Hi,
No, as Greg said, enjoy your Dac, it is a fantastic product. But don’t buy a clock or upsampler, because I know a forum where you will have second hand opportunities in the future 
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Hmmm, can’t imagine where that might be. 
@GAS_sufferer, I understand your position but :
- We do not know if there will be a Vivaldi replacement soon. There is only speculation currently.
- A great DAC now will still be a great DAC tomorrow.
- You do not have to buy the first production of any replacement DAC . Unless you suffer from having to be the first guy on the block for everything.
- As I have pointed out dCS will look after you if and when you decide to upgrade to any new model.
- I suspect that the covid situation may delay the launch of any replacement. There will not be many ( if any) audio shows taking place this year despite some optimism about the autumn. The other classic way of launching is for dealers to invite their existing dCS customers to an audition of the new piece. This cannot occur in dCS’ home territory, at least currently, due to covid restrictions. I do not know what territory you are in ( please add to your profile) but I expect that given dCS’ world market there will need to be a uniform worldwide launch which is doubtful unless people will risk the ( significant) money on a product that they may not have had an opportunity to hear. Well David Steven was a marketing guy originally so it is down to him but my guess is it is a little risky now.
So, yes, at some time there will be a successor. Meantime enjoy the king. Otherwise you may spend a while ( 6 months? A year?) before that replacement comes along.
This reminds me of when I was a child in the 1950s in the UK. In 1956 my friend’s father refused to buy their first (monochrome) TV set as he knew that colour television was already available in the USA. I wonder if he held out until colour TV became available in the UK 11 years later ?
Your call of course.
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All excellent advice. As Greg said I thought about Rossini as it would probably retain it’s resale value better than an obsolete Vivaldi. But would the difference be worth the constant “I wonder how this track would have sounded though the Vivaldi”? It’s “only” money and as we are all too aware these days life is ephemeral. Will we even be here in a year or two.
My dealer has discussed the situation with the (UK) distributor and I am told none are aware of plans to replace Vivaldi. However even if they did know I’m sure they would be bound by NDAs to deny all knowledge.
In the Audiophile Style podcast (excellent link thank you Pete) one of the dCS managers stated product life was 8-10 years. Vivaldi was launched in 2012 so that suggests replacement 2020-2022. This creates a very tricky situation. If it was public knowledge that Vivaldi was being replaced in say December 2021 or June 2022 how many people would buy Vivaldi between now and then. I would say a reduced number. So they cannot announce it until the replacement is available to purchase. But then they anger all those who thought they were investing in “the best sound that dCS can build” and shortly after setting it up are told “no, THIS is what you should have bought and it’s so much better than what you did buy”.
I don’t have to have “the best” or newest thing but I would get upset if dCS launched a replacement product at a similar price that was significantly better and if I’d just waited a few months I could have had it and saved a large fortune in depreciation cost upgrading. Crazy I know but from past experience of similar situations I know how I’d feel.
So what’s the answer?
- Accept that if you play with fire you may get your fingers burned.
- dCS discounts run out products (as most other consumer producers do).
- dCS guarantees that if they replace product X within 12 months of purchase they will give the buyer the option to upgrade with a full credit towards it’s replacement cost? And if replaced within 12-24 months a slightly reduced credit?
- Dealer makes some offer to ensure that buyer is “not unfairly disadvantaged”. What does that look like though? Agreement to sell used item and return full realised amount? Or take a hit and give a full credit toward the new item? That is a risk that the dealer is unlikely to be willing to take. Particularly if a smaller dealer.
“dCS will look after you”: How? The problem is they need to put the specifics of that in writing or it’s worthless and they may lose sales to a competitor who has a recently launched product.
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- Pick -up a 2nd-hand Vivaldi. Not often, but they do appear once in a while
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Dealer’s been fantastic with home demos so feel obliged to buy new I’m afraid. Sorry. Are the rats leaving the sinking ship just as I climb aboard?
Oh no, I didn’t mean to imply mine (if thats how it came across); you’ll have to pry them off my cold dead hands!! 
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I think that this has to be a bridge to cross when it is reached. I also suspect that the local distributor may have an influence on this. For the present we can only talk in broad terms based upon previous experience.
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Is there any member of this forum who had a Scarlatti or Puccini ?
