DAC: Rossini vs Vivaldi

Your inclination is good. However as someone who recently switched from a Vivaldi DAC/Network Bridge to Vivaldi DAC/Vivaldi Upsampler, as good as the Bridge is the Upsampler definitely goes one better for network replay (both using Vivaldi system clock though). So if that used Upsampler is within your budget I would think seriously about it.

Peteā€“thanks, tomorrow is gonna be a fun day.

Very interested to hear your thoughts on Rossini vs Vivaldi DAC with Network Bridge.

Yes, very interested to hear your thoughts on Rossini v Vivaldi. What a pleasant dilemma!

When i first heard the vivaldi, i didnā€™t think it was as big an upgrade over the rossini, as the rossini is over the Bartok.
I guess its all system dependent, but as all this hifi stuff is, once you get to a certain level, the difference can be very slight, but the costs are not. Plus it can sometimes be just a different sound, rather than an improvement.

But having said all that, i would have the vivaldi in a heartbeat, but at the same time i dont lust after it over what i have, i guess i am just very happy with my system right now.

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After removing the DeBussy, we put the Vivaldi DAC and Upsampler in place first yesterday, then placed the Sasha DAWs. Steve and Dave from JS Audio (Bethesda MD) were expectedly meticulous in the placement process. That was awesome to watchā€¦

When it came time for the dCS evaluation, Iā€™d already convinced myself to move up to the VIvaldi DAC and Upsamplerā€”the Rossini that had been delivered the day before never made it out of the box.

I decided the opportunity to make this leap would never present itself again; if/once Iā€™d opened the Rossini DAC, Iā€™d lose value (new vs used), and the price I was offered for the Vivaldi DAC and Upsampler was reasonable.

Iā€™d been apprehensive over switching to a network based system. When I had the IPad control in my hand and played a few of my reference recordings thru Mosaic and Tidal, that all disappeared. Iā€™m sure the Network Bridge would have done an excellent job as the network interface, but I was so captivated by the Upsampler it was the decision on that front.

My Macmini based system wasnā€™t no slouch, but it got creamed in the comparison with the new network I installed, and the Vivaldi DAC and Upsampler.

Iā€™ve spent the last 25 years making incremental improvements to my system, upgrading single components at a time, and never just going for the brass ring of buying the best I could afford/find. It turned into an infinte do loop - ā€œokay, where is the weakest link now?ā€

I wonā€™t spend anymore brain cells on that analysis; I really have nothing left to improve - well, maybe some cabling. This is an affliction and I need an intervention; Pliny the Elder agrees (thanks Jesse)ā€¦

Slainte,

Mitch

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I am enjoying your enjoyment :smiley:

You did the right thing although it does leave those wondering whether a Vivaldi beats a Rossini without a direct answer even if it is really self evident. Every ascent up the dCS hierarchy always brings an unambiguous sonic improvement.

For me and right from the introduction of Vivaldi (which I then could not afford), the essential thing has not been the sound as in the conventional criteria of bass, midrange, treble, detail resolution etc. All of the dCS products make a great job of these factors. It is about the way the music itself is revealed. It is about phrasing, the relationship between notes and silence and emotion. That is why you buy a Vivaldi.

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I agree that what matters is how much you enjoy the music that the system plays. But is your enjoyment influenced by how ā€œgoodā€ you think the system is as opposed to how ā€œgoodā€ it actually is? If you do an A/B comparison between say Rossini and Vivaldi would you hear an obvious difference or does it only reveal itself over time as more enjoyment of the Vivaldi? I believe that to be a genuine phenomenon due to reproduction characteristics that you may not consciously notice but that do influence enjoyment. But there is also ā€œThe Emperorā€™s new clothesā€ syndrome. So often when I do A/B comparisons between two items I expect one to be better than the other and I can feel the anticipation of more transparency and clarity when I press the play button on the better device. And of course I hear it. When I go back to the worse device I experience an expectation of disappointment as I press play and my frame of mind anticipates dull sound. Which of course I hear. I try to maintain a neutral frame of mind but never succeed. So sometimes when I play the better device I try to be disappointed before I hear it. But that just makes me not enjoy the music. So it gives me an unfairly negative opinion of the device. None of thatā€™s really an issue if there are obvious differences in sound. But if itā€™s a more subtle difference the mind can play tricks. What a nightmare.:pensive:

Trying to do valid comparisons is such a pain that sometimes I think there is a lot to be said for just finding something that has a consensus of review opinions as being great and buying it - if your dealer will allow a home demo - and you like it. So David I think you might have done the right thing. Thank you for sharing the experience. Please let me know if you find a good therapist.

