British digital aficionados dCS have announced a major software improvement to their extremely popular Bartók DAC / headphone amplifier.
Named Bartók 2.0 the update sees performance upgrades, which, until now, were exclusive to the Vivaldi and Rossini platforms. 2.0 is a significant update to the mapping algorithm that controls the dCS Ring DAC. It also includes improvements to DSD upsampling and adds new filter options.
New dCS Mappers improve performance and flexibility
dCS Mappers originally designed for Vivaldi 2.0 and Rossini 2.0 are now available in the 2.0 update to Bartók. The dCS Mapper controls the way in which data is presented to the Ring DAC™ core. Bartók now includes three Mapper settings.
•MAP 1 is the new default mapper. Here we drive the Ring DAC™ core at either 5.644 or 6.14MHz.
•MAP 2 is the classic mapper design, used on version 1 dCS products, this drives the Ring DAC™ core at either 2.822 or 3.07MHz.
•MAP 3 is an alternative design which also drives the Ring DAC™ core at either 5.644 or 6.14MHz
Mapper settings can be accessed using either dCS Mosaic or via the front panel.
dCS engineers introduced other major performance improvements with Bartók 2.0
DSD128 (DSD X2) Upsampling
Set to DXDx2 dCS Bartók now inserts a DSDx2 upsampling stage towards the end of the PCM oversampling sequence, before conversion to analogue.
DSD upsampling settings can be accessed using either dCS Mo-saic or via the front panel.
DSD Filter 5 Setting
DSD Filter 5 has a relaxed roll-off with a smoother phase response which helps to remove much of the out-of-band noise.
DSD FILTERS settings can be accessed using either dCS Mosaic or via the front panel.
Bartók 2.0 will be available for installation on Tuesday, 31 May 2022, at 10:00 AM BST.