British digital audio innovators dCS have today unveiled details of APEX – a major update to the hardware portion of the dCS Ring DAC.
The APEX project has involved months of intensive R&D looking at and developing ways to improve their flagship DAC. Technical Director Andy McHarg describes the process as ““We have a very fundamental desire to be the best, and that’s what drives us…. We’re not interested in taking short cuts, we’re not interested in taking the easy route.”
At the moment, technical details have not been divulged but dCS have release a short film featuring exclusive behind-the-scenes footage, talking to dCS Managing Director David Steven, Technical Director Andy McHarg, and Director of Product Development Chris Hales about the latest technological achievement, and our commitment to continuous product development.
The APEX upgrade will be utilised in Vivaldi and Rossini products going forward and available as an upgrade for current dCS owners.
You can watch the new film below.
The feedback from listening sessions with the Ring DAC APEX prototypes was hugely positive, with listeners noting enhanced resolution, dynamics, rhythm and timing, an even greater sense of ease and naturalness, more precise and tonally resolved voices, and more realistic timbral quality of strings, among other benefits. Whilst each listener’s experience is unique, and depends on their audio setup, chosen music and the wider environment in which they listen, the consensus from several rounds of testing was that APEX allowed us to deliver an even more compelling and absorbing musical experience.
“I think it just felt right – when we got to that final board, and we’d been through all those final rounds of testing, there was just something about it,” says David Steven, MD at dCS. “Great audio should draw you in, engage with you and excite you, and I think APEX does that in spades. It has everything that we think is synonymous with dCS: there’s detail, there’s resolution, but it’s also just emotionally involving…. It’s an amazing achievement from the team to take what was already state-of-the-art and not just improve it on the measured performance level, but to bring something that you can feel and hear.“