Berkeley Audio Design Alpha DAC RS - Impressions and Information

[4est]

I thought this was pretty direct! LOL

 

Kudos to Chris for laying it out there plainly...

I received mine this morning. It's a special DAC. I've never heard better sound in my system. Period.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]13665[/ATTACH]

[4est]

Hear, hear!

Certainly for me I would give up all the high res music I have if it meant better CD level replay.

 

Eloise

[4est]

Who is fooling whom? You seem to be under the assumption that this unit will not sound good on other material. I have over 4000 RBCDs. At $10 a pop, that is 40K invested in RB, and I look for means to get the most out of that. I have little interest in hi res because it is hi res. It is the music I am after. Most of that is not available in vinyl or hi res.

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!

[4est]

OK then, but why did you quote me. I agreed with Eloise in that I would give up hi res if it meant better RB performance. I am in no position to compare this unit with a Horus or what have you. I attempted to make it clear that my interests lie in redbook, and I am not interested in a digital source that is this expensive FWIW. The original Berkeley was and is the most expensive DAC I will ever own.

No not at all,I thought I had made myself very clear in one of my first posts regarding this DAC. I have every reason in the world to assume that it is indeed of Reference Sound Quality on well recorded material up to 24/192 pcm.

Nor do I doubt that it could very well beat some maybe many lesser DACs playing higher resolutions than 24/192.

But I doubt, strongly doubt that it can better a PRO DXD or DSD A/D D/A playing natively recorded acoustic music.

My latest post was a reaction to all those who live under the illusion that there is more to be squeezed out of low rez 16/44.1 than has already been done by many DACs before this OVERPRICED consumer product came on board and became the new priced object for those easily skimmed of their money. I repeat you can't get more than a pint out of a pint bottle!