Does dcs Vivaldi stack needs a pre amp

@georgehifi - thank you. I have seen your other contributions to the discussion folkfreek mentioned earlier.

Listening and judging by yourself is actually the best way to determine if the “colorations” ones audio setup “generates” suits your ears.

I am not the best Techie out there and the matching components part has been at least for me a challange from a impedance mV and Watts angle :)

Obviously there are pros and cons, but let’s see what the dCS stack does is my setup. 

Here also is Michael Fremer’s (Stereophile) sound impressions with the Vivaldi direct into his Dartzeel 458 monoblocks, and he loves his Dartzeel NHB18ns preamp which is no slouch, so for him to say this is quite understated, as he's a vinyl freak.

Fremer: "Directly driving my amplifiers, produced high-resolution digital sound that I found easy to warm up to. The Vivaldis comprise the best non–digital-sounding digital system I’ve heard"

Cheers George

info2rdw
Does dcs Vivaldi stack needs a pre amp
Hi all - I am considering buying a dSC Vivaldi Transport, DAC and clock, but can only do this if I can sell my Solution 520 pre.

Any experience having your Vivaldi stack directly connected to your amp?

The output stage of the Vivaldi is definitely as good or better than the output stage of the Solution.

The Vivaldi setup has 2.3ohm!!!! output impedance, which is better/stronger than 99% of preamps and the Solution’s, which is 10ohm.
The Vivaldi also has up to 6v (settable) available from that output, most amps only need 1v!!! in to give their maximum rated wattage before clipping.

So you are in front which ever way you look at it. Unless you want the colouration’s/distortion’s that a preamp will bring to the party. But I can’t see anyone wanting to change the sound of the Vivaldi!!!

Sell the Solution so you can get the Vivaldi and go direct to poweramp with it you won’t look back. As the quality of the source is where it all starts, everything after that can’t make it better, you can just hope to maintain it without corruption.

You can also "set" the Vivaldi’s "output level" separately, so it’s volume control is near to full up for your system to be at it’s loudest. This way there is no risk of "bit stripping" with the digital domain volume control.


Cheers George

Hi folkfreak, thank you for your valuable post. I am honestly very much impressed by you set-up. Wouw! Good to see you have tubes in the setup. When carefully chosen l, it can be a good balance/match.

I currently have Kharma Enigma Signature XLR interconnects which are to my humble opinion not too bad but indeed heard good things about Transparent Reference. I have tried lots af cables but indeed upgrading might be necessary.

I am going to have a good conversation with my dealer to make plan after a few listening sesions at home.

and apologize for bringing this apparently up again. The link on the subject is appreciated 

Having read your other posts you may also want to bear in mind that the impact of upgrading the cables in a dCS system (to Transparent Reference XL or similar for digital plus your choice in power cords) is much greater than the choice whether to run direct or not.

Said another way you should budget 30+% of the cost of a Vivaldi stack for cables, sorry that this may seem extreme but if you don’t you are only hearing a fraction of what the Vivaldi can give you.

My virtual system has full details on my Vivaldi configuration and all the accessories I use (click “toggle details” for all the specifics)
https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/5707

Same question was asked and answered in this thread. Of course the “all preamps are bad” zealots rapidly swept down
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/running-dcs-vivladi-direct

In a nutshell based on my experience a)yes you can but b) it sounds better through my preamp than direct