dCS Vivaldi CD/SACD Transport II

The Vivaldi CD/SACD Transport II is the silver-disc source of the Vivaldi program — the Mark II revision of dCS's dedicated transport, built for Vivaldi owners whose libraries include the physical discs a streaming-only system cannot read.

The mechanism is the reason this component exists as a separate purchase. A dual-wavelength laser reads both CD and SACD with optics appropriate to each format, rather than compromising one to accommodate the other. SACD data leaves the transport encrypted over Dual AES to the Vivaldi APEX DAC — the format's copy-protection requirement, handled the way the standard intends, with conversion happening in the Ring DAC rather than inside the disc player.

A dedicated transport is a philosophical choice as much as a technical one. Disc reading is a mechanical discipline — vibration, servo behavior, error correction — and giving it its own chassis isolates that mechanical work from the conversion electronics entirely. The machined-aluminum construction matches the rest of the Vivaldi program physically and visually, so a full stack reads as one instrument.

In system terms: Vivaldi APEX DAC plus Transport II is the reference disc-playback pairing; add the Upsampler for streaming and the Master Clock for the timing refinement and the component Vivaldi system is complete. For collectors whose SACD shelves represent decades of curation, this is the component that makes the Vivaldi system honor that library at full resolution. Hear it in Scottsdale with discs from your own collection — walk in during business hours or book ahead.