dCS Varèse Music System

Price
$216,000.00
Options:Varèse Core System + Mono DACs (Base System)

Experience exhilarating realism and undiluted immersion with dCS’s most advanced music system to date.

OVERVIEW

Varèse features a unique architecture devised for total precision and absolute fidelity. Its novel design and bespoke technologies bring a level of performance beyond anything they had previously dared dream possible.

FEATURES

RADICAL INNOVATION
Varèse is dCS’s most ambitious undertaking to date – the culmination of a series of intensive projects that began when they asked themselves: “how do we create an even more profound and immersive experience for music listeners of the future?”

DCS’s engineering team have developed new processes, products and protocols, once again stretching the limits of audio engineering to create dCS’s best-performing, most revealing and most intuitive music system to date.

CORE
The Core is the heart of the Varèse Music System. This technological powerhouse supports most hi-res formats and major streaming services. It handles a multitude of operations, from audio input to the conversion, noise shaping and filtering stages carried out before signals are output to the Varèse Mono DACs. The first dCS product of its kind, it utilizes dCS’s novel ACTUS protocol to radically simplify setup whilst taking sonic and measured performance to new heights.

MONO DACS
The Varèse Mono DACs encapsulate dCS’s relentless focus on absolute performance. Driven by a desire to further enhance the sonic and technical capabilities of dCS’s DACs, they embarked on a radical reinterpretation of dCS’s DAC architecture and technologies. They created a dedicated DAC for each audio channel, along with an all-new version of dCS’s renowned dCS Ring DAC hardware. They also devised a patented clocking protocol, dCS Tomix, to ensure perfect synchronicity between the Mono DACs. These innovations have enabled dCS to take their signature ultra-low distortion performance to a new level whilst significantly lowering noise floor, bringing listeners an even more compelling and visceral sonic experience. Discover new depths of detail and emotion in your music, and prepare to fall in love with your favorite recordings all over again, with the sublime capabilities of these extraordinary components.

MASTER CLOCK
The Varèse Master Clock brings all the benefits of a dedicated dCS master clock – including improved imaging, focus and presence – to the Varèse Music System. It ensures absolute timing accuracy and synchronicity for optimal performance at all audio sample rates. The Master Clock utilizes dCS’s new ACTUS and dCS Tomix protocols to deliver unrivalled jitter performance, providing dCS’s lowest jitter, lowest drift and most accurate clocking signal. Its design is informed by dCS’s decades of experience developing audio master clocks for both professional and home use.

USER INTERFACE
The Varèse User Interface works in tandem with the Varèse Remote Control and dCS Mosaic ACTUS app to deliver a rich and engaging playback experience. Its full-color touch screen displays full album art plus detailed track data, play queues and other settings, allowing you to view more information at a glance. Display modes and visible information can be tailored to suit your preferences, with customizable views, adjustable text size settings and optional dark mode. The User Interface connects with the Varèse Remote Control via Bluetooth LE. It also enables compatibility and integration with UPnP control point renderers and servers.

REMOTE CONTROL
With its ergonomic design, backlit touch icons and focused hot keys, the Varèse Remote Control provides an intuitive and highly tactile way to interact with your Varèse Music System. Use the volume dial to adjust levels or perform a range of functions such as play, skip, pause and mute with just one tap, all whilst remaining immersed in your music. The Remote Control charges via USB-C and connects to the Varèse Music System via Bluetooth for maximum convenience. Meticulously crafted, it features a capacitive touch glass screen with illuminated icons and CNC-machined aluminum casework.

MOSAIC ACTUS
The new dCS Mosaic ACTUS app offers a rich browsing experience and refreshingly simple navigation. Its intuitive design allows you to set up your system, browse music and control playback with the greatest of ease, so you can spend more time immersing yourself in your favorite recordings.

ACTUS: Audio – Control – Timing – Unified – System
ACTUS is a bespoke interface that delivers audio, control and timing signals between Varèse components. This novel innovation enables the Varèse Music System to be connected with a single cable running from the Core to each unit. The ACTUS protocol is unique to Varèse. Building on learnings gained through four decades of audio design, they set out to radically simplify setup whilst further enhancing musical performance. This novel innovation removes the complexities associated with multi-component audio systems and provides a simple yet high-performance solution for listeners.

DIFFERENTIAL RING DAC
The dCS Ring DAC™ has earned global acclaim for its technical and sonic abilities. This unique digital-to-analogue conversion system resides at the heart of all dCS DACs. It has been carefully refined over many years to reproduce sound with the utmost clarity and precision, bringing listeners a profoundly natural and highly detailed musical performance.