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Why would I need a therapist?

BTW I never said :

So it is hard to agree with me. I said, in brief, that it is not so much about sonics as the way that the music is revealed. Whether not not that is enjoyable depends upon the music and what you enjoy.

Can you hear an obvious difference between a Rossini and a Vivaldi in an A/B comparison? Why donā€™t you try? All dCS dealers will be happy to demonstrate it to you. Did I say anything about it needing time? I only said that I couldnā€™t afford it originally ( though when I heard it originally there was no such thing as a Rossini, that came later. Same opinion though).

Iā€™ve heard all three stacks in various configurations, none precisely comparable with another. But one thing that listening to Bartok and Rossini at the dealer taught me was that there is no comparison. Rossini was simply better. With or without the Clock, with or without the Clock on Bartok. Vivaldi, for being an ā€œolderā€ line, is, to my ears, extraordinary. I have not heard the other stacks in my home. But Vivaldi in my home is, again, not even close to the others. As Pete notes, and several of us have said in other threads, itā€™s not about traditional audiophile metrics like tone, speed, or whatever. itā€™s about realism. No therapy required.

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Guys, i am curious about how is SQ between Vivaldi stack vs Vivaldi One + Clock?

There is an ā€œofficialā€ answer on this. The Vivaldi One and Vivaldi stack sound similar. However the ultimate experience is with the stack due to the separation of chassis and individual power supplies.

The logical conclusion must be that using the Vivaldi One with the Vivaldi master clock must sound even more similar to the stack. But in absolute terms the stack is still slightly better. And enormously less convenient in its use of space and the circa. 14 (!) cables to connect it. However those cables throw a variable into the comparison making the result dependent in reality upon the installation of the individual Vivaldi stack in question.

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Pete, Thanks for providing advice while I was weighing my options. I am just floored with the SQ from streaming Tidal thru Mosaic. Iā€™m close to achieving end stateā€”other than a couple cabling upgrades, Iā€™m done.

Iā€™ve had a variety of speakers, and was focused on Martin Logan for a while (Script, Aerius, Ascent, Summit) before I replaced the Salon 1s with the Wilsons. The DAWs are just spectacular. There may be better speakers out there, but the DAWs fill a pretty decent volume of space (25 ft vaulted ceiling) with authority and power. They are stunning in appearance, appropriate for my house in size, and a perfect fit flanking a stereo rack I built myself that ainā€™t moving an inch from where it presently stands.

The Dā€™Agostino preamp and amps, along with the dCS gear are now permanent fixturesā€¦no more pondering what would be the next logical upgrade.

Here is the view from the sweetest spot in my homeā€¦

Cheers,

Mitch

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Apologies for implying others needed a therapist. What I meant was if you know of a good therapist Iā€™m beginning to think I could do with one.:flushed:

Thank you very much for all the comments. There does seem to be a consensus of opinion that Rossini is considerably better than Bartok. Which it should be for twice the price. But that the quantity of the step to Vivaldi is not as clear cut and perhaps complicated by personal preferences and configurations etc. Albeit it is still a definite improvement.

This is very interesting Pete. I thought that most peopleā€™s ultimate goal was enjoyment of the music. So if you are not seeking to maximise enjoyment of the music from your system then what are you seeking? Is it more an analysis of the performers techniques, instruments, recording, production etc?

Well letā€™s start from what I said:

What I meant is the opposite from what you now suggest. I am pointing out that there is sound and there is music. They are not identical nor even necessarily conjoined. All dCS products do the former excellently but the Vivaldi is superior for the latter ( not that the other dCS products are lacking in musical attainment).

A long time ago I read one of the great British conductor Sir Thomas Beechamā€™s quips:

Q. Do the English like music?
A. No, but they just love the sound it makes.

This puzzled me. Surely music is sound?

