So you’ll use dCS direct connected to Heisenberg (without Pre-amp?)
Yes, for now, if i go for them.
That’s if i still have a turntable. If i down grade my turntable, then i might do something different and go into the dac direct from turntable
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Are you going to demo any other amps? Lots of choices in the that price range! CH Precision, Soulution, Dagostino, Block, etc.
Yes i will be doing the rounds.
But first i want to see what something like the heisenburg can do against my 500dr.
As if its not much different then i will just keep the 500dr and look for a better solution as far as pre amps are concerned, would probably try a music first reference
Using Rossini, soon to be Apex’d, into my MBL 9008a mono’s with great success.
Audio Note Tomei for the tube freaks with 2x 211😀
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I note that at high end audio shows, where dCS could ostensibly connect any gear it chooses, the company frequently chooses to run the Vivaldi direct to mono-blocks (and also very frequently with Wilson speakers). See below. To me this speaks volumes (pun intended… badabing…) ; )
In fact, to my simple mind, there is a compelling case to just go to the show, write down the exact equipment stack and purchase that (the logic being that dCS engineers would have spent many hours selecting the best combination of gear). In this case, Vivaldi + D’agostino monos + Wilson Sasha. Just my two cents…
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Very much so apart from, mainly its dealers that put the systems together at shows, so i guess they are restricted to what they sell.
But the gear being used is right up there in that picture, and as you say, No pre amp in the way to colour it
You would then own the exact system that CS have got from their own distributor ( excepting the stand). Incidentally before dCS had this particular distributor they demonstrated with other equipment from other distributors.
Please don’t misunderstand me. That is terrific stuff. However the fact that it suits dCS’ needs does not automatically mean that it will meet yours. The correct choice has to account for musical tastes, musical experiences, expectations, room size and furnishings etc. If you have exactly the same needs as the guys at dCS you could proceed without a worry. You probably don’t though.
I have heard that system albeit with smaller Wilsons . It is excellent but the point I am making is that good as it is it is not the one for me even though I own some of it. It may be just right for some people but will certainly not be for all.
When buying any audio system your own requirements come to the front. Great if they coincide with the guys (or is it just one guy?) at dCS. But they may be quite different.
At the end of the day you cannot buy a system just by ticking items off from a list. You have to listen.
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Wouldn’t their need be to combine dCS equipment with other products to create a great listening experience?
Wouldn’t that need be consistent with the majority of dCS consumers?
I’m sure it is a consistent need, but there’s a lot of variables. What the exhibitors had in stock. Which brands they distribute. (Which may not be what they want to distribute.) What’s easy to set up. What looks nice. What sounds good in a particular room. What makes their show playlist shine. And so on. Even the playlist itself will have been curated to appeal to certain audiences. Last I checked I didn’t listen to a shitload of Diana Krall 
(And last I checked some of my choices would clear a room and thus sell very little equipment…)
Please don’t misunderstand me either — I’ve heard that system, with Sasha DAWs, Alexia IIs, and with Alexx Vs and it was wonderful. But it’s not where I ended up putting my money.
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The first question is : What is a great listening experience? It varies person to person. My idea of a great listening experience is , say, what I heard on Sunday. A wonderful young string quartet playing Mozart in the nigh on perfect (or chamber sized music) acoustic of Wigmore Hall. No electronics just the sound of air being excited by acoustic instruments. A whole different domain to that of electronic instruments and microphones fed through several kilowatts of pa equipment. Others may want their equipment to sound like Black Sabbath at realistic volumes. Will it just simply be the same home audio system ?
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I understand this view and respect it, but again, I’m not so sure.
The logical corollary to your position is that manufacturers design their products for specific music types, i.e. this amp is great for strings, but not for electronic music; these speakers are great for classical, but not for jazz. I don’t think that is the case.
Dealers, unlike manufacturers, have limited access to product. dCS could demo its gear with any product in the world it chooses. A dealer cannot. dCS chooses D’Agostino and not Accuphase. That is a valuable piece of information. Ostensibly, if Accuphase made the best suited amp for the Vivaldi, this situation would be different… (No offense to Accuphase, a great brand!)
