Running DCS Vivladi DIRECT?

BTW this is from the Stereophile review and bench tests of the Vivaldi, from the reviewer Michael Fremer who owns the darTZeel NHB-18ns preamplifier. and darTZeel NHB 458 monoblocks. Looks like he had no issues going direct to the monoblock amps, instead of the $23k NHB-18ns pre.

I ran the Vivaldi’s directly into my darTZeel amplifiers for the last week of the review auditioning, and though couldn’t play any vinyl that week, I didn’t miss it.
Depending on your needs, you might be able to get away with just the DAC or the DAC-and-clock combo, which, directly driving my amplifiers, produced high-resolution digital sound that I found easy to warm up to.

Cheers George

George is probably right in this particular case. The Vivaldi performance into a punishing 600 ohms load is about as perfect as I have ever seen. Even a broken watch can be right twice a day ;-)

Even a broken watch can be right twice a day ;-)

Your all heart Sunshine. Remind me to give you a ***** ****** one day.

Cheers George

The Vivaldi driving a 600 ohm load is commendable, no denying that fact. The VTL MB 450 has an input impedance of 42K. So the question is which option provides the best sound quality, DAC direct to the VTL or via the ARC REF 40? Well you have to listen to both and decide (As always subjective ). The VTL amplifier doesn’t present the unusually difficult 600 ohm load. Depending on the particular listener either approach could be preferred. Excellent specifications though admirable do not imply or dictact superior sound quality.
Charles

It's surprising how definitive people can be based on measurements of components they do not own, and may never have actually heard?

Anyway I'm happy to connect my Vivaldi directly and report back. As I prefaced in my original post this is not something I've ever tried given my setup and my past experience with direct connected digital components which always sounded worse but I'll have an open mind 😏

But perhaps you have all forgotten about this long discussion ...
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/the-jadis-ja200mk2-review-or-slam