I then heard an interview with the Polish pianist Krystian Zimmermann. He was talking about audio systems, " I used to have a big hifi. I got rid of it for something smaller which was better. But if I really want to hear music in depth I put it on my car system and go for a drive. After all sound is only the medium out of which music is made"

I hope that helps distinguish between the two. Which is why my table radio offers better music than many vastly expensive audio systems and why I can walk the halls of the Munich show and find numerous systems that offer great bass, midrange, treble ,detail etc. but not a lot of music.

So my point was about music and Vivaldiā€™s excellence. Of course my objective is the enjoyment of music. If that is my criterion then Vivaldi is a better solution.

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Thank you for explaining your position. The sound vs music situation is an interesting one. I do sometimes wonder if a ā€œbetterā€ sounding system actually leads to more enjoyment of the music. I think it is easy in a demo, particularly if you are not very experienced, to be distracted by or concentrate on a particular characteristic of reproduction to the detriment of the ultimate goal of overall enjoyment of the performance. Not seeing the wood for the trees. Not an easy trap to avoid unless you are highly experienced in testing systems. So many other things can influence enjoyment of music at any particular moment.

I donā€™t think many musicians are audiophiles. But then if theyā€™re around real instruments and performances a lot then perhaps they donā€™t need to be. Or they are just more concerned with technique and other characteristics of the performance than pure enjoyment of the performance?

[quote=ā€œPAR, post:35, topic:1785ā€]
But if I really want to hear music in depth I put it on my car system and go for a drive.[/quote]

Iā€™m not sure I understand this. Is he saying he doesnā€™t want to be distracted by the attributes of a hifi system?

I find this discussion of music vs sound quite interesting and wonder whether it should be the subject of a new thread to stop polluting the Rossini vs Vivaldi topic?

Phill

This is an interesting discussion to me because I used to design and build loudspeakers with time alignment and phase-coherent filters, and I cannot say I hear the same effects across the board using the upsampling capabilities of my dCS Upsamplers, and Iā€™m mainly a classical music buff as well, with the usual (anyone in the know, itā€™s kind of sadā€¦) preference for old recordings, as well as some jazz and rock music. There are recording in which upsampling seems to make sense of spatial cues that are audible as an almost separate entity without, and there are recordings that appear slightly blurred or bloated or phasey with upsampling, in other words, Iā€™m not in principle in favor or against using it, and in case of doubt, especially of course when it comes to modern recordings, tend to leave it on. Also, it very much depends on the native recording format apart from microphone placement etc. I love one-point recordings, but even there, thereā€™s no rule that upsampling will affect the phase response in a negative way. It may have more to do with the speakers and setup one uses than the actual recording. Iā€™m always surprised how many so-called reference speakers e.g. use midrange drivers in inverted polarity etc., produce dips in the spectrum, use hard cone materials that break up and ring at higher frequencies, not to mention the lack of room treatment in most audiophilesā€™ homes, so my best advice would be to go by the individual recording or album.

Greetings from Switzerland, David.

I think he is saying that sound is only the medium not the music itself. Therefore perfection of sound is not essential for listening to the music. As an analogy, were we bibliophiles and not audiophiles, it is unlikely that we would be arguing that War and Peace would be a better novel if it were printed on whiter paper with more dense back ink. A bibliophile may collect rare editions but I donā€™t think any would claim that the work itself was changed in some way. NB: I am ignoring textual revisions to make my point as that is something else entirely.

As for driving I think that is probably more to do with the creating a psychological condition for intense listening where the body is occupied with a task that is done more or less automatically . Rather like many ( all?) orders of Christian monks who see work as a form of prayer. BTW, I just remembered Zimmermann was referring to driving at night with little other road traffic.

I have encountered a comparable situation when commuting to work in an old car with a crude radio installed. A single speaker in each front door and no crossover. Yet I could be really hooked on the music to the extent that I would drive around the block until it finished. Then buy the record but never be able to recreate that intensity of experience irrespective of the refinement of my home audio system.

I agree with you. As I am currently responding to questions/points in this thread it is difficult to start a new one unless I have a substantive issue to raise. However maybe the next contribution with an original point could start a dedicated thread?

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Been there!
At work I used a single ear headphone so that I could half listen to the radio and keep an ear open for what was going on in the office. Sometimes a new piece of music would hold me entranced and I would not hear conversation addressed to me. Although I would listen later on my system it wouldnā€™t always capture the beauty of that first low-fi experience.