Berkeley Audio Design Alpha DAC RS - Impressions and Information

[joelha]

Hey Chris,

 

Thanks for your early impressions.

 

If you were to use this as your primary DAC, how would you handle DSD files? Would you just downsample them?

 

Is there a need or benefit to using this DAC with Berkeley's USB converter?

 

Also, just for clarity, the Berkeley sounds as good as the entire Vivaldi stack or just as good as the Vivaldi DAC alone? I realize you might not want to be that direct in your comparison.

 

Do you have as great job or what?

 

Joel

[joelha]

Thanks for the great information, Chris.

I'm trying to picture you sitting there, listening to Pearl Jam, enraptured, when your wife walks in to ask you to run an errand for her.

Your response: Honey, please, can't you see I'm working?

How many other people on the planet get to give an answer like that?

Joel

[joelha]

Hi Francisco,

Thanks for your report.

So do you believe the Berkeley Alpha USB converter offers an improvement to the RS or is unnecessary?

Joel

[joelha]

chrille,

You certainly have the right to be amazed or doubtul, but I'm equally surprised that someone who (presumably) has never heard the device can have such strong feelings about how it will perform.

Joel

[joelha]

I wonder when if ever, it is going to dawn upon some "computer audiophiles" here that no matter how many tricks and how much advanced filtering or interpolation one applies to it, 16/44.1 pcm is a LOW RES format and will remain so.

All that can be done to it is a bit of amelioration softening of the hard edges fillling in a few of all the the missing gaps by clever filtering and interpolation and so on.

But you can NEVER reconstituate re- capture the high frequency information that has simply been filtered out,AND NEVER BEEN recorded by the limitations of the format itself. 22.5khz and brickwall that's it. "You can't get more than a pint out of a pint bottle!"

It is really as simple as that. The fact that a lot of the synthetically recorded pop rock genre on rbcd that many here seem to listen to and spend thousands and thousands of dollars to hear improvements on is another matter, and has little to do with what a present day hi res capabable DAC can and should be able to do.

IMO anybody who spends 16000 dolllars on this or any other DAC in the same price range to hear their ripped rbcd or 16/44.1 downloads are fooling themselves.

But then again those misguided easily fooled " Audiophiles" are exactly what the audiophile industry has been praying on for many years. And surprisingly still manages to do , now when standards of digital reproduction has risen to real pro quality standards even for the masses , at MUCH lower prices than this 16000 dollars Berkeley DAC!

 

chrille,

 

You're missing out on a brilliant career as a reviewer.

Think of it. You could churn out dozens of reviews upon only learning of the arrival of a new piece of equipment, without ever having heard the device.

You'd put every publication and on-line source, including this one, out of business.

How do you think the Berkeley Reference DAC compares with the DCS Vivaldi DAC? Given that I'm guessing you haven't heard either of them, you're imminently qualified, at least by your own standards, to weigh in.

Joel

[joelha]

Could you post a link?

 

I'm curious as to who wrote the comment.

 

Thanks,

 

Joel

[joelha]

My guess is that you're far from alone in wondering about that, Steve.

 

I think a lot of us are going to have some interesting comparisons to make.

 

Joel

[joelha]

For less than half the price when the vast majority of hobbyists'collections are Redbook, I think that's a problem. And for less than $2K, you have a top-notch USB-SPDIF converter.

[joelha]

I'm from the camp that sees DSD trumping over any PCM, even transcoded. There are pages on this discussion already and as well as USB async versus S/PDIF, so no need to start here. For the investment the DSD compatible DAC would win for future proofing. If the average hobbyist has the $16,000 to spend and has only Redbook 100% and forever and a day to come until time ends, then a PCM only DAC would suffice.

 

Well, now you've gone from saying the DAC is not a problem (I believe, in general) to saying it's not a problem for you. If that's the case, that's great . . . sincerely. But your taste in high-res transcoding hardly represents the mainstream of the hobby best as I can tell based on what I've read on-line, in the magazines, and seen at the shows. And as for future proofing, a $19,000 price difference is a pretty stiff premium to pay. That's to say nothing for the fact that by the time the future arrives, whenever that will be, the price of enjoying future formats, samples rates, etc. will be very likely be a heck of a lot less then than it is today.

Better sub-DSD playback for less than half the price of a Vivaldi DAC? I'm in and I suspect many others will be as well.

That would represent the problem for DCS.

Joel

[joelha]

Vinyl DOES sound better if you ignore pops.

 

To you it sounds better, but that's a completely subjective point. To me (and others) it doesn't and I've heard some fairly expensive and impressive analog playback systems. My opinion is also subjective of course.

By the way, I think Chris has been very clear in his first two or three posts on this thread that he considers the new Berkeley Reference to be the new king of the hill in terms of DAC's.

Joel

[joelha]

Any chance one of you fellas buying and selling dCS DAC stacks can help me fund my kids' college tuitions?

 

No offense meant, I just forget what different spheres some of us are in.

 

Hey SuperDad,

 

If it makes you feel any better, I have a six-figure system and no kids.

 

I'd trade one for the other in a heartbeat.

 

Enjoy your family.

 

Joel

[joelha]

$15K and no CA hook up, no FW nor USB.

 

Bunch of dorks.

 

No DSD, also crap.

 

Heard the BS on USB circuitry "polluting" the region/atmosphere/general vicinity...also crap.

 

And it does look like a dishwasher control panel...except my new one is actually better looking.

 

Like the concept of filters making CD rips sound great.

 

Let's see if these geniuses can make a reasonably priced, well featured player (with USB, FW or Thunderbolt...you know, the sh!+ that comes out of computers) that employs these "game changer" filters. I'd give up the DSD for best sound from my 2,000 CD rips.

 

Almost 3 years with a DSD capable DAC and I still don't own a DSD file...who needs a 50 year old "Kinda Blue" remaster again? Still waiting for new music on DSD that isn't audiophile fodder.

 

That would be a product I and a bunch of CA guys might buy.

 

Agree with Wisnon on Joelha's comment, very thoughtful and touching. Hugged my daughter and called my son after reading it.

 

I'm a carnivore, if we are sharing. Really dig red meat with red wine...spent 3 weeks in northern and central Italy this Summer, where they do those things really well.

 

Really love this place. Learned a bunch, saved my music from being unplayable/unfindable (CA library functionality) and CA sound with A+/PM memory play into Mytek makes great, high energy music in my music room.

 

You know, 57gold, you really screwed up my planned response to you.

 

After your comments about the Berkeley Reference, I was going to write a terse response. But how can I after what you wrote about my comment? You're too nice of a guy so what I can do?

 

Let me just say this. Too many companies have produced products related to USB filtering and too many of us have heard the difference USB filtering can make for that notion to be crap. Moreover, after following the process that was posted on this site for changing DSD to PCM, I'm impressed with how good the converted files can sound. So even the lack of DSD playback is not a dealbreaker, at least not for me.

 

But most importantly, what you can buy today for $2,000 in a DAC (like your Mytek for example) absolutely destroys what you could have purchased for multiples of that price only five years ago. The state of the art will always be annoyingly expensive. But so much of that technology is available to so many more more audiophiles than it ever used to be.

 

Finally, please do me a favor and give your kids a hug for me too.

 

Thanks a lot for your message (and the same goes to you too Wisnon, for your very kind comment).

 

Joel