dCS Varese Music System – First Look

All Image Credit: DCS

dCS of Cambridge, UK. manufacture very high-end bespoke audiophile equipment, with a matching price tag. The dCS Varèse Music System is this British HiFi brand’s most advanced flagship music system to date arriving with a sleek and minimalistic form. This latest design incorporates various new technologies to include:

• dCS Tomix: a patented new clocking technology
• Audio Control & Timing Unified System (ACTUS): a bespoke interface that carries signals between components.
• The Differential Ring DAC: a new version of the dCS Ring DAC.
• Various other mechanical and electronic innovations including; new circuit design and enhanced power supplies.

Tomix is a patented clocking technology developed by dCS engineers. It ensures the clocks within each Mono DAC are tightly synchronized, which in turn, allows dCS to ensure the left and right channels of each audio sample are converted synchronously, while at the same time ensuring that the Ring DAC operations within each DAC are tightly controlled via the DAC’s internal clock circuitry. The company claiming it offers “unrivalled jitter performance”.

ACTUS is a custom designed interface developed by dCS to simplify system setup and deliver audio, control and timing signals between Varèse components. The dCS ACTUS cables carry asynchronous and error corrected digital audio, control signals, and a master clock signal send via the proprietary Tomix interface.

The Differential Ring DAC is a new iteration of the dCS Ring DAC. There is a Differential Ring DAC inside each Varèse Mono DAC. This DAC design features 96 current sources for each audio channel. These Mono DAC’s feature 48 pairs of current sources creating the analogue signal in the correct phase and signals antiphase. These two out-of-phase current sources create a balanced DAC with their outputs being differenced, and their antiphase current sources summed together. This makes the Mono DACs inherently balanced thereby residual noise and power supply draw summing node DC offset.

Individual mono DAC’s ensure excellent cross-talk performance each using their own newly designed, dedicated and improved hybrid power supplies that use twin transformers that are optimized to supply the analog and digital circuitry.

The Varèse Music System  is composed of  five components: the Core, 2 Mono DACs; one for each audio channel, User Interface and Master Clock. Connectivity between components is achieved using a ACTUS cabling running from the Varèse Core to each unit. The ACTUS cable is made up of six twisted pairs of copper cable, carrying asynchronous & error corrected audio signals, control signals and a master clock signal sent via our patented dCS Tomix protocol.

User Interface

Control of the music system is available using the front panel User Interface touch screen, the supplied dedicated remote control and a new app, dCS Mosaic ACTUS, that deliver a simple and and immersive set up and playback experience.

The round CNC-milled aluminum handset features capacitive glass hotkeys that sit around a central dial that can control both track functions and volume control. This remote charges through USB-C and connects to the dCS Varèse through Bluetooth. The updated ACTUS app also connects via Bluetooth. The User Interface front panel display provides a full-color LCD touch screen with full album art along with detailed track data, play queues and other settings. The user interfaces front panel display modes and visible information can be tailored to suit listener preferences, with customizable views and adjustable text size.

Master Clock

Features:

• Twin quartz crystal oscillators run at integers of audio sample rates for optimum jitter performance
• Specifically designed to further elevate the capabilities of the Varèse Music System
• Has the highest accuracy, lowest drift and lowest intrinsic jitter of any dCS clock

Mono DACs

Features:

• New Differential Ring DAC architecture brings major improvements in both linearity and noise floor
• Next generation power supplies featuring new transformers, regulator topology and secondary circuits provide even lower distortion and less transformer hum
• New dCS Tomix clocking protocol brings unrivalled timing accuracy to Mono DAC configuration

Core

All Varèse components connect directly to the Core, as do external sources such as CD/SACD Transports, USB drives and music servers. The Core carries out the majority of the DSP for the Varèse system, from audio input through to the noise shaping, filtering and conversion that takes place before signals are output to the Varèse Mono DACs. It enables the simplest setup of a dCS system while supporting the highest levels of audio performance.

• Supports most hi-res music formats and major streaming services
• Flexible architecture allows for future expansion modules
• Utilizes patented dCS Tomix technology for exact synchronization of Mono DACs

It is also rumored that a matching dedicated CD/SACD Transport will be available during 2025.

For more information visit the dCS web site.

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