Hi all, i want to seek your advise if there is any concern in purchasing a 2013 made Vivaldi DAC (updated to APEX since 2023). Your sharing is appreciated.
Cheers
Welcome the community 
There should be no real concerns. However, you should read-up on the recommendations by dCS about buying used kit.
As well as Anup’s useful advice I would add that the only issue that there may be with a unit this age is that the internal battery may be nearing replacement time.
This powers its memory which stores your settings like filters etc. It cannot be replaced by a customer and will need service by dealer/distributor at some point.
Thanks for the sharing, appreciated. I will not get the upsampler so wonder about USB performance of Vivaldi APEX DAC. I will open another post for advice
I have an older Vivaldi 2013 (with latest firmware), it is great. It is the same hardware still except for Apex.
I keep it hooked up and on (standby) all the time because of the battery. Firmware updates go via upsampler or used to go via cd (I have all the cd’s still). If you have it checked by a dCS dealer they can do these things for you.
Good advice. However in regard to:
I would like @Phil to comment on this. The units remain connected to the mains and consumes power ( about 0.5W) if switched off from the front panel ( not the rocker switch at the rear). So what is the unit doing with that power? Does the battery still receive a trickle charge?
I see the unit was already upgraded to Apex which should make it as good as a new one.
Is that the one on USAudiomart from Steve by any chance? He is a member here.
The SNAPHAT battery is not rechargeable, I think August’s point is that when the unit is powered up it is not depleted. Battery capacity has two components: storage life and capacity consumption. Storage life refers to the very gradual reduction of capacity over time when the battery is not in use. Capacity consumption refers to the drain when the battery is in use.
The battery life can actually be predicted fairly accurately (as long as you know how long it will spend in use and how long it will spend being stored at which temperatures).
Storage life:
Capacity consumption:
Those not satisfied with this glib summary will find more information here.
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Thanks Andrew. I always do the maths whenever I use a battery . Just replacing my small torch ones……Good Heavens 
.
However I am still unsure if even if there is no trickle recharge whether the front panel off means that the battery continues to be discharged or not. Anyway Phil posted a rule of thumb that they typically last 10 years (+ ?).
It seems obvious to me the battery will be replaced with a new one in the apex upgrade of a Vivaldi?
If not, why not?!?
Not as a matter of course AFAIK. There could have been Apex upgrades to units only a few weeks or months old, upgrades to units from the early days of production or, in my case, one that was five years old or half the rule of thumb battery life.
Of course if you ordered and paid for a new battery at the same time as the upgrade that might be different picture. However I expect most with relatively young units would not do this.
Still a bit confused on this.
Can we say, if the unit remains powered on 24/7, the battery will ultimately last longer - rather than if the unit is powered off (which will consume battery)?
If we eliminate capacity consumption (by keeping Vivaldi powered on 24/7) are we extending the overall battery life?
But are we reducing the display panel life (if not on sleep mode)
Yes, as long as the unit is connected to the mains and switched on at the IEC (i.e. even if in standby) the battery is not being actively drained.
Yes, per above.
Hi All,
Just to clarify…
If the unit is in SHORT PRESS standby then the battery isn’t being used to maintain the settings memory, if it’s in LONG PRESS standby then the battery is being used to protect the memory.
As Andrew has already said, the battery does not get a trickle charge and is not rechargeable.
The small power draw from the wall of a unit when in LONG PRESS standby is basically powering the minimum hardware that is required to allow the front panel power button to wake up the system.
The backup batteries real world life is affected by a combination of things which makes it impossible to say EXACTLY how long they will last but generally ten years is a reasonable guide…
Hope that helps.
Phil
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Hi Pete,
We do look at this kind of thing both when choosing components initially when designing products and then going forwards once a product is out in the field where we track what kind of faults are raised so that we can see whether there are any trends that might need addressing and so far there appear to be no indicators that leaving the display on affects the displays lifespan adversely…
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