Running DCS Vivladi DIRECT?

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

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

Only when things are dismissed, and the opposite said, too much of this goes on, and many have been shown the wrong way because of it. Without measurements your left with hear-say and voodoo, good luck to you going that way.

" I run my Vivaldi into an ARC Ref 40 and this is a great combination, the RF then drives 10M of balanced cable to my amps - something the Vivaldi would not be comfortable with at all"

and then this confusing statement for the same poster?

" VTL MB450III, but not sure why that’s relevant as I’ve never tried driving them direct from the DCS ... "

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

And if it’s doesn’t then there is a problem elsewhere, and going direct is showing it up.

I believe there are two options of 2v output or 6v output. If so I would try the 2v first to see if you can get enough level, close to full up will be fine for loud listening (and you will NOT loose any dynamic head room) If anything it should be more Dynamic than with the preamp in the path.

The maximum level at 1kHz from both balanced and single-ended outputs was 2.035V with the level set to "2V," 6.013V with it set to "6V."

The worst you can have is to back off the volume less that 3/4, as you could start to "bit strip" if too low and loose resolution..

Cheers George

It could simply be that a tube preamp sounds sweeter and more polished and smooth and therefore is preferred by folkfreak to the Vivaldi directly. In this case, both George and folkfreak are right for different reasons. The Vivaldi output has nothing limiting about it (as measurements suggest) but the sweeter tube sound is preferred for system synergy and listener preference....

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

This is where things fall apart, the "best" to me is like a piece of wire, the most transparent/dynamic/least coloured/distortion.
So how can a preamp provide the best sound "quality" if it colours the sound? What it's doing is providing a colouration (which is distortion) that the listener prefers, but! all preamps sounds different, so which one with which colouration/distortion do you pick?
Wouldn't it be better not to do a band-aid fix and to  get the source sound "right" and forget about trying to change it with a preamp.?

Cheers George   

The input sensitivity of the VTL MB 450-iii is a function of damping factor but at the setting I use (minimum damping) is a low 775mV hence one needs to be very careful in setting the level on the Vivaldi. Luckily dCS provide a 0.6V (and a 0.2V) setting as well as 2V and 6V.

I currently use 0.6V with my active pre-amp and find that this works well with the volumes I like to listen at (i.e. operating the amp at close to unity gain in effect) so my presumption is this would be the best place to start with a direct connection so as to minimize the amount of cut I need to take in the DAC volume control and more importantly avoid the danger of over driving the speakers with catastrophic effect (this has happened to me in the past when I had a cable short and it blew the woofers in a set of Magico V3s)