They could tell us what was the commercial arrangement when they upgraded to Vivaldi ?
I both upgraded Elgar to Paganini then Paganini to Vivaldi.
As one event was in 2010 and the next in 2017, for one of the upgrades dCS was the UK distributor, for the other it was not and further it involved a different dealer in each case I don’t think much of a universal nature can be drawn in terms of precise figures. I would not want to say anything that may imply that a transaction in any of the other countries that dCS exports to or ( potentially) to take place in 2021/2022 would necessarily be similar.
However I can say that in both cases had the offer not been attractive then I would not have made the upgrade.
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I will second that (Puccini to Vivaldi). A little research on the internet will tell you what the traded-in unit will sell for, and from that you can figure out a value. Then you engage with the dealer and, well, it may be a test of your negotiating skills. If there are written down upgrade prices anywhere I’ve never come across them. A fellow Vivaldi owning friend of mine, who upgraded at the same time, is a better negotiator than me. He has had much success simply sitting on the fence, saying ‘It’s too much money’, and ‘I’m not sure I really want it anyway’. The thing is: he really means it. The retailer takes this as a challenge, and makes a huge effort to find a deal that works for everyone. There is then happiness all round when he succeeds…
Well like most things in life, if you want it, then go for it.
If you are worried about losing money, then simply dont buy new, as you will certainly lose the most doing it this way, be it 12 months or 5 years later, once you open the box its secondhand, and looking at the secondhand prices, then its a big hit on vivaldi boxes and obviously be worse if a new version comes out, thats life.
Similar to others, I got a great deal with the local dCS dealer back in late '12 when I upgrade my Scarlatti stack to the Vivaldi stack. The terms were very favourable compared to what I might have expected to get from the 2nd hand market by myself (I believe there was already a buyer lined up for my Scarlatti).
The resale market for dCS is very robust, especially so for an old flagship soon after the release of a new flagship. Even today, 8 years later, you rarely find a Scarlatti stack available for purchase on the 2nd hand market.
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Great responses there. Puts it all in context and clarifies the options people may have.
I keep thinking about this statement. Very insightful. Thank you. Puts beautifully into words my concern that upgrading is actually downgrading of the old component. What was previously wonderful is now pale. And does the perceived improvement result in a real long term increase in musical enjoyment?
And certainly don’t tell us if you do the comparison and the MSB is better. 
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Hi, MSB is not better, it is different if I understood well…I think we can believe that, because some people on this forum have enough possibility buying the very very very best…and it seems they bought dCS gear…Thus no worry, you lose obviously a large amount of the money you spent…dCS is may be built like a Patek Philip, but we can not expect selling a Vivaldi Dac twice the price we paid it 10 years before…
FWIW, I’ll post this link to my previous comparison of the two. The preview doesn’t show the Vivaldi/MSB comparison; that starts in the second paragraph.
I had a chance to try both the MSB Reference and Premiere DACs with the power base options versus my Vivaldi stack. I didn’t find the Reference made any notable improvement in my system, however the Premiere with all the top options was a small improvement. Not enough of an improvement to temp me into taking at least a 50% hit on the Vivaldi and then spending big $ for the MSB. Plus the Vivaldi Transport didn’t work with the MSB, so the full stack would have to get replaced. The MSB can function as a pre-amp, but that has a whole other set of issues for me. So if I was starting from scratch I would give the MSB set serious consideration and build around it but as a replacement in my current system, it just wasn’t enough better to justify the expense.
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Re-reading this chain I was inspired to research the MSB Premier and found this enthusiastic review.
For the record, and contrary to the author’s attempt at humor, the Rosetta Stone does not contain any cuneiform, but instead Heiroglyphics, Greek and Demotic. Just sayin’ … ; )
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I brought in a MSB Reference DAC to compare to my Vivaldi gear. Each had its strengths. I thought MSB was much better on vocals whereas the dCS seemed to pull more data from some tracks. MSB also requires fewer cabling dollars and would take up less space in my rack.
If I was starting over it would be a tough choice which way to go. There was not a big enough difference to change now.
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My comparisons at the time were that dCS was a tad softer than MSB, which felt more sure footed. I felt the dCS was a little more charming in a way. Unfortunately I could not do this comp in my system so take it with a grain of salt.
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