I am using Rossini/Clock and extremely happy with it. Like many of us I suspect I always have my eye on the next upgrade and so think to myself how much better is the Vivaldi. Other than obvious cost of the solution the hidden costs are also high given all the additional cabling required for the stack and in my case my rack would not support another component.
So my question to the community is would a Vivaldi DAC and Clock be a worthy upgrade WITHOUT the Upsampler. Any direct experience or opinion would be appreciated.
Without the Upsampler? What’s your playback source and input of choice? If you are currently using Rossini/Clock over network, you will have to do something to enable Vivaldi/Clock to access network playback. There are, of course, options outside the dCS universe for that that are less expensive than UpS or NB, but I predict those would be . . . unsatisfying. Or you will have to choose a different digital input on Vivaldi. Likewise. If you aren’t using Rossini/Clock over network, that would be the first, lowest-cost way to improve your sound.
Anyway, depending on your definition of “worthy,” which is truly your definition and represents a value judgment, the answer IMHO is a resounding yes.
Greg, good question and I should have listed that as part of question.
I use an Aurender W20SE for music playback and streaming services. I am using dual AES digital inputs to Rossini and word clock is synchronized on 3rd clock output back to W20SE.
I believe the Vivaldi dac would be a direct swap for the Rossini and I think you could also use the Rossini clock with the Vivaldi dac. I recently compared Rossini (without clock) to a Vivaldi dac (no clock or UPS) and there was a substantial difference in sound. Give it a listen.
Thanks for feedback. Reading manuals and looking at connections seems like slight differences in cabling if I got Vivaldi Clock. Only thing missing on DAC (that I use) would be the ability to switch between DXD, DSD, or DSDx2 upsampling since that is in Vivaldi Upsampler.
It is a bummer losing the ability to control volume and other things via Mosaic app since those functions rely on ethernet in the upsampler.
Not exactly. Mosaic attributes are functions of the network board which in the Vivaldi range happens to be part of the upsampler. However if the cost of that is too much then you can get the functionality ( except upsampling of course) by using a Network Bridge. It doesn’t have quite the SQ of the upsampler but is a viable substitute in respect of the functional aspects. And it still sounds great. As you ask, yes I have hands on experience.
Without the Upsampler you can’t control the dac though in mosaic. But you can if you use a Logitech Harmony universal remote. I use that for volume, input, filter etc. In fact I prefer it to the huge Vivaldi remote. Particularly as you don’t need line of sight from the remote to the dac. So you don’t have to move more than one finger click. Energy saving.
Sounds like you’d like the Upsampler so just buy it!
I shared it on another similar thread on this forum, so I will do the sort version.
I bought a Vivaldi + Network Bridge because it was way better than the Rossini. I heard the Rossini and other DACs in direct comparisons…The Vivaldi is just much better, but also much more expensive, even though you have already a good streamer, and a good clock…so for you it shall be expensive, not crazy expensive
