Before the Vivaldi I was living in Japan, where any imported hifi was absurdly marked up, so all my prior DACs were Japanese, In order of purchase I had:
- Sony CDP-R3 - Still one of the best built pieces of grear I’ve ever owned, and I still own it
- Teac VRDS-15 - I really wanted an Esoteric but couldn’t afford it. This had a ‘light’ version of their awesome VRDS transport
- Accuphase DP-600 - Another beautiful player with beautiful sound. Only changed because a great deal on an Esoteric came up:
- Esoteric K-01 - Finally got my hands on a top Esoteric transport. This generation of Esoteric was a big jump in sound quality and defied its previous repuation for an overly sharp sound
I kept that until around a year and half ago, when I decided to give up on physical media for digital and started looking for options. I’m no longer in Japan so my options were much broader. I tried the latest Estoeric network player, the MSB Premier DAC, and the full dCS range. Initially I planned on only looking at the Bartok and Rossini, but my crafty dealer had the Vivaldi right there, so why not have a listen right? I ended up with a Vivaldi DAC and Upsampler. Added the clock maybe six months later.
The sound was a big factor, but the software experience was also a big plus versus the competition.