Article: Review | Berkeley Audio Design Alpha DAC Reference Series 3

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40 minutes ago, ted_b said:

?  DSD is hardly a flavor of the month.  Been around for years, and a recording format chosen by some very accomplished folks in the industry.  Just sayin'. 

Unless it uses a R2R ladder or similar multi-bit scheme which I don't believe it does, whatever chip it uses is converting incoming PCM data to a one bit stream and then modulating it. This would be internal DSD conversion. Best not to get caught up in an acronym discussion. I know this is an over-simplification but my guess is that the sound quality is more in the power supplies, analog components and engineering implementation.

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I wouldn't worry too much about any of this. With portfolios crashing worldwide, I doubt sales of this type of equipment will be healthy for a very long time. Sadly, a sign of the times. Hope I am wrong.

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3 hours ago, Geoff13 said:

NO I2S? strange

Someone who can afford this DAC is probably not very interested in messing around with USB to I2S converters or I2S PCie cards.

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1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

If there was an advantage I’m pretty sure all DACs would use it. Heck, even without an advantage manufacturers implement things because change = $ oftentimes. I2S (externally) just hasn’t caught on. 

I have tried it and I found no advantage. I doubt there is any. A DAC with poor USB or SPDIF implementation might be a candidate but if that was the case then the I2S probably isn’t very good either.