My Positive Feedback Review of the dCS Varese
- Thread starter Lee
- Start date
In my experience, my dCS Vivaldi Apex 3 pcs suite greatly benefited from insulating each component on a separate shelf on a dedicated Hifi rack, and benefiting from Nordost Kones on Acapella bases. Adding Nordost QPoints under the SACD player and the DAC - not the clock - further improved the audio presentation substantially. It just goes to show how susceptible digital hifi equipment is to vibration/resonance. (Apex arrived after improving the "infrastructure", suddenly making SACD listenable; upgrading to a Nordost Gold cables loom made playing SACDs even enjoyable! At the moment, I am discovering Gunter Wand's Bruckner symphonies on Esoteric sacds: amazing).
Now just imagine the expense and complication of arranging the same for the 6 boxes Varese suite! Too many boxes which are susceptible to vibrations but also internal resonance. A nightmare. One positive point: no more expensive 3rd party cables except for one power cord.
Now just imagine the expense and complication of arranging the same for the 6 boxes Varese suite! Too many boxes which are susceptible to vibrations but also internal resonance. A nightmare. One positive point: no more expensive 3rd party cables except for one power cord.
Although I can find it understandable, considering the expenses of development and manufacturing in small numbers, it is hard to consider the expense of such sum "reasonable" ... But there is a question I do no have the answer know - if starting today and spending $400k I would buy a dCS Vareses with lower cost speakers and electronics or a dCS Vivaldi with more expensive speakers and electronics?
Nice words, but I am ( should I dare to say "we are"? ) already jealous every time I read about it. Imagine how it will be after we listen to it!
It has nothing to do with vibration elimination. Did you measure before and after, with and without pods or spikes under it?
Not just digital hi-fi components or your dCS DAC exhibit a change in sound when a tweak is placed under them. Even placing pieces of wood under the last 2.5 meters of a 25-meter dedicated AC line alters the sound. Every component behaves this way, but not due to a reduction in vibration. When you place something under a cable or component, you’re simply changing its resonance frequency. That’s not always beneficial—sometimes it can degrade the sound by increasing resonance and shifting it into the audible range.
Almost all tweaks have nothing to do with vibration elimination; they’re simply resonators that alter the resonance frequency of the component they’re placed under. They are adding distortion while removing some from other places of frequency range just like an equalizer. Tweak manufacturers keep telling lies about vibration cause they cannot sell their products if they tell the truth.
I moved my Rossini clock to the side and have it on Nordost SortKones. Made a slight difference.
I put Wilson Pedestals under the DAC and that made a bigger difference.
I wonder if your wife thinks the jewelry industry is joking as well. Diamonds are simply artificial scarcity. At least hifi is creating something and incurs real R&D costs.
If ever, I would only buy synthetic diamonds. Same thing as the natural ones, without the exploitative nature of the latter and much lower prices.
There simply is no reason today to buy anything other than synthetic diamonds. Some might argue that they may not have the same romanticism as the natural ones. To which I would reply, what exactly is so f*cking "romantic" about evil blood diamonds?
Elliot G.
Industry Expert
She owns a WADAX and has Gobel Speakers. Sorry your two late she has a thing for old Jewish guys LOL
Out of curiosity and with all due respect, absent you personally hearing the Varese in your or any other competent system, how do you know it is the "very best" in digital playback?
Apologies for entering semantics affairs in an another member post , but I feel that saying "what represents the very best in digital playback" is not exactly saying "it is the very best" .
Fellas, I'm way over my head when it comes to comprehending the sonic value of a piece of gear like this. I just believe that dCS has a very excellent reputation, and that they have gone all out to create a Flagship that represents the best that they can engineer. I think that Lee's very positive comprehensive review with that absolutely reference system in place, would give me confidence to believe that while there are certainly competitors like Wadax I would want to consider, the dCS Varese represents the very best that digital playback has to offer. If I had a Vivaldi stack, I would not be running out to buy one, because I am certain that dCS will continue to support this technology, also. In regard to it being a good investment, if you are a multimillionaire and highly into the high end, it is a good investment because 10 years from now it will still be state of the art because as I understand it, it will be upgradable, and thus always "new". I think that buying the absolute best like I did with my XVX with the knowledge that the only Wilson speaker that will ever surpass it will be another "XVX", is similar to buying a Vivaldi stack or a Varese, and in that sense, it represents an excellent value for a multimillionaire (say 100 million net worth). There's lots of them out there.
Charles
Charles
I put some thought into the caveats section within the review. Please reread those as they directly address your post.
Elliot G.
Industry Expert
Well now we know why she isn't with you , great way to turn a woman on is to correct her LOLApparently she's not fussy about spelling either.
Lee, what’s the basis of this review? Is this the performance of the digital stack in your reference system? Is this you reporting on a dealer demo? How did you assess performance? I don’t understand the review process.
Ted Denney
Lead designer CEO, Synergistic Research Inc.
Ted Denney
Lead designer CEO, Synergistic Research Inc.
It’s in the review Ted. I listened on a system at Evolution that’s become a sort of third system to me in a way.
Yes, see the thread on WBF where we compared to the MSB Select 2 on a Gryphon flagship system in a dedicated building.
A trip to Hugh's Music Barn. A comparison of the MSB Select 2 and the dCS Varese digital systems...
No sooner than I had received word on the dCS Varese review going public, I got a message from Hugh saying that Scott Carpenter was bringing the Varese to his music room for a comparison to Hugh's MSB Select 2 DAC. I was at the local record store so I walked home and jumped into the car...
www.whatsbestforum.com
We also compared it to the Vivaldi APEX on the same system at Evolution.
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