dCS Debuts Varése DAC at Innovative Audio Press Event

you are invited to watch and listen

U.K. based dCS debuted its new Varése DAC at NYC's Innovative Audio, January 23rd, first in a mid-day press event to which you are invited (in this video) and later in the day to the public. dCS Managing Director David Steven, North American Director Emron Mangelson and Programme Director Andrew Szelke were on hand to make the presentation of the company's new $270,000 DAC. You will see in this video what went into the research and development of this extraordinary product and, whether or not you can afford it, hopefully come to understand and appreciate what's been accomplished as the company worked to create a DAC that could sonically, physically and ergonomically surpass it's already world class Vivaldi.

The DAC is "dual mono"—separate DACS for left and right channels—and each is "dual differential" to get the same benefits as dual differential analog signal processing accomplishes in amps and preamps. Assuring the two channels are synched— locked in the time domain—required creation of a new and now patented circuit—all of which is discussed in the video.

Following the technical description the demo concluded with various music tracks "A/B"'d between the two DACS. The sonic differences were clear and obvious to the members of the press in the room, so much so that I chose to leave one musical comparison in the video even though the sound was picked up by wireless microphones, one worn by Stevens and one worn by Mangleson, neither of whom was standing in a prime location.

Nonetheless I think the spatial differences those of us in the room clearly and easily heard made it onto the video's audio track and hopefully onto the YouTube version. What what clear in the room was the improved ambient presentation of the space in which the orchestra played Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man", and the three dimensional images of the tympani and bass drums plus the far superior image focus, clarity of the attack, sustain and especially the orderliness of the decay. It all sounded "more real" and "less digital".

I can hear you now: "As well it should for $270K!". Hopefully this tech will trickle down. If you think it's all just 1s and 0s and turning those into properly ordered and arranged notes is simply accomplished (I know TA readers know better, but this text was also mostly used on the YouTube channel), watch the video please. When it was over I half joked that it sounded more like a good record because in my opinion this is an area where good, not even costly vinyl playback seems to always beat digital.

dCS did a great deal of R&D to get digital playback to more closely resemble what a modest turntable can do—at least in terms of imaging sound staging etc.— and the $270,000 price is obviously steep but hopefully some of this tech will trickle down. The demo included 16bit 44.1k resolution files that deliver space, depth and orderly attack, sustain and especially decay that was obviously on the recordings but that even the Vivaldi DAC was unable to extricate that the Varése delivered. The improvements were not subtle and everyone in the room—names you all know—easily heard them.