I hope dCS remain true to their word, that they have enough of the Esoteric mechanisms to service existing Vivaldi Transport owners in the event of failure.
I’ve owned my Vivaldi full stack since 2015 and don’t relish the thought of being left with an expensive paperweight at some point in the future!
Hi Miguel,
The VRDS is a great mech and it isn’t produced any longer so obviously supplies are finite but we’ve not just been building transports until we looked in the cupboard one day and found that we were down to just the sugary dust in the bottom of the cereal packet. 
Hi Steve
The guys here have run the numbers and we’ve made sure that we should have sufficient reserves of parts and assemblies to be able to maintain units with VRDS transports for the foreseeable future.
BR
Phil
I actually met the dCS team at Spiritland in Kings Cross, around 2018 if I recall correctly. Speaking with David Steven, I asked about the VRDS transports since it had just been announced they would be discontinued. He said they spent a fortune buying all the stock they could find, which I thought spoke volumes about the dedication to a high quality product.
I saw that Teac seems to have resurrected the VRDS transport, or so they claim, but the pics I have seen of the internals of the new “VRDS” player are very underwhelming. It looks like a Sanyo drive with a metal holder for the magnetic puck.
This is the new Teac VRDS-701t:
I found what looks to be a new VRDS unit: The VRDS-ATLAS, used in the Esoteric transport. Hopefully this is a mechanism that will be produced in relatively good numbers. This is not the mechanism in the Teac VRDS-701t (which I insist looks like a Sanyo one).
Miguel , VRDS covers a range of mechanism designs produced by Teac/Esoteric over the years. That there may be a new model carrying the description unfortunately does not indicate that it or any of its components can be used in any way as a substitution for the Neo device in Vivaldi. VRDS is their acronym for their disc clamping system. maybe for a future dCS model if their business pan incoporates OEM sales?
I was there. Pity we didn’t meet.
That’s very reassuring news!
Thank you Phil.
KR
Steve
Heard dCS years ago bought 250 or 500 VRDS mechanisms for repairs to existing owners & not to produce more Vivaldi Transports. When they are gone - that’s it. One significant reason I decided to buy a Rossini CD/SACD (D&M readily available should it fail) instead of a used Vivaldi Transport.
Dunno what the Vivaldi successor will use; but, won’t be Teac/Esoteric.
Best to all,
Bob
Bob here is the recent thread announcing the successor:
As you see Vivaldi Transport II uses the D&M mechanism as in the Rossini.
Thanks Pete – wasn’t aware of that Sir.
Best to you,
Bob
Love the dCS stuff…but +30k for a disc transport(!) ist…quite “ambitious”! How does it compare to the internal streaming engine of Rossini?
This is about the new Vivaldi Transport Mk II. So the answer to your question is nobody knows. No one outside of the dCS factory has yet got one or has heard one.
I can compare Rossini Transport against Vivaldi streaming but don’t know if that is of interest.
That would be interesting Pete! Some say that spinning discs is still better vs. streaming!!
I will have a try at this but it is less straightforward than just choosing a winner.
I will start by make a general comment about silver disc replay via Rossini Transport in comparison with all of the transports I have owned including earlier dCS models (but not Scarlatti). Briefly Rossini Transport elevates silver disc replay substantially beyond anything I have heard before (except Vivaldi Transport) or expected. In so doing it marks another stage in the game of leapfrog that characterises audio improvement.
How does it compare with streaming (Vivaldi in my case)? This is difficult to answer as streaming v. silver disc is not necessarily comparing like with like. For example, the streamed file may be a self made rip from a silver disc, a purchased download of the recording or from a streaming service. The provenance in each case may differ. That includes the silver disc as pressings from different plants can differ. Not to the extent that vinyl pressings may but they can nevertheless.
The differences will also depend upon not just the format but the repertoire itself. For example if the main difference between two formats is a sense of space this will not be discernible if the recording itself contains little or no spatial information.
So broadly I would say that silver disc via Rossini may often but not always be superior where rip comparisons are concerned. However the degree of superiority in some cases whilst clear may not be considered as very great and the overall convenience of streaming may be preferable. However silver disc can also offer a more practical solution for multi disc sets where the amount of ripping can be daunting. For example with opera sets where one needs access to the libretti in any case.
Streaming services can provide high quality but the disc original is sometimes superior. Other times a streaming service offers higher resolution files which are (sometimes again) superior.
So it lacks a simple winner. Is one of these very expensive transports worth it? IMO it depends upon the extent of the silver disc collection and its importance to the individual
In my case, in a proper apples-to-apples critical comparison, meaning, streaming of my own ripped disc via my Vivaldi Upsampler compared to playing that same source disc on my Vivaldi Transport; the differences are too small, if any, to detect consistently.
In my opinion, those that suggest the Transport is still better, probably have something less than ideal somewhere in their system chain. That said, while almost my entire collection is ripped, I still spin disc more often than stream my ripped tracks, especially SACDs.
Like Pete suggests, owning a dCS Transport makes sense if you have a large enough collection of discs and thoroughly enjoy the ritual of physically locating and spinning them.
Thanks for feedback here! Highly appreciate for me as I fancy a good transport. Will stick with my current setup.
As Pete said (and i will thank him for his answer he gave me above) and although it is very difficult to extract all the information from silver discs, hence the importance of a good transport system, in terms of digital playback, without no hesitation my ranking is as follows:
I was only playing streaming from Qobuz and from my ripped music store (Naim Uniti Core) both via Roon Neucleus for almost 2 months. Did not touch my Rossini Transport in that period.
Once I started playing the transport again it felt like I was surely missing something.
To me the sound of the transport is more organic/analog like. Also wins a big way when the recording quality is poor (for older music productions).
Regards,
Sourav
In my Rossini Apex Dac + Rossini transport stack up sampling in Transport and applying filter to that in the Dac gives better result.
Regards,
Sourav
@James Just saw the news that apparently D&M have issued a “last order” request for their CD/SACD Transport mech.
Any views that dCS might want to share on what this means for the Vivaldi T-II and Rossini Transport? Are you guys exploring the SilverStrike mech from SUOS? Or exploring with Esoteric?
I doubt that dCS would be willing to make public detailed commercial plans for the future.
As far as SilverStrike and Esoteric are concerned there is a history of these brands with dCS. The SilverStrike mechanism does not offer SACD and Esoteric no longer make SACD mechanisms available on an OEM basis. SACD can be read via some DVD mechanisms but as these use a common laser for all media may not be technically acceptable to dCS.
This is very serious news and a major nail in the coffin of future SACD player production. Meanwhile note that the owner of D&M, the medical supplies company Massimo, has spun off the audio division ( Massimo shareholders not pleased with this diversion from core business) and looks like it is selling it off. Apple has been touted as a likely suitor as are private equity companies This is very bad news for several established audio brands.