I frequently have this conversation with a good friend who is also a DarTZeel/Vivaldi owner.
Reality check for me is in order to take the next step in this crazy hobby I would need to hire a sound engineer and undertake a serious buildout of an optimized dedicated listening room. While my current room is dedicated, it remains a room in my house just like any other.
A commitment to upgrading the system from Vivaldi, DarTZeel separates, Stenheim 5SE
to
Varese, DarTZeel mono blocs, reference Stenheim Ultime, and even higher level Siltech cabling
in my mind would be a waste if it was not accompanied by a proper built out room designed by sound industry experts.
At this point in my life I am not ready for that undertaking. I will most likely stay where I am.
When a Vivaldi replacement comes out I will re evaluate
Ive already done that one. Dedicated with 2x6 floor framing, isolated from concrete sub floor and double layers of 3/4” ply on floor under a cork exposed surface. Four walls masonry (insulation filled) construction isolated by 2x6 framing further insulated with dow 703 acoustic insulation & hat channel suspension and quiet rock. Quiet rock ceiling and dow 703 insulated ceiling. Massive “in ceiling” bass traps and clouds, totally dedicated electrical runs and 20 and 30 amp breakers with isolated grounds, dedicated buss and dedicated transformer. All lighting and house electrical on a different panel with separate ground. Dedicated hvac system with acoustic designed distribution for quiet return. Attic cavity drywalled and acoustically insulated from balance of home and further closed by mass loaded vinyl sheeting. Custom engineered and built foot thick qdr’s and media storage cabinets with engineered diffusion doors. Isolation door with acoustic gasket.
It doesn’t look as bad as it sounds… but it is nicely engineered and very dynamic and background noise (sound floor) is about 22db with everything powered (without audio playing) and the ac running.
What I have found is although a single chair dedicated seat is maybe best, a firmly seated and precisely located modern sofa with no coffee table between you and the sound stage works quite well.
It was designed by an acoustic engineer and crafted to taste by my interior designer wife. It isn’t dramatic to look at (I’ve definitely seen things that are more “impressive to view”), it fits into our mostly modern minimalistic home nicely and functions well as an everyday tv room (no kids). It it weren’t for the massive 750lb - 6’ tall speakers, you could likely walk through and not notice it.
Wow that room sounds amazing, would love to be able to appreciate that one day. I am based in Epping, Essex, you are more than welcome to come and visit my set-up if local.
I’ve started thinking along the same lines, after having done an experiment with Vivaldi DAC settings.
Ever since I bought the DAC it has been set to the recommended mapper, upsampling for CD data, and the ‘apodising’ reconstruction filter (the one for which ringing occurs after an impulse signal rather than symmetrically before and after). This has been so for some years now, on the basis that “life is too short to audition filters..” etc. etc.. However, I recently watched John Siau of Benchmark Media being interviewed on the subject. That caused me to try Filter 1. For me, and without going into details, the change was equivalent to a modest but worthwhile DAC upgrade.
So I wonder whether there are further advances in sound quality for all dCS owners that will come from operating software changes to improve D to A conversion either in an absolute sense or a better balance of the various trade-offs. (But I’m aware that many, including me, say there are already too many choices offered!)
Apex was originaly designed with the ( then forthcoming) Varese in mind. However it was decided to upgrade VRB leaving the question of what to do now with Varese. The solution was, indeed, to improve Apex. This was achieved by creating a new version based on Apex but operating in differential mode ( requiring double the number of current sources for Ring DAC).
So, yes, there is room for improvement in any future models to replace VRB. However there are business considerations as already pointed out in this thread. How similar to your flagship model can you add a cheaper model with similar features without affecting sales of one or both?
This has been done in the past with firmware changes which brought about the introduction of new MAPPERS. No reason this cannot continue to be the case
That would mean boxes (upsampler) once again going back to HQ or distributors for circuit board change. I don’t know how many would be thrilled with that considering it was just done with the APEX upgrade.
I am also sure a return to factory/distributor w/ circuit board replacement will be pricey and similar in line with APEX
It’s also an Average Selling Price (ASP) problem: $5-10k per Apex upgrade cannot replace $15k (Lina) -$100k (Vivaldi 3-box) in revenue for each new product sale.
Also, the R&D breakthroughs and expense for Varèse need to be amortized across more than one product.
So… dCS will have to release some new DACs very soon I think…
I believe the vivaldi upsampler and one have the StreamUnlimited streamer board sitting separately off the main board, like a piggy back board, so upgrade to the newer board might not be to involved, but obviously i haven’t a scooby about it.
But aren’t dCS try to do a work around on the existing streaming board to allow it to do 256? Or did i just dream that. But I feel trying to inpove what it all ready has or upgrade to what’s in the Varese is probably where things go next.
As for the rossini and bartok I don’t know how the StreamUnlimited board is fitted in them as the vivaldi upsampler was obviously before them and completely different
Dunc around a year or two ago dCS addressed this. Although a replacement to a more recent board was considered it was believed that demand and the low existence of very high resolution DSD repertoire ( 256 or over) was too low to make a hardware upgrade scheme viable.
However they advised that their experts were investigating if a work around could be found using the existing board.This being a few years ago I think we can conclude that this proved not to be possible.
That was a few years ago as you say Pete. I feel going forward this will probably get looked at especially for the vivaldi upsampler if they do indeed get it to work with the mono dacs of the Varese.
I actually hadn’t thought of having the existing Vivaldi products work, e.g., Upsampler, with a new mono DAC but that makes perfect sense Dunc.
In theory dCS wouldn’t need to offer any upgrade to the Upsampler to do that. The combo would just be limited to the current Upsampler’s functionality, with the updated Mono DAC processing….
Well as said i can see it being a stepping stone to a full Varese.
Sell the vivaldi dac and buy the dual mono Varese dac’s. Use special cables to connect.
Use the vivaldi upsampler for now until you can afford the core, and user interface.
Not sure about clocks, you might have to sell the vivaldi clock if you have one as it might not work with the varese at all ??
But this could be the way to do it, as i can’t really see how a new vivaldi can sit between the varese and the vivaldi we have and be different enough to sound better without being to close to the varese but at half the price? As I certainly wouldn’t sell all my vivaldi kit for something that just looks different and had less cables for a lot more money, but maybe I might stretch myself to the mono dac’s and then that might also in time mean I can once again stretch myself for the other 2 boxes, but i certainly can’t see myself ever getting the varese system in one go and I am sure i am not the only one.
