dCS Vivaldi DAC APEX and Rossini APEX
 

Today dCS officially announced a hardware Ring DAC update for the Vivaldi DAC and the Rossini.
It seems that the analog output section of the Ring DAC has been newly developed.
There should be an upgrade programme available for current Vivaldi DAC and Rossini owners within a few months.
More details should follow within the next week or so on https://dcsaudio.com/the-dcs-edit and dcs.community.

Martin

I saw the new Vivaldi APEX at my dealer today. Only a quick listen but really couldn't hear the impact as the system was very different from mine. Dealer had XVX's with Relentless amps and pre-amp with Vivaldi stack.

I will probably go with the upgrade soon.

Wow. Already.

On this extreme high end level it is compulsory to match the entire system into a full synergy and maybe also to your personal taste.


Martin

Eagerly waiting to hear about sound improvement from the Apex upgrade. Rossini is already amazing so another 9k may not be necessary but we will be hearing reviews shortly!

I'll most likely make a trip to my dealer to see the difference as well seeing as how the Rossini is so good already. One thing I'm not entirely clear on, is there an upgrade for the SACD transport as well as the DAC??? I thought this was just for the DAC, but perhaps there is an upgrade to the output stages and software for the transports as well??

- Buck

I believe it's the Player (with its DAC), not the Transport, that they are offering to upgrade.

Here’s a brief article from Mono and Stereo review about the forthcoming APEX upgrade.

https://www.monoandstereo.com/2022/0...-new.html#more

What's interesting to me about this is that the upgrades are very heavily focused on upgrading the analog section of the DAC. This is consistent with what Lukasz Fikus of Lampizator told me that a single transistor in the analogue section of the DAC can have more influence on the quality of sound than the "digital section".

I placed my deposit last Friday to get in line for the upgrade.

Talked to my dealer a while ago, and will go in to hear the Rossini Apex next week. I have the Rossini DAC, and have been considering the Rossini Clock as my next upgrade. My plan was (and is) to go in and hear the Rossini vs Rossini Apex, both with and without the Clock to see which upgrade I'd want first as doing both right now isn't financially feasible.

According to my dealer, now that they've had the Rossini Apex for a couple weeks, the consensus is that the Apex upgrade adds quite a bit more to the Rossini than the Clock does. In fact, they are of the opinion that the Rossini Apex is now on par with the Vivaldi DAC without Apex. I'll see for myself if I agree with that assessment when I go in to audition.