dCS Varese short review
- Thread starter craigr
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For setup folks, there are real advantages to digital playback.
1. You can easily carry the gear unlike a turntable.
2. You have a drive of setup tracks like Jim Smith’s list in Get Better Sound.
3. You know what characteristics to listen for on each track.
4. The setup guy knows what ‘levers’ to adjust to get improvement.
I think digital files, even just 16/44, are sufficient for optimal setup even when analog playback can sound better.
Well said. I found a significant improvement with my Rossini Apex from router getting plugged into a conditioner, adding a Sortz noise control device, getting better ethernet cable, adding Wilson Pedestals, and adding an Ansuz ethernet switch. It sounded great before but these things took it to a new level.
Huh? 13 digital cables, 4 power cords, interconnects, plus each box 30-50 pounds... haha, not a very portable set up
I'm obviously not thinking about a Varese system here. Think about what Peter McGrath brings...a laptop with his recordings, a Berkely USB SPDIF converter, a cable or two, and he uses the customer's DAC. Jim Smith will bring along a DAC, a MacBook with his preferred playlist, and a good line conditioner.
Much lighter than a turntable and phono stage.
I marvell at the mechanical complexity of that machine!
Sharp indeed!
Appreciate the humor, but a laptop is 1/3rd to 1/2 the weight….more than likely even less
The post I commented on asked whether anyone compared the Varese to a turntable. If you would like I can briefly elaborate on my "not a consideration" response. Bottom line, life is too short to fiddle with vinyl. I do not enjoy jumping up every 10 to 20 minutes to flip sides or skip tracks. I don't want to clean or have to store X amount of albums. It is bad enough that I have to store and retain the original CD's I have burned as music files. Unlike LP's that I might want to play, these CD's can be stored anywhere and do not need to be kept in close proximity to my music room.
I will let others debate any SQ differences they attribute to the two sources. I grew up with vinyl and RtR. Thank goodness I don't have to deal with it these days to get great sound.
Actually, I enjoy doing just that - but I do understand your point...
Apart from being heavier than CDs, they offer (to me) lots of fun reading the sleeve notes and admiring the artwork... Being lazy, I rarely clean my LPs other than when I first purchase them.
Indeed, music comes first and good sound makes listening to music a more enjoyable experience.
Likewise
Noted. I am not interested in a rehash about how convenient digital is or its pros and cons vs analog.. there are tons of threads on those to read. At $300k, i will very curious to hear how it sounds compared to a good analog or turntable front end..
I am sure that as more individuals have the opportunity to hear the Varese you will get their opinions as to how it sounds compared to analog. I did not have to wait for the release of Varese to form my opinion. Varese would get me closer to what I want from this hobby. The price of entry is probably something I am not comfortable with.
Vinyl is a superior medium. It allows the listener to dive into the music, connecting with the performers. My vinyl setup allows this easily, even with poor LPs, my Vivaldi Apex suite finally comes close when using the best SACD has to offer (supported by a plethora of eye-watering expensive cabling, bases, power management, grounding etc... Yes, that paraphernalia benefits vinyl too, to a lesser extent; without it, I cannot listen to digital and enjoy it). The secret of vinyl is that this "bonding in music" takes place even on relatively simple, modestly priced, rigs. Hence the resurgence of LP as a music medium (including the joys of cover art and notes).
Vivaldi before Apex was unlistenable. With Apex, it still presents shortcomings that vinyl transcends with ease. And until now, streaming did not even get close to SACD playback. This has always been obvious to me. The question was: is the medium (digital) at fault, or the digital gear? Perhaps Varese answers the problem by showing that digital can transcend even the best vinyl gear money can buy (Clearaudio Statement etc...). That would be a watershed moment.
(PS: I own both a Clearaudio Statement rig and a Vivaldi Apex suite. I use the Vivaldi suite to listen to the historically informed performances revival - Monteverdi et al, but now even exploring the romantique repertoire - most of which is on cd, a poor medium indeed).
Vivaldi before Apex was unlistenable. With Apex, it still presents shortcomings that vinyl transcends with ease. And until now, streaming did not even get close to SACD playback. This has always been obvious to me. The question was: is the medium (digital) at fault, or the digital gear? Perhaps Varese answers the problem by showing that digital can transcend even the best vinyl gear money can buy (Clearaudio Statement etc...). That would be a watershed moment.
(PS: I own both a Clearaudio Statement rig and a Vivaldi Apex suite. I use the Vivaldi suite to listen to the historically informed performances revival - Monteverdi et al, but now even exploring the romantique repertoire - most of which is on cd, a poor medium indeed).
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Well that's surely not a universal opinion. You can have any opinion you want, does not make it correct.
