Article: Berkeley Audio Design Alpha USB Review

[Abstraction]

I was surprised by my experience with Berkeley USB. I have been worrying about how to get low-jitter signals from a computer to a DAC since 2004 or 5, when I had a sound card with a SPDIF out on a PC driving a Genesis Digital Lens--an early anti-jitter device. I genuinely thought the Berkeley converter would be the solution. <br />

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I had a Berkeley USB, an Audiophilleo 2, an AR-T Legato, and a V-Link 96 available for comparison in my system: a Mac G5 with 4gb RAM and an SS drive and a Berkeley Alpha DAC to an Eddie Current Zana Deux and Sennheiser HD800 phones--all in all, a revealing system. The V-link was clearly inferior, but it was useful to have it for the comparison. One could hear what not sounding good sounded like. What sounding good sounded like was not so obvious. The differences among the others was subtle. The Berkeley was better than the AP, not hugely better, but better. Most of the time, I thought it was better than the Legato, though it is limited to 44.1. <br />

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At any rate, I returned the Berkeley unit. It was good, but even at a time, when I was lucky to get my hands on one, it did not convince me. One would have guessed that the scarcity might have enhanced the placebo effect. I understand that there is a forthcoming battery power supply for Audiophilleo, which should be better than power off the USB bus, and I am interested in the Empirical Audio Off-Ramp 5. I used an early Off-Ramp, perhaps the original one (I think I replaced the Digital Lens with it, if I remember correctly), and it was the best solution that I could find at the time. <br />

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For complicated but uninteresting reasons I ended up only with the V-Link. For the time being, I am enjoying listening to vinyl, which I haven't done much of recently, and still looking. <br />

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I am sure some of you would like much fuller reports on the sound, but I am not patient enough to do serious A-B'ing. If the component is decent enough to deliver the music, I too easily forget to listen to the equipment. I have sometimes found the placebo effect a cost effect way to make my system sound better. In lieu of a serious, comparative report, I will only say the placebo effect didn't do it for me this time. <br />

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