Thanks Paul. Interesting, I never noticed that. (Albeit, I’ve always had an external Clock on all my dCS systems, so never actually checked that out 
).
Hi, things have moved on a bit since I last posted. I am now the proud owner of a dCS Rossini Apex Player. As a future upgrade path, what would be best? A Rossini Clock, a Vivaldi Clock or a Rossini Transport, for SACD replay?
Without knowing what you are trying to achieve this is like being asked should you buy one of two apples or an orange?
It would also assist if we knew what you expect to spend and of it is to be new or used? Do you have an existing collection of SACDs and, if so, how large? What is the anticipated time envisaged for the upgrade path? if you are thinking of this happening some time away then it may be best to leave it now and ask again when you are ready to go ahead as any advice now may become less relevant over time.
Hi Stephen,
As Pete says this is a bit of an apples to oranges comparison. What are you really after? A sound quality improvement or the ability to play SACDs? If you had a massive SACD collection and the latter were really important to you I suspect you wouldn’t have bought the Rossini Player in the first place?
This is just my 2c worth but the first thing I would point out is that you have a problem - because you are in a really good place. A Rossini APEX Player is a fantastic sounding unit with the benefit of the all-in-one packaging. This is without doubt one of the sweetest sweet spots in the portfolio and for many is an end-game solution.
Either clock will improve the SQ, and there is a whole faction of “true clock believers” here on the forum that run Vivaldi clocks with both Rossinis and Bartóks and swear by it. That said my advice would be to consider a Rossini clock in the first instance and acclimatize to the difference a clock makes before shelling out on a Vivaldi clock. Once there you may decide the SQ improvement the Vivaldi offers is not worth the outlay - or you may decide it is sonic nirvana - but experience with the Rossini clock will give you a solid platform on which to make that determination. The only functional difference between the two, the greater number of outputs on the Vivaldi clock, is irrelevant unless you are heading for a Vivaldi separates stack, and that is a long way from where you are now.
However, if you know in your heart that your demons will leave you no peace until you have the best there is another avenue to consider, a (second hand) Vivaldi One. This achieves both SACD support and a SQ improvement while retaining the massive advantage of that all-in-one form factor. It also gets you to the very top of the tree which may afford you the peace of mind that further upgrades are completely unnecessary.
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To some extent this is repeating what both Pete and Andrew have said: what is the balance of your listening in terms of CDs/SACDs/streaming? What do you think it will be in four or five years? That ought to narrow your choices. I’ll add that if you are just curious about SACDs, but have few or none, now probably isn’t the time to start collecting in order to play them directly from disc. Yes, they are still released but not in large numbers and they are for the most part quite pricey. Apologies if you know this already. Buying the discs and then ripping them, if you really want the music in DSD form, is an alternative to having an SACD-playing capability which is rather expensive in the dCS universe. Mind you, I’m tempted by the idea of a Vivaldi One myself.
You and me both…
As Vivaldi One is a legacy product my caveat for buying a used one is how comfortable one may be long term for spares for the Esoteric mech . My understanding is that dCS may have a stock but that this may inevitably become depleted and eventually exhausted.
Good to be reminded of that. It is the question that hangs over the Mk I Vivaldi transport, the One, and now the rest of the SACD-capable dCS transports since the other manufacturer stopped making those too. I listened to a recent show presentation by PS Audio’s Paul McGowan who was describing their new range of electronics. Their player uses the same mech as dCS now do and he said, I think, that they’d bought a couple of hundred and that there would be no more of the players after that. (He didn’t mention keeping any in reserve as spares, although surely they must.)
Can you explain what the fundamental problem is? Is it that the market is so small that no-one wants to do OEM manufacturing of drives, or is it that some fundamental component can’t be found? I know that a critical Sony chip or other part has been mentioned as being unavailable. Is that the problem? And how do Esoteric themselves keep on making players with their own mechs? They have quite a full range.
As long as there are Rossini APEX and clock pre-owned then available on the second hand market, I’m interested as well 
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There may be a number of factors which I can only guess at like market demand. The decision made by both Teac Esoteric and Denon/Marantz was to continue Manufacture of the CD/SACD mechanisms for their own products but to discontinue availability to other manufacturers on an OEM basis.
The Esoteric decision was based ( as far as is publicly known) on the discontinuance of the Sony chip that decodes the encrypted data on SACD and remaining stock levels. The reason for D&M withdrawing from OEM sales is not known.
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Who knows if this may change in the near future - as ownership of D&M has now passed to Harman International, part of Samsung. As a parts supplier, Samsung is way more comfortable than D&M ever was.
I believe all of the above are factors, Simon.
IIUC the underlying dependency is the encryption chips for the control board, formerly marketed by MediaTek, but no longer available for quite a while now. Esoteric still (presumably) manufactures mechansisms although they have stopped supplying them on an OEM basis. In a shrinking market OEM volumes would only improve their economies of scale so this is presumably for other reasons, possibly to safeguard their inventory of the above chips? No idea.
Now as you say D&M have followed suit. We have a healthy inventory of the D&M mechs so we are in as good a position as anyone and probably a better position than most.
As to whether any other manufacturer steps forward to fill the void, only time will tell. The two major drivers of economies of scale for production of silver disc mechanisms, the mass market for CDs as the default distribution medium for music and the computer market as the default distribution medium for consumer software both dried up long ago. The audiophile market for specialist trabsports is infinitesimal by comparison.
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Yes, we do not know what will happen in the future. Is market demand sufficiently large enough for Harman to be economically interested? If limited to dCS and PS it may just not be sufficient given these days of hi-res streaming.
As a supremely contented owner of a Vivaldi One Apex, I was surprised to read from you that it was a “Legacy Product”.
So I went and checked out the dCS website and to my surprise, the Vivaldi One is listed neither as a current product (under “Collection”), NOR as a Legacy one!
Still, I have zero concerns about dCS not supporting it over at least the next decade. My own upgrade path was from the Bartok to the Rossini to the Rossini + Clock to now the V One. Nirvana, the whole way!
Edit - The one place I WAS able to find the Vivaldi One on the website was in the “Compare Products” subsection.
Vivaldi One always was intended as a limited edition:
The original Vivaldi One system was produced in a limited edition of 250 units.
As we announced last week, the Vivaldi One APEX is limited to 50 units [2022].
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