As the year comes to an end, we look back at some of our highlights from 2025, including new product launches and music projects, hi-fi shows, listening events and a Royal award…

This year we released two new products, starting with Lina DAC X–a network music player–in April.

The DAC X is the latest addition to our Lina range of separates, which also includes the Lina DAC, Lina Headphone Amplifier, and Lina Master Clock.

Designed for use in a wide range of spaces and audio setups, it provides the same transparent, natural sound and exceptional resolution that listeners have come to expect from dCS, along with convenient access to a vast collection of music.

The DAC X debuted at Munich High-End Audio Show. We’ve since shipped components to listeners across Asia, Europe and the US, and received some wonderful feedback from owners, as well as some fantastic reviews. Find out more about Lina DAC X here and read the latest DAC X reviews here.

Following the release of DAC X, we added another component to the dCS range in September: the Varèse CD/SACD Transport. The Transport is designed for use with the Varèse Music System, which launched in 2024 with five components: a Core, User Interface, dual Mono DACs and optional Master Clock.

Created for listeners who wish to play CDs and Super Audio CDs in their native format, it is our quietest, lowest-vibration Transport to date, offering exceptional detail retrieval for silver disc owners, combined with bit-perfect transmission of audio signals.

The first Transports began shipping in October, and we’ve had a fantastic response from Varèse owners who’ve added one to their system. The first independent reviews will be arriving next year, and we’ll share links as soon as these are available. For now, you can read more about the Transport’s design here.

Another major highlight for the team came in the form of a Royal award. This summer, we were notified that dCS had received a King’s Award for Enterprise - Innovation, in recognition of our work on the Ring DAC APEX, a hardware upgrade that allowed us to once again improve the musical performance of our Vivaldi, Rossini, and Bartók DACs and Players. The King’s Award for Enterprise is the highest official UK honour granted to UK businesses. Winners are selected following an intensive application process, and shortlisted entries are sent to both the King and UK Prime Minister for approval.

It’s the second time dCS has received this accolade: in 2019, we were granted a Queen’s Award for Enterprise - Innovation, in recognition of technologies developed for the Vivaldi series, and we were thrilled to see the team’s hard work, dedication and innovation honoured once more. We marked the occasion with a visit from the Lord-Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire, Mrs Julie Spence OBE QPM, who visited dCS to present our award in person. You can read more about APEX here and read more about the award and Lord-Lieutenant’s visit here.

We also received several awards from independent hi-fi magazines in the UK, Europe, Japan and the US. Varèse was named Joint Overall Product of the Year in both The Absolute Sound and Stereophile’s Product of the Year Awards. The system was also named Overall Product of the Year in hi-fi-+ magazine and received the 2025 Grand Prix award from Stereo Sound in Japan. In addition, our engineering team were named Innovators of the Year in The Absolute Sound’s 2025 Innovation issue, in recognition of their efforts developing Varèse (our most complex undertaking to date).

Lina DAC X, meanwhile, was also featured in hi-fi+’s Product of the Year awards, picking up DAC of the Year in its price point, and dCS Lina, Rossini, Varèse, Vivaldi and Bartók components were all awarded A+ (the highest available rating) in Stereophile’s Recommended Components issue.

You can see all the latest dCS product reviews and awards here.

Meeting fellow audiophiles and music lovers is one of the most rewarding aspects of our work, and we had lots of opportunities to do this in 2025, with dCS team members travelling to events in over 30 locations. We teamed up with retailers and distributors to host Varèse launch events in Switzerland, Belgium, Portugal and France, as well as Oregon, Texas, Arizona, New York and California. We also held several dCS and Lina DAC X listening events at UK stores, including Soundstage in London and Martin’s Hi-Fi in Norwich. In between hosting demonstrations and premieres, we travelled to hi-fi shows in Indonesia, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sweden and North America, where we spent time meeting with other manufacturers and fellow audiophiles from various corners of the world.

In June, we teamed up with Innovative Audio Video Showrooms in New York to host a special one-night listening event with audio engineer Alan Silverman, where he discussed his work and process, giving a fascinating insight into his work on recordings from Todd Tilghman, MARO and Anjani Thomas, and the challenges of mastering music, before playing select recordings on dCS Varèse. (You can find out more about the event, and view highlights from Alan’s presentation, here.) We also supported The Audio Salon in California and Chris Connaker of Audiophile Style in putting on a special multi-channel event featuring dCS Varèse, where guests could hear a wide range of recordings in multi-channel, on a system that included Varèse Mono DACs, D’Agostino Momentum pre-amplifiers and amplifiers, plus Wilson audio speakers. Read Chris Connaker’s write-up of the event, setup and equipment here.

