Only £217,500 for the whole stack.
The Varèse music system comprises five components, including the Core streaming and processing unit (£75,000), two mono DACs (one for each audio channel, £90,000 for the pair), a separate user interface unit (£20,000) and the optional master clock (£32,500), for a total eyewatering price of £217,500. A dedicated CD/SACD transport will be added to the line up in 2025.
I’ll take two…
And I can’t wait to see dCS’s response to any even slightly negative reviews. ![]()
I am just taking one. A second would go in my office, but that would be overkill.
Just looking at the thumbnail pic, I first thought they had stacked some Hifi-Rose streamer on top of their own components…
WTH makes a “user interface unit” cost £20,000?
I’m sure it’ll lift a thousand veils and bring such close, live venue realism that you’ll feel the singer’s breath on your skin…
I can’t wait for the superlative word salads the popular hi-fi press will compose when this hits the review scene.
The answer already came. Not sure what you expect
I’m waiting until it’s Roon Ready. Maybe then I will be able to use it to replace my RPi4 connecting to my Ruark R1 Mk4 in the bedroom ![]()
I guess no one will claim this one “punches above its price point” ![]()
£10 a peice - anything else more is blatent profiteering ![]()
They are included in each component’s box.

It’s (very) good to be sceptical here, but seriously how many people are in the market for a near-quarter of a million pound source? It would be interesting to know how many they’ll ever build of these (not expecting to find out). These things are just not meant for the likes of (most of) us.
If selling 10 or 12 of these over the next couple of years helps keep their business going, then why not? The people buying know what they’re getting into I’m sure - and I’m also sure they’ll get royal treatment. Seems the high end playbook these days is all about a handful of incredibly valuable/profitable sales, with no ‘mass market’ or even moderate volume/lower margin products.
If one has enough money to afford the Varese then one also has the money to buy a professional sports team anywhere in the world. So then why is the sound so terrible at all sports arenas? ![]()
The innovations of the new Varèse platform will gradually trickle down into more modestly priced dCS gear in the coming years. This happened with the previous dCS platform: Vivaldi, which novelties later could be found in the Rossini, Bartok and Lina.
That’s a good thing, although it’s a bit of a shame it doesn’t trickle down to something with a four-figure price tag. Something still aspirational but realistic. Lina and Bartòk I guess are somewhat reachable, if not without some difficulty (or perhaps one day on the used market).
It’s a shame they don’t have a sister brand to trickle down to without sullying their reputation (e.g., Esoteric/TEAC).
This is the way.
ABS came from trains.
I might have read this before but I am not quite sure
The Varese had this addictive, relaxed reproduction that made me not want to leave the listening seat. This digital experience was very similar to when you hear a great tape or LP being reproduced; you get pulled in, you feel relaxed, the system disappears, and it’s just the music. It may have been the best digital reproduction that I have ever experienced.
The good news is that it supports MQA so there’s that.