dCS Varèse

[Tranquility Bass]

Why is it any better than a well implemented DAC using an Esstech or AKM DAC chip and why should separating everything into expensive boxes with relatively long interconnect cables make it better ?

 

[Keith_W]

A friend of mine visited an audio show in Hong Kong and took some pictures of the new DCS Varese.

The CNC milled enclosure reminds me of what @Punter said in the MSB thread - "The over engineering undertaken with this equipment serves only one purpose, that is to convince the buyer that they are getting a peerless, high quality product".

 

[Purité Audio]

Yup, mad really the excess, it might be excusable if the actual performance were better than any other fine measuring unit.
Keith

 

[Mnyb]

Yup, mad really the excess, it might be excusable if the actual performance were better than any other fine measuring unit.
Keith

Or if it was meant for space besides JWST at one of the lagrange points the enclosure seems cosmic ray safe …

 

[Tranquility Bass]

Yup, mad really the excess, it might be excusable if the actual performance were better than any other fine measuring unit.
Keith

It still won't fix up flaws in loudspeakers and/or rooms no matter how expensive or good they claim it is !!

 

[Keith_W]

And BTW unless my eyes are deceiving me ... are these clock modules on the main DAC board?

We all know that external clocks for DAC's do not improve clocking performance. If you want good clocking performance, do what DCS does here (and all other DAC manufacturers) and place the clocks next to the DAC on the same board. My understanding is that external clocks are needed to synchronize the clocks on multiple pieces of hardware, and even then they are not needed if one of the boxes can be configured as the master clock.

 

[Matias]

I think external clock is optional, so they need to have onboard clock as well.

 

[Keith_W]

I would wager that if the DCS disconnected its internal clock in favour of the external clock when it is connected, its clocking performance would be degraded.

 

[CapMan]

A friend of mine visited an audio show in Hong Kong and took some pictures of the new DCS Varese.

View attachment 385478
View attachment 385479
View attachment 385480
View attachment 385481

The CNC milled enclosure reminds me of what @Punter said in the MSB thread - "The over engineering undertaken with this equipment serves only one purpose, that is to convince the buyer that they are getting a peerless, high quality product".

Just seems like a waste of resources - materials, energy , time ...

 

[boxerfan88]

We all know that external clocks for DAC's do not improve clocking performance. If you want good clocking performance, do what DCS does here (and all other DAC manufacturers) and place the clocks next to the DAC on the same board. My understanding is that external clocks are needed to synchronize the clocks on multiple pieces of hardware, and even then they are not needed if one of the boxes can be configured as the master clock.

It is my belief the external clock is mandatory.

The Varèse DAC box is mono, therefore an external word clock is required to synchronize the L & R channels.

.

 

[Tranquility Bass]

I would wager that if the DCS disconnected its internal clock in favour of the external clock when it is connected, its clocking performance would be degraded.

They are saying the exact opposite so they can upsell another box of tricks.

 

[DearSX]

As a long time owner of this, I refuse to comment further.
View attachment 385179

Is that the mainframe to the Matrix?

 

[Tranquility Bass]

It is my belief the external clock is mandatory.

The Varèse DAC box is mono, therefore an external word clock is required to synchronize the L & R channels.

View attachment 385495

.

Apparently it is optional only if you want to get that extra bit of sound quality. However the onboard clocks are still better perfroming than anything else they have flogged before - so they say

 

[kemmler3D]

Yup, mad really the excess, it might be excusable if the actual performance were better than any other fine measuring unit.
Keith

It's like carving a butter knife from a 40kg block of steel and honing it within 0.001 micron precision... just absolutely dumb levels of effort for the function. They probably pick up their groceries in a gold-plated 747 "just to be sure".

 

[Count Arthur]

It's like carving a butter knife from a 40kg block of steel and honing it within 0.001 micron precision... just absolutely dumb levels of effort for the function. They probably pick up their groceries in a gold-plated 747 "just to be sure".

Lets be fair, plenty of people think nothing of picking up 60kg of kids or 40kg of groceries in a 3,000kg w*nkpanzer.

Just right for the school run or a trip to WallyWorld:

 

[Palladium]

It's like carving a butter knife from a 40kg block of steel and honing it within 0.001 micron precision... just absolutely dumb levels of effort for the function. They probably pick up their groceries in a gold-plated 747 "just to be sure".

Then that block of steel is intended for a construction site with variations in placement measured at least in inches, using an analogy regards to speaker distortion.

 

[DavidMcRoy]

It would be fun to see a really designed and over engineered wifi antenna though. But I'm guessing dCS user base is not wifi people.

They missed a huge opportunity to show how serious they are about this issue. A nice, big reflector for a more expansive soundstage is what this rig needs:

 

[Chrispy]

Just what is the attraction of this overpriced dCS stuff to begin with?

 

[Tranquility Bass]

Just what is the attraction of this overpriced dCS stuff to begin with?

It being overpriced

 

[Chrispy]

It being overpriced

That's the only one I could come up with.