We had a wonderful time at these events: it is a real privilege to spend time with others who share our passions, to see people experience dCS, and to hear from incredible musicians and engineers, and we’re looking forward to taking part in lots more events throughout the next 12 months. We couldn’t close out 2025, however, without taking a moment to reflect on the end of an era in the world of hi-fi events… the final High-End Munich. The famous high-end audio conference is moving to Vienna next year, after more than 20 years at Munich’s MOC centre. Visitors to Vienna will still be able to experience dCS, but for the first time in decades, our team won’t be spending the best part of a week stationed in one of the MOC’s Atrium suites. The Munich show has been a huge part of our calendar and we’ll miss heading out, but we have lots of fond memories to look back on, from dinners and events with our sales partners to product launches, debuts and wonderful conversations with listeners who’d travelled from far and wide to attend.

It’s one of our ongoing ambitions to work with the world’s best audio retailers and distributors, ensuring as many people as possible have access to dCS in their region.

This year, we forged some exciting new partnerships to help us expand our distribution base and reach more listeners worldwide, teaming up with Elpa Shaw in Thailand, Mala Audio in Norway, Dubai Audio in the United Arab Emirates, Audio Reference in Chile, and Sarte Audio in Spain. 

We’re excited to work with such a knowledgeable group of experts, all of whom share our love of music and fine audio, and our desire to provide an exceptional experience to dCS owners. Their depth of experience is unrivalled, and we’re looking forward to supporting them in adding dCS to their extensive product offerings. 

Whilst our software engineers spent much of this year working on software for the Varèse Transport and Lina DAC X, we also found time to develop updates for the Varèse Music System, as well as other dCS ranges from Network Bridge through to Vivaldi.

This summer, we rolled out an update that brought Qobuz Connect to the dCS Network Bridge, Lina DAC, Lina DAC X, Bartók DAC, Bartók Headphone DAC, Rossini DAC, Rossini Player, Vivaldi Upsampler and Vivaldi One, allowing listeners to access music and control playback on their dCS device from within the Qobuz app.

In November, we delivered another update to support Spotify Lossless on the same products - meaning Spotify listeners can now experience lossless playback up to 24-bit/44.1kS/s when streaming tracks to their dCS device.

We also rolled out Varèse 1.0.7 to owners in September, improving some of the new functions and features introduced with the Varèse Music System and dCS Mosaic ACTUS app available to Varèse owners.

We’ll continue monitoring listeners’ feedback and working on new developments to improve the dCS experience throughout 2026. Updates will be announced via email, our social media channels and the dCS forum - subscribe or follow to keep up to date with our latest developments.

Each year, alongside supporting dCS product launches and events, our marketing team aims to embark on projects that celebrate those who make our work possible: musicians and music professionals. Over the past few years we have worked on podcast series, short films, awards programmes and events that aim to champion remarkable people working in music, from artists and composers to producers and engineers. 

This year, we had the pleasure of teaming up with journalist and broadcaster Kate Hutchinson and audio producer Holly Fisher to create Studio Radicals, a podcast series spotlighting eight musical visionaries: Hannah Peel, Marta Salogni, Catherine Marks, Ebonie Smith, Cicely Balston, Ramera Abraham, and Suzanne Ciani and Maria Elisa Ayerbe.

With Studio Radicals, we wanted to provide illuminating conversations, and introduce listeners to some wonderful recordings and projects. We also wanted to create a series that celebrated the hard work, attention to detail and effort that goes into creating a brilliant recording, whilst also sharing some inspiring personal stories. 

It was a pleasure to hear each of our interviewees discuss their work and process, from Marta Salogni’s descriptions of translating artists ideas into sounds, to Suzanne Ciani’s reflections on sonic experimentation, and Ramera Abraham’s insights into the world of vocal production. We loved hearing how Hannah Peel combines unusual found sounds with electronic and orchestral music, how Catherine Marks approaches finding the all-important details that can elevate a recording, how Maria Elisa Ayerbe approaches mixing and engineering for multiple genres, and how Ebonie Smith is using her production, engineering and musical talent to create thought-provoking projects that explore the collective power of music.

