Vivaldi One v. Rossini Apex

I’ll get on with it then. I will post the result in “What’s Spinning February 2022” to avoid this particular thread going further OT.

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I’m very interested in this! I have a Philips pressing of the original release (1960) which I never was overly impressed with. I’ve often played it at my previous Vinyl setup: Michell Gyrodec + SME IV + Benz Micro Wood.

Not sure how to participate however…

I’m getting on with it today. Look in “What’s Spinning February 2022” later today or tomorrow,

@PAR @miguelito @ChrisK and you all,
Response from dCS in less than one day:

We expect to support Vivaldi One with service and software updates for many years to come - it is a prestige product after all.

We are planning to offer chargeable hardware upgrades such as Apex where practical and appropriate to the product.

Good for dCS , fast and clear response.

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That’s great and encouraging. If a direct quotation from their response it also confirms that there is to be the Apex upgrade and that it will be capable of retrofitting ( where practical and appropriate).

I personally have sold my SME turntable and arm (and record collection) to assist in funding my Rossini and Clock. I’m just wondering, whilst looking at your two arms’ what on earth has happened to parallel tracking arms these days - are they still the ‘bees knees’ or just too difficult to set up?

Parallel tracking arms have problems related to cantilever pull to have the arm track. A well designed pivot ends up being much lower friction than an air suspended arm. I think it is partly the fact that you need to move the entire structure as you track which has an effective inertial mass that is higher than the one from a pivoted design. The pivot error is really not that large.

There are pivoted arms with mechanisms that correct for alignment - eg Thales - but this is at the expense of the rigidity of the arm design. The best regarded arms are very well designed pivoted arms (eg SAT and others).

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As for digital vs vinyl comparisons, I have an interesting one: Nina Simone’s “Little Girl Blue”, remastered in 2015 from the original tapes by Ryan K Smith at Sterling Sound.

Analogue Productions put this out in 2015 as a vinyl and SACD releases (and nothing else, as many of their other reissues, possibly a licensing issue). The DSD was encoded from the same exact tape as the one used to cut the lacquer and the analog chain was the same as it was done at the same time.

I ripped the SACD into DSD files with my trusty ole PS3 (which is dedicated to this job).

Result? In this case, the vinyl edges the DSD rip. Nina’s voice has more depth, more dimensionality, more overtones. The bass notes are slightly better in the digital version.

My setup:

Vinyl: SME 20/3, SME V arm, Dynavector XV-1s cart, van den Hul “The Grail” phono pre, Crystal Cable phono cable, Kondo interconnect

Digital: Rossini + Clock, Kondo interconnect, Roon over RAAT (network) playback

Amp/Spearkers: Kondo Audio Note Ongaku, Avantgarde Duo Mezzo, Kondo speaker cables

MIguel’s answer is good. In brief pivoted arms v. linear tracking arms basically means that all you do is swap one set of issues for another - and usually at great expense :wink:.

Copy - Paste

Maybe to add to this: with today’s options of longer pivoted arms (10"-12") the ‘non-linear’ tracking issue is further reduced. For me clearly moving further to being in favour of pivoted arms.

Well, 12” arms necessarily have higher mass too. Everything is a compromise. The view from people I know that are true gurus of this stuff (and it is their profession actually) is that 9” or 12” are the way to go.

Maybe it is time for a ‘vinyl corner’ on this forum :blush:

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Excellent news…then back to my first advice…buy it, enjoy it for some time, and when we are sure that Apex is a valuable upgrade, we go for it…that is what I shall do with my Vivaldi dac…

You will enjoy the cd and the streaming with the Vilvaldi ONE, and I would not be surprised that despite of your cd collection you use more than often the streamer :wink:

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Thanks for your advice.
Despite my CD collection (~4000) I mosty listen files from my NAS (~18000 albums).
That is why I have turnrd my eyes to dCS, if not Audio Note is as good as digital goes.
(Vinyl recodrs just a bit more than 1000).
Talk about my sanity should be a separate thread :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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As others already said: this is excellent news!

It is still quite unique that manufacturers of high-end equipment offer valuable upgrades to their equipment. dCS has a good track record here. Many years back I could upgrade my Puccini to accept higher sampling rates, two years ago dCS improved the DAC mapping of my Rossini (quite some improvement!).
This really helps me to confidently choose to buy these products: the ‘enjoyable lifetime’ is meaningfully extended by these upgrades.

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Linn have been doing this for almost 50 years.
My LP12 is the consumate example.

My digital Klimax DS (which I still have even though it was replaced
with Rossini in my 2 channel system) has been upgraded 3 times since 2011.

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Now that is one set of speakers I would love to hear, but alas; I fear my room is too small and wallet not large enough. My dealer (UK) is looking at taking the Avantgarde line on having demoed them for a few weeks with much interest apparently.

@miguelito
After extensive discussions with “Mr. Thales” Micha Huber and several visits to the factory I have come to the conclusion that getting rid of the tracking error is more important than a potential loss in rigidity (given the design principles used by thales of course).
Since six months I am a very happy owner of a Thales Compact - Simplicity II - xQuisit CA and finally my vinyl is at a level comparable to my Rossini with Clock.

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Unfortunately, my turntable setup sounds WAY better than my Rossini+Clock. Interestingly, both setups are about the same cost.