In 2022 they delivered major enhancements with the launch of dCS’s Ring DAC APEX hardware. Not content with dCS’s achievements, they continued exploring how they could build on dCS’s accomplishments and once again improve the capabilities of dCS DACs. After thorough investigation, they decided this could only be achieved with a comprehensive redesign of the Ring DAC’s architecture and operations.

They made a number of developments, creating a new design with twice as many current sources and introducing a new differential mode of operation. DCS’s extensive changes have made it possible to further increase linearity whilst significantly lowering noise floor and delivering a host of additional benefits.

The biggest change to dCS’s DAC architecture in a generation, the Differential Ring DAC elevates the dCS experience once again, bringing an experience of even greater presence, immediacy and intensity.

DCS TOMIX
dCS Tomix is a patented clocking technology which enables the Varèse Mono DACs to operate in complete synchronicity – ensuring the left and right channels of each audio sample are converted at exactly the right moment – whilst simultaneously maintaining the highest degree of clocking accuracy within each DAC.

While developing Varèse, they carried out an exhaustive review of existing protocols and found that no current technology enabled us to achieve perfect sychronicity when sending signals via IP link. They felt there was scope to create a novel solution and dCS’s investigations led us to develop dCS Tomix.

This breakthrough allows us to harness the sonic benefits of a Mono DAC arrangement whilst maintaining the exacting standards they have set for clocking performance.

SPECIFICATIONS

 

  • Type: Varèse Music System
  • Color: Silver
  • Dimensions: All dimensions given as height x width x depth. Allow additional 60mm depth for ACTUS cable connectors plus 120mm for ACTUS cable bend radius. Allow space for air flow around the unit.
    • User Interface: 131mm x 444mm x 450mm / 5.2” x 17.5” x 17.8” (includes Bluetooth aerial depth)
    • Master Clock: 131mm x 444mm x 437mm / 5.2” x 17.5” x 17.3”
    • Left Mono DAC: 131mm x 444mm x 437mm / 5.2” x 17.5” x 17.3”
    • Right Mono DAC: 131mm x 444mm x 437mm / 5.2” x 17.5” x 17.3”
    • Core: 244mm x 444mm x 438mm / 9.7” x 17.5” x 17.3”
  • Weight:
    • User Interface: 14.6kg / 32.2lbs
    • Master Clock: 15.7kg / 34.7lbs
    • Left Mono DAC: 18.7kg / 41.3lbs
    • Right Mono DAC: 18.7kg / 41.3lbs
    • Core: 33.1kg / 73lbs
  • D/A Converter Type: dCS Differential Ring DAC
  • Analogue Outputs:
    • 2x pair balanced outputs on 4x XLR connectors. Output impedance: 1.5Ω.
    • 2x pair unbalanced outputs on 4x RCA connectors. Output impedance: 52Ω.
    • Maximum load: 600Ω (10k-100kΩ is recommended).
    • Output levels: 0.2V, 0.6V, 2V, 6V rms for a full-scale input, set in the menu.
  • Digital Inputs:
    • Ethernet on RJ45 connector for network streaming.
    • USB Type A connector for mass storage devices (navigated using Mosaic ACTUS).
    • If the Digital I/O Module is fitted to the Varese Core:
      • USB 2.0 interface on B-type connector, accepts 24-bit 44.1 – 384kS/s PCM, DSD/64 & DSD128 in DoP format.
      • 3x AES/EBU inputs on 3-pin female XLR connectors, accepts 24-bit 44.1 – 192kS/s PCM & DSD/64 in DoP format. AES1+2 act as a Dual AES pair, accepts 24-bit 88.2 – 384kS/s PCM, DSD/64 & DSD/128 in DoP format.
  • Digital Outputs: If the Digital I/O Module is fitted to the Varese Core, 1 x S/PDIF interface on RCA Phono connector, outputs 24-bit 44.1 – 192kS/s PCM, DSD/64 in DoP format.
  • Wordclock I/O: If the Digital I/O Module is fitted to the Varese Core, 1 x Word Clock Output on 1x BNC connector. Outputs a TTL-compatible Wordclock at either 44.1kHz or 48kHz depending on the input sample rate.
  • Sample Frequencies and Formats: Supports the following audio formats and sample rates:
    • 44.1-384kS/s up to 24 bits
    • DSD/64, DSD/128, DSD/256, DSD/512
    • Native DSD + DoP
    • FLAC, WAV, AIFF
  • Residual Noise: Better than 118dB0, 20-20kHz
  • Spurious Responses: Better than -115dB0, 20-20kHz
  • Power Supply: Self-selecting for 100, 115, 220 and 230V AC 50-60Hz
  • Power Consumption: 30W

 

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