The podcast is available on all major platforms, as well as our website, and we’ve received some wonderful reviews, with coverage in the Guardian, BBC6 Music, Radio Times, Disco Pogo magazine, The Independent, Music Week, Monocle & Hi-Fi Choice. We’ve also been delighted to see the series trending in the podcast charts, and to see music lovers worldwide sharing and commenting on the behind-the-scenes videos posted to our social accounts.

Continuing our work with music professionals, we partnered with the UK Music Producers Guild to support their 2025 awards, sponsoring Mastering Engineer of the Year 2025 which this year went to Cicely Balston. Winners were announced at an event in London - a wonderful evening that provided an inspiring reminder of the wealth of incredible talent working in UK studios. We plan to continue working with MPG and exploring how we can assist them in supporting UK music producers, artists and engineers.

We also teamed up with Verbier Festival in Switzerland to support a new initiative founded as part of their work with up-and-coming classical musicians. Each year, Verbier runs an education and training programme for young musicians from around the world. This year, we worked with the festival’s UNLTD team and our partners at Hi-fi Lausanne to support the creation of a dedicated space for critical listening, open to both musicians participating in the programme, and members of the public. The space, which featured dCS Lina DACs alongside a Vivaldi Master Clock, plus equipment from Nagra and Stenheim, was used to host a series of educational workshops highlighting the importance of recordings in music education.

Alongside this, we collaborated with Hi-Fi Lausanne and Swiss speaker brand Stenheim to participate in Off the Record, a late-night listening session held as part of the Verbier Festival’s UNLTD programme, where musicians gathered to share and discuss some of their favourite non-classical recordings. Visitors were able to hear a range of recordings, including vintage German dancehall music and classic tracks from Joni Mitchell, through dCS Varèse and Stenheim’s Alumine Five SX speakers. It was a pleasure to take part in such a thought-provoking series of events and bring Varèse to the beautiful Swiss Alps. You can read more about our collaboration with Verbier here.

Fresh from Verbier, we visited We Out Here music festival in Dorset, England this August to spend time with the amazing team at Love Dancin’, who are on a mission to bring great sound to clubs and festivals with their travelling audio system and music-first dance parties. Love Dancin’ have been using dCS equipment for over three years now. Their dedicated space at We Out Here, which draws thousands, features a unique audio setup that combines high-end hi-fi with professional DJ equipment and a mastering front end. We were able to see the system being set up, and hear some of the fantastic DJ sets organised as part of Love Dancin’s weekend-long programme. It’s been fascinating to learn more about how our products can help elevate sound in live music and festival settings, and a great experience to see some brilliant DJs using our products in the Love Dancin’ tent. You can read more about Love Dancin’, and our collaboration with the team, here.

Another musical highlight for dCS was supporting Andrea Cockerton’s new live music project, in the dark. We’ve known Andrea for several years, through her work with Cambridgeshire music collective We Are Sound, and charitable foundation DOSOCO. In late 2024, Andrea came to us with an idea to put on a series of events, where musical pieces are performed in total darkness. Her aim was to explore what happens when the visual aspect of a live performance is removed, and audiences are able to give their entire focus to the music. This resulted in a run of ambitious performances in some remarkable London venues, from a historic ship to the city’s oldest surviving Parish church. We were delighted to support such an innovative project that aims to bring people closer to music, and celebrate the unique pleasure of listening without distractions, and our team had a fabulous time attending events at London’s St Bartholomews’ Church. You can read more about the series and Andrea’s plans for in the dark here.

These are just some of our highlights from 2025. We’ve also had some fantastic moments welcoming reviewers, visitors and partners to dCS, getting out to meet owners in their homes, and spending time with dCS listeners and dCS owners’ forum members here in Cambridgeshire. Our production team have been excited to build the first black Varèse systems, along with the first Lina DAC X units and Varèse Transports, and our marketing team have loved visiting our manufacturing partners to document how the Varèse system is made.

Alongside this, we’ve been honoured to share some wonderful listening moments at events, meet with some inspiring music and audio professionals, and read the positive feedback and messages we’ve received from people who’ve experienced our products. We are grateful for the continued support of our partners, friends and customers worldwide, and we wish all of you all the best for the year ahead. For now, we hope those of you taking time off have a wonderful break over the festive season, and we look forward to bringing you more news and updates in 2026.