I am reminded by James’ post on internet cables, paraphrasing: “I have access to any cable I want and I choose $10 spec CAT5 cables from Amazon.”
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It’s a sensible take, but implying I’m taking a logical jump I’m not. (Or at least I think I’m not.) All I mean is that we have different tastes. We could infer from that setup that dCS don’t think tubes work with their DACs, for example. And I know there are some tubes that sound great!
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All good and true. I’m sorry @all2ofme I should have made it more clear I was replying to @PAR. I agree that it is very interesting that I don’t think I have ever seen dCS demo with tubes (though that is what I have at home, maybe I should follow my own advice!)…
Ha! No apologies needed! Love the discussion 
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I see that there have been some comments regarding shows…
When it comes to shows and events please remember that in a show environment an exhibitor has very little control over their environment that they end up with and very little opportunity to “tune” the room beyond what they can do the previous day whilst setting up using whatever they were able to ship over with the kit whereas a dealers/manufacturers demo room will (should) have been tweaked over time.
Event organisers (and more so the owners of the event premises) really get rather upset when we go in and start putting slits in carpet so that spikes on racks or speakers properly go through the awful stuff that is often masquerading as “carpets” and it’s rare that we are allowed to do anything that might make any kind of physical marking let alone drilling holes into things to mount wall treatments etc.
Add to that that at such events it is also important to have banners and other advertising materials available in the demo spaces and quite often you are renting things like seating (because it’s just not financially viable to purchase, store and then ship chairs over with the kit) which are also rarely a positive contribution to sound quality within a room.
Inherently, public shows or events at hotels, sports centres, exhibition venues etc. will never show the kit being exhibited performing at its best, just at the best the exhibitor has been able to extract from the room in a limited time and with limited (but hopefully well planned from experience) room treatments and furniture.
Sometimes if it’s an event that you attend regularly then you book the same space from one year to the next or you get to know what the rooms in a specific hotel are like and so you learn what you are likely to be facing and you better know what bits of room treatment you might need but they can always change from one year to the next without you being aware which has happened numerous times and can be a total pain.
One event that I used to do years ago (not with dCS) and that we used to book the same room for each year we turned up at and unloaded the kit while the event staff sorted us out with access for the room, sending away the van because there was no local parking space available so we had used a transport company to save the hassle of dealing with parking the van and securing it. Once we got access to the room the event staff happily explained to us that they’d need to show us how to use the new lighting and AC controls as there had been new systems fitted and the room had been redecorated and modernised … when we went into it there had been a huge glass “conservatory” added to it (removing the closed off area where we used to store all the boxes and bags for kit that we would bring) and the walls had been stripped back to bare brick “to show the character and history of the room” which admittedly looked lovely but also had created maybe a second and a half of reverb in the room with the conservatory sucking a load of bass out of it at certain frequencies and reinforcing it at others - that year that room sounded quite awful!
Phil
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Sounds fun, Phil…
It actually is … it’s a challenge and it pushes you to get the best you can from the room given the limitations you have to work within.
It may not be the aim of the designer to do this but it is , very often, the outcome. Further it is an outcome of which the designer may be totally unaware. Why? The answer is he ( and his customers - incidentally it is virtually invariably a he) have never heard live music.
When I say live music I mean totally unamplified instruments, a situation that virtually never occurs these days except regarding classical music. That is why I used the idea of it being a different domain in my earlier posting. BTW, I don’t mean being dragged to a classical performance by your mum when you were 8 years old 
. I mean a regular feature of your life over years.
Of course , being electro mechanical, an audio system never quite sounds exactly like that “live” sound though it can give a good enough impression to send you into a reverie. Were that not the case I would have given up years ago.
BTW for the record I am not indicating one sort of music is superior to another just that the original medium may be different.
I realised when writing this that there are a number of related aspects which , if pursued, could result in an unusually long posting. So I have steered clear 
.
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