All the best with your surgery, Bob! 
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Hifi News has published their dCS Varèse review:
hifi-news_varese.pdf (646.6 KB)
The stuff of dreams.
A towering stack, a lofty price –
and a monumental achievement:
the Varèse does that rare thing
of setting new standards and
making all that has gone before
sound – well, a little broken. The
immediacy of the sound, and
the way it steps aside to let the
music flow, is nothing short of
remarkable. You should hear
it in action, but prepare to be
disappointed in your own system.
Sometimes life’s like that.Sound Quality: 94%
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Erno has beaten me to it 
. All I need to add at the moment is that the digital edition has not yet been posted ( unless in the last few minutes).
The HFN numeric score in the summing up is pretty obscure in its derivation so I treat it a s bit of fluff but even so the 94% score is the highest that I have seen for any product reviewed.
HFN review and accompanying measurements are of a high standard as usual and the entirety has left me wanting to own Varese. However, as the review says at its conclusion; delicious stuff, albeit the stuff of dreams. Sadly I will have to keep on dreaming.
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I am afraid that if I ever hear the Varèse stack I will seriously be tempted…
Fingers crossed, tonight is lottery night 
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Good review. Kudos to the dCS team for submitting the Varèse for this review that includes measurements! 
(None of the other so-called state-of-the-art DAC manufacturers dares to - you know the usual suspects - it’s almost laughable 
)
Having heard Varèse myself, I can totally resonate with one of the key comments in the review, specifically at the initial listen;
Never have we known a set-up so capable of dispelling any thoughts of music being played through a hi-fi system, to the extent that it’s impossible to drill down and analyse exactly what this five-box front-end is doing so well.
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One of my friends noted, HiFi News used the same Artesania rack for the Varese stack that I use. That’s a relief as this means I only need to find the odd £210k. I have checked the back of the sofa and the kids piggy banks and only £209,930 to go.
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No bitcoins somewhere on an old harddrive? 
I am afraid that you will require another £ 7.50. I hope that isn’t too much of a stretch . You may also want the forthcoming CD/SACD player making a total of around a quarter of a million £.
Just the 5 boxes for me. I’m not made of money. 
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My dealer has already delivered two Varese that’s in addition to the one they have on display. Looks like some people aren’t afraid of the price tag.
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One set to you, I hope 
I wish. I have a life where I have to decide whether I should be A or B. The people who are purchasing Varese probably purchase both A & B.
Power to you, Jim. As long as you are not going to sell a kidney (at least 3…), A or B will do.
Well, it will eventually come onto the secondhand market, which means I might have a chance to own it one day 
Well another review is almost out. My review for Positive Feedback has been edited and photos have been laid out. I emailed David at dCS earlier to get it fact checked and I believe we may be on track for this weekend. I wrote this before I saw the HFNRR review and its interesting how we heard many of the same things.
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Thanks Lee!
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For me the most interesting info for me in Lee’s review, from dCS that is, is:
“Looking forward 2025 will see a raft of new features being brought to Mosaic (our control app and network stack), Lina, Bartok, Rossini and Vivaldi as we roll out some of what we developed for Varèse. Some of these features will be usability improvements, some will be related to streaming services, and some will be audio path updates.”
While the above isn’t materially different from information already given out, it is good to hear. “Audio path updates” sounds especially intriguing to me because I don’t use streaming services.
My own experience of Varese is sufficiently limited, and hemmed in by caveats, that I hesitate to describe it here. I wasn’t happy with the sound of speakers+room, and the session - Vivaldi disc playing vs Varese streaming - was rather poorly thought out (by me, that is). That being said, on a couple of pairs of tracks I thought Varese was strikingly more realistic, but on another (SACD vs a stream simply described as “hi-rez”) I preferred Vivaldi. I’m not especially confident of these judgements though. I’d love another opportunity to listen.
In his review Lee raises the issue of transports, and specifically affordability. It is my guess that, currently, the cost isn’t primarily determined by the mechanism. I say that because I think the same one goes into players made by other companies that are very much cheaper than dCS. Perhaps others in the Forum would know about that and can comment? I believe the Esoteric mech that used to go into the Vivaldi transport was very costly, but in the UK the price of that transport came down when they switched to the current mechanism. I’ve had rather negative experiences with that mechanism in the Rossini transport, and I thought the one in the Puccini (which I used to own) was pretty marginal too. The problem is physical noise. Based on the last paragraph in Lee’s review it is evident that dCS would like to get away from dependence on one disc mechanism (am I right in thinking it is the same one in Rossini/Vivaldi/Varese?). I hope they succeed for the sakes of those of us still playing and enjoying silver discs.
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We would love to Simon, but it’s not that simple. We have used two different drives in the current generations products and neither are available any longer:
- TEAC VRDS VMK3 - Vivaldi Transport I and Vivaldi One, Discontinued 2018
- D&M SACD M3 - Rossini Transport, Vivaldi Transport II, Varèse Transport, Discontinued 2024
There are currently no SACD-compatible drives (with a matching control chipset) available on the market on an OEM basis. And given market dynamics it looks like there might never be another. Luckily we were informed well in advance by D&M and have an inventory that will cover all our anticipated production and service needs. But as things currently look this will be our last generation of SACD-capable products. We don’t like it but it is out of our hands.
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Thanks Andrew. Now that you mention it I recall some previous discussion around this topic, including (I think) changes of ownership of the company involved. Hmm… not good news. I guess there is still plenty of demand for players/transports, as other high end companies are still making them too, so perhaps someone will see a market opportunity in OEM mechansims. I won’t hold my breath though.
I did look at SSD equivalents of disc transports for playing flac and dsf files direct into a dCS DAC (via the AES connection), but none seemed ideal for various reasons. Aurender have a couple of offerings, however I suspect their clocking is not as well thought out as that of dCS. I’m not aware of others, although they must exist. Perhaps someone on the Forum with experience of the Aurender N20 and above would like to comment? (And, yes, I’m trying to avoid solutions that involve networking, and especially streaming, for the time being.)
The way to use HDD or SSD as main file storage is not to connect the drive directly to your dCs unit (typically using USB A port). There are a number of limitations in this. You need to install a media player ( e.g. JRiver MC, Audirvana etc.) on your computer. The drive connects to this and the resultant output us connected to your dCS unit ( usually via USB B). However synchronised timing may be a remaining question.
This will give you full navigation and remote control using its matching app.
Although this does not provide the optimum sound quality of network attachment, it still offers good sound IMO. I did this for some years until I moved ( back in the day) to Network Bridge fed by an entry level Melco.
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