dCS Varese short review

[andromedaaudio]

I am someone who immensely enjoys listening to music via digital (and yes, I enjoy vinyl in friends' systems as well). To me this is incomprehensible commentary, a head-scratcher as it were.

What exactly do you find "broken" in digital?

Bang for buck !!!
Hard to beat my Telefunken M15 A.
Bought it 13 years ago for Euro 1500 had it restored for another 1500 add another 450 US per tape
With good / top tapes nothing comes close , Jazz / Classical musical .
Density / realness/ macro / micro dynamics

 

[Al M.]

Bang for buck !!!
Hard to beat my Telefunken M15 A.
Bought it 13 years ago for Euro 1500 had it restored for another 1500 add another 450 US per tape
With good / top tapes nothing comes close , Jazz / Classical musical .
Density / realness/ macro / micro dynamics

Bang for buck at $ 450 per tape? Get real.

 

[andromedaaudio]

Bang for buck at $ 450 per tape? Get real.

Obviously you havent heard a good tape set up.
Tape quality lasts long and for example the Acoustic sounds tapes( and many others ) come in gorgious packaging .
No plastic CD crap here.

Reel To Reel|Acoustic Sounds

Acoustic Sounds Audiophile Vinyl Records

store.acousticsounds.com

 

[andromedaaudio]

Bang for buck at $ 450 per tape? Get real.

2 reel Box set (1 Album ).

I ll probably hear the Varese in Munich next month , it better be good for that kinda $$$

 

[andromedaaudio]

DCS Varese 305,000 US .

id say 5.000 for the tape machine 300,000 $$$ on Tapes , no brainer.

 

[Al M.]

Obviously you havent heard a good tape set up.
Tape quality lasts long and for example the Ultra analogue tapes( and many others ) come in gorgious packaging .
No plastic CD crap here

Yes, I have heard good tape. But 30 pIeces of music cost you as much as my DAC. I don't care about gorgeous packaging.

As for long lasting quality: All the CDs of my vast collection, many bought up to more than three decades ago, still play perfectly well (with very few exceptions suffering from specific issues that were limited in scope for a limited time decades ago).

 

[Ron Resnick]

With that said, I agree that $350,000 for a DAC is obscene. That's crazy! I mean, $250,000...okay, I get it! But $350,000!? No way!

The Wadax set-up in the M9 room MSRPs for $600,000. I don't hear a big difference between $100,000 digital and $350,000 digital and $600,000 digital. My personal favorite digital stuff is Horizon plus Olympus, for a total of $150,000 or so, a fraction of dCS and Wadax.

I would much rather spend the next hundred thousand dollars on a tape machine -- on which I do hear a big difference.

 

[andromedaaudio]

But 30 pIeces of music cost you as much as my DAC.

You upgraded to the Mola Mola , i thought you still had the Schitt.
The shitt is about 1 tape lol isnt it ?

 

[andromedaaudio]

Only DAC / Server I would / might spend on is the WADAX system .

 

[Al M.]

You upgraded to the Mola Mola , i thought you still had the Schitt.
The shitt is about 1 tape lol isnt it ?

4 and a half tapes .

 

[Al M.]

Only DAC / Server I would / might spend on is the WADAX system .

Your exposure to good digital seems to be very limited.

 

[andromedaaudio]

Your exposure to good digital seems to be very limited.

More then my ears can bear

 

[Stereophonic]

The Wadax set-up in the M9 room MSRPs for $600,000. I don't hear a big difference between $100,000 digital and $350,000 digital and $600,000 digital. My personal favorite digital stuff is Horizon plus Olympus, for a total of $150,000 or so, a fraction of dCS and Wadax.

I would much rather spend the next hundred thousand dollars on a tape machine -- on which I do hear a big difference.

What a surprise coming from Taiko praetorian guard.....
One year ago, Extreme was enough so you have rised the bar from 30k to 100k for a Server. More expensive than dcs/Wadax ones.
But it is a Taiko one, of course....
There are a lot of Olympus costumers than really difference between dCS/Wadax vs Olympus sound because they listen silence from their virtual Olympus.
Still waiting more than a year for an Olympus after paying it is a shame....
And don't try to express your opinion about this because you'll be banned as me have been by Emile at Taiko forum.
Freedom of expression doesn't exist in Taiko world.

 

[Al M.]

More then my ears can bear

Well, then it's not good digital. Which was my point.

 

[andromedaaudio]

Well, then it's not good digital. Which was my point.

23 years of shows / dealershows ( incl audiophile systems ) isnt enough ??
Where do i need to go to find this good digital of yours ?
High up in some cave in the Himalayas ?

 

[rDin]

What exactly do you find "broken" in digital?

I'm coming from the technical perspective. ASR would have us believe that DACs are solved - they all sound alike and there's no point buying anything other than a £50 Chi-Fi product. Those of us who use our ears, or who have looked more closely at implementation know this isn't true. There are still technical hurdles to overcome, particularly in reconstruction filters where, as far as I know, no DAC is yet able to reconstruct the original pre-sample analogue waveform. Is that even important? Well, yes, I believe so, and I think that much of the differences we hear between DACs will be down to reconstruction filters and the way different designers try to overcome that problem. Currently, DACs remain "unsolved", and thus the digital format is "broken", in a technical sense.

The ASR view is actually what we should want from our DACs. That discrete little black (or silver!) box that perfectly reconstructs the original pre-sampled analogue waveform. No more. No less. But we don't yet have that, and so the question here then is what are dCS doing in the Varese that allows for the digital source to come through so wonderfully (and why does that cost so much to achieve)? And conversely, what are their competitors (including their own lesser DACs) doing that is degrading their sound in direct comparison. Is it reconstruction? Noise in the device? Power supply? Components? All these things? That any of these things can and do affect digital sound so readily reinforces the idea that its a "broken" format to me.

It's wonderful that dCS seem to have moved the dial, and may have moved closer to solving digital, but there'll be a Varese killer along soon enough. Perhaps it'll be a Chi-Fi product!!!

 

[andromedaaudio]

I have heard Countless DCS products starting 2002 Scarlati stack ..........
Best sound i ve heard from DCS was with Rossini and its predecessor and always with tubes , ARC / VTL
I have never heard a good DCS set up with Solid state amplification ( Incl my Munchen 2022 , 2023, and 2024 visit )