Getting up every 20 minutes is actually really good for your health! About the worst thing that streaming does is make audiophiles into couch potatoes. I’ve discovered the joy of listening to music while walking around. I don’t feel like I’m trapped into my listening chair with my head in a vice obsessing over silly trivialities like whether an instrument comes from one channel or another or what its soundstage is, although I dabbled in such foolishness when I was much younger and read too much of HP’s writing in TAS. The issue of vinyl vs. digital has been debated ad nauseam on WBF but vinyl has survived and is thriving against all expectations. I never imagined vinyl outselling CDs by orders of magnitude in 2024, but here we are. 8-year old kids are marching into record stores to buy the latest Taylor Swift vinyl album in their favorite colors. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Who’d have thought that would happen?
I’m happy to listen to all media — SACDs, CDs, Blu-Ray audio, streaming, mono and stereo vinyl. I have plenty of lovely mono jazz and popular music on vinyl that will never get released on streaming channels. Thousands of SACDs that I like to listen in multichannel sound. IMHO, multichannel SACDs and Blu Ray audio can sound far better than the highly restrictive two channel media that audiophiles tend to focus on. There’s a huge increase in spatial resolution.
Vinyl is a superior medium compared to digital for a more engaging musical experience, in my opinion. Granted, I have not heard a $300k digital system yet
Hi Jim,
You will have to admit that notwithstanding astonishing improvements in digital media, the LP still stands its ground, 70 years after stereophonic LPs made their debut. And digital media are still in a quest to surpass vinyl with all its shortcomings. Otherwise, why spend so much on digital R&D? Now, I respect dCS products. After many iterations, I ended up owning a Vivaldi Apex stack. Apex is actually something of breakthrough for dCS. It made Vivaldi "listenable" again. But not before I put each Vivaldi box on its own support, isolating it from ground vibration AND reducing internal resonance/vibration, AND feeding it with the best cable loom/power management I could afford. There is tremendous hidden potential in any hifi system by spending on "bases" and "power". I commented on this a few years ago. And yet, slowly upgrading in parallel my vinyl setup, a cartridge here, a tonearm cable there, it still produces that analogue "rightness of tone, flow and presentation" that outclasses anything digital. In all subjectivity.
The best of analogue has become expensive, but the best of digital is now far more expensive, also given the support needed. If dCS finally cracks digital with Varese, allowing the listener the immersive experience of vinyl, I applaud it. Varese, for whatever reason, is very expensive and will probably need as much support as Vivaldi Apex, making it even more expensive ("destack" the stack!). However, in the future, technology will trickle down and competitors will catch up. The audio industry might finally deliver on the promise of digital.
Firstly, however, let us listen to Varese and make up our minds. In all subjectivity.
Enjoy your music!
That resurgence is for the very most part fed by digitally sourced LPs (digital recording and/or digital mastering). Thus there is a problem with your logic regarding the alleged musical inferiority of digital.
If the "bonding in music", as you say, can then take place as well, there cannot be a problem with digital per se. What in that case then helps the communication of music would be vinyl colorations upon production and/or playback. In addition, or alternatively, the different mastering required to make music suitable for vinyl production, given the limitations of the medium, would help.
Any or all of these would then be "the secret of vinyl" that you talk about.
Interesting point. And I have pondered it.
I am in the fortunate position that I can compare similar SACD and vinyl issues back-to-back. A company by the name of TRPTK makes state-of-the-art digital recordings. Its recording techniques, and resulting recordings, are superior to anything I know. It records mostly Dutch or Netherlands-based, infectiously talented, artists.
TRPTK also issued a few SACDs and LPs of selected recordings: van Poucke on Schumann, Eijlander in Dark Fire, Fridman in Reid. Gripping interpretations, exemplary recordings. With dCS Vivaldi, the comparison was embarrassing. Upgrading to Vivaldi Apex, looming with Nordost Gold and installing a Nordost QB10 to replace two Nordost QB8s plus plus plus... narrowed the gap substantially. However, the vinyl issues of these "high-end" digital(!) recordings still carried the day.
Also, the new Esoteric vinyl issues are a joy (apparently, they contain a digital step, and I could not care less). Esoteric+vinyl. Who would have thought?
What is going on? (i) digital reproduction equipment is still not up to analogue standards (ii) I suspect that vinyl, when erring during is convolute production and reproduction process, introduces linear distortions in the analogue domain, to which our hearing is accustomed and which it can easily process, contrary to digital artifacts. Ergo, only when digital reproduction equipment tames its digital gremlins, can it aspire to compete head-on with the best of analogue reproduction. According to dCS, this will set you back usd 300 thd and counting. And the proof is still in the pudding.
PS: the TRPTK classical catalogue is somewhat eclectic - which is a joy (and not always to my liking) - but its bread-and-butter recordings compete with the best interpretations bar none and have a huge sonic advantage. Sample van Poucke, or even Wilmering/Boertien in... Winterreise (it is the best interpretation in my collection). Be amazed!
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