Just got to hear the new DCS Varese Dac vs.Vivaldi- wow! Can the MKII benefit from Dual mono fpga?

Audio Components DACs
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I got to hear the new DCS Varese this week back to back with Vivaldi and the increase in realism, ambience and staging the new dual mono design provides is outstanding. I wasn’t expecting such a large improvement. There was no preamp used.

I’m hoping other manufacturers can learn from this dual mono approach and wondering since the the MKII has dual fpga’s, if using one for each channel can have a benefit. Ted did mention early on that he’d like to experiment with this (and also I believe Trying the delta sigma alone on one chip)

Hearing what DCS has achieved proves there’s a lot left on the table when decoding.

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Based on the material DCS offers on their website to describe the Varese, the system architecture differs so greatly from the DS DAC that I’m not sure the comparison you’re thinking about makes complete sense.

It seems to me that the “mono” aspect of the Varese which matters most for sound quality is going to be the physical isolation of the channel circuitry, improving on the traditional measure known as “channel separation” but including the non-audio-related noise contribution at the outputs for channel A which result from work done converting channel B.

In the MkII, I think the bigger potential win from the dual FPGAs is simply having more computational power for the filtering. Though actually running the two chips instead of only one will result in a higher amount of noise generated as a side-effect within the system. It’ll be interesting to see what the net effect is down the road.

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All my Gryphon gear is dual mono. Two fuses minimum for each. Two power cords as well. It seems to work.

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dCS has stated that “some” of the Varèse technology will trickle down to their other DACs via an upgrade later this year.

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Same here a BAT amp I had this year. Two count em, two power cords. Dual mono. It was 15 years old.

I see some amps spec dual mono but share a power supply. I think that may be cheating.

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In my opinion, monoblocks sound better than stereo because of the individual power supplies.
But it’s just a matter of how much you’re willing to spend.
I’m using a Pass X250.8 stereo power amp. I love it. But Pass’s X260.8 monoblocks are essentially the same design, just monoblocks and they sound decidedly better.

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In fact, the beloved Apex upgrade for the Bartók, Rossini and Vivaldi models is a spin-off of insights gained from the R&D for the Varèse, dCS has indicated more is coming in terms of software. Incidentally, the Varèse should definitely be considered a completely new platform.

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There are integrateds with true dual mono circuitry and separate power supplies. At think at that level of design, one box or two makes little difference.

Sort of like seperates in general. But like you said…depends what you are willing to spend. The 260s are awesome.

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My devices have separate power supplies. They only thing they share is the chassis.

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What could be better than a 450lb amp with two power cords? 2 450lb amps with 4 power cords. Lol

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There better be a lot left in your bank account the fully loaded the Varese costs $305,000.

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dCS and Wadax: the two leaders in digital front ends?

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Add MSB and yes I believe those 3 companies are leading the way with 6 figure DAC’s. Ouch :confounded:

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Maybe Ideon Audio should be mentioned for digital.

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Yes, yes they are. :grin:

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