing the Bartok (similarly added the Puccini U-Clock to my Puccini Player after about 8 months years ago). So I am familiar with what a master clock adds, at least at those dCS product levels. In the case of my Bartok and Rossini Clock, I felt the software upgrade to Bartok 2.0 was a different type of upgrade (really opened-up the sound stage, made everything sound more organic, but also improved dynamics and presence). The master clock helped solidify everything, but to me the software upgrade to Bartok 2.0 mapping was easily a bigger, more impactful upgrade than the clock.
Will be interesting to see if folks think the APEX upgrade to Bartok adds the same dimension of improvement that it seems to in the case of both Vivaldi and Rossini. I expect it is quite significant in Bartok, but wondering if the power supply differences may limit the APEX sonic benefits somewhat at the Bartok level.
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Please share your thoughts on the forum regarding the upgrade when you feel it has had adequate time to fully break-in.
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I have heard from a couple of credible folks that dCS has sold more Bartok units than any other, and that it’s not close. Makes sense to me given the product pricing levels.
now the dust has settled and the speculation put to bed and a couple of days to think about what’s gone down… here’s my tuppennys worth…
so the new Bartok Apex will retail for around $4000AUD more than the last pricing ($27,995)and the upgrade will likely cost ~12/13K AUD…for existing owners…
I’ll be sticking to my pre-Apex Bartok thank you very much. Zero incentive financially to pour another 12K into a machine that retails only 4K more than paid.
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I would say the clock tightens things up whereas the move to v2 and Apex are more similar, and Apex is a fairly bigger change compared to v2. I went through all of these with my Rossini.
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They should’ve given Lina owners the mapping 2.0 update! $30k stack and we get left out…
That’s a bit harsh, how long has the Lina range been on the market for, very short in dCS terms. For sure software upgrades will come in the future.
Thanks Miguelito. Your descriptions parallel the characteristics I would generally expect given the general impressions I get from reading numerous reviews and user opinions.
One question—it seems that a significant improvement in what folks refer to as ‘timing and pace’ are notably improved with APEX aboard, particularly so in Rossini. Have you noted that? That’s cool, but it’s one area where I have reservations as to whether the lesser power supply in Bartok may limit the gains.
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I am curious too how the listening tests and comparisons will be between Bartók Apex and Rossini Apex, given the difference in power supplies.
Certainly agree Ermos. I will upgrade to either an APEX Bartok or APEX Rossini. Keen to try and gauge the difference.
Seems dCS is confident there remains a substantial gap between the APEX versions of both products given that the pricing delta in the US currently reflects nearly a $12K premium for APEX Rossini DAC over Bartok DAC. Have to think that easily over 90% of the difference is power-supply based.
Anyway, the difference between Bartók and Rossini non-Apex was impressive, both without and with Rossini Clock. Now I am on Rossini DAC Apex + Clock, and that is a great improvement. We have to see how Bartók Apex is holding up.
Greg, this’ll interest you! 
Sun Coast Audio put out a nearly 90mins YouTube interview with MSB’s Vince Galbo (National Sales Manager); where he speaks extensively about the Digital Director (~50min mark);
… Well the Select DAC, Reference DAC they’re getting on 6-7 years old, that’s a dinosaur in digital years… This Director now extends the life of the current DAC models that we think for years to come.
…
But if we could improve the DACs, it would be more resolute larger digital filters, and so those digital filters live in these very large-memory semiconductors, we write the filters to them.
…
The thing that’s still a bit of a black art are the digital filters, it’s still very theoretical, huge mathematical efforts, and they need to live in these very high-performance semiconductors. So when the opportunity came up to improve that, we were on a hunt for better semiconductors. We found them.
…
We just wanted to upgrade the front-end so to speak, the ability to write larger digital filters; the new processors is something like 8-times the size and resolution of the existing processors.
So, it’s precisely the Vivaldi Upsampler, they clearly took a page from the dCS playbook 
(with additional optical isolation, and Femto Clock input from the DAC tacked on).
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Thanks Anup. It would seem so.