Bricasti M1 USB

You can buy the DS < 4K used. Great value.

Worldcat

Wouldn't spend that kind of money on a Berkeley product. Rather grab a demo/used Trinity DAC if we going up there. Combo Berkeley / Bricast dealers at that price better be saying the Berkeley is better. How could they ever carry both lines and not say that and ever think they will sell a single Berkeley if they said Bricasti is better?? Not sure listening to salespeople is the way to get objective info but each their own. Rather talk to my fellow Agon comrades to get the skinny but that's me. Have heard the Berkeley is great but we'll see if 3 - 4 years later everyone is still gushing over it still like they were doing over the Bricasti and still are...

I own the Berkeley Alpha 2 as well as a Bricasti M1 and a W4S DAC2 se.

All 3 DACs sound distinctly different and have their pluses and minuses.

The W4S brings some color and excitement to the table and has a real WOW factor, whereas the Berkeley and Bricasti are more clinical and unexaggerated in their deliveries. 

The Alpha 2 is a very sweet sounding DAC, providing excellent HF transparency but against the Bricasti and W4S sounds slightly dynamically lacking - in the upper mids and lower treble particularly. The upper treble can also run slightly hot at times through my B&W 800 Diamonds. 

The Bricasti is probably the least initially impressive sounding of the 3 but makes up for it by being ultimately more neutral and less artificial, which is desirable for long listening sessions. It's failings are not in what it adds but rather in what it doesn't quite manage to reveal.  I've heard it side by side with a DCS Rossini with master clock and the Rossini won out with its heightened transparency and resolution/  The Rossini clearly provided a more nuanced presentation. IOW, a clearer window into recordings, along with a difficult to describe level of purity. On many recordings I could easily convince myself that I was listening to a pristine analogue master tape. 

There's no doubt though that the M1 is a very fine DAC, even if it's not quite the last word. It comes with an excellent feature set and connectivity and is a real pleasure to use. At its price point I would say that it's as least as good or better than anything else available, but as with most DAC's, subject to personal preference.   

Re the recent available upgrade, yes I've heard one and while I could hear a subtle improvement it was by no means night and day so I'm yet to commit to it. 

Hopefully there will be other upgrades down the track that will raise the bar more significantly. 

  

I would think that the cost to gain incremental sonic improvements over the M1 would come at a dear price but just my opinion as I've not heard dacs priced beyond the M1. It's a great audio piece that never has me thinking about going to something else. A big plus is the owner/designer is very responsive and general good guy and his upgrades are very reasonable. Finally it sounds great using its volume control as well. 

Timpani - Great info - it's super helpful to hear from someone that owns the DACs and can talk about them in relation to the others in the exact same system.

Couple things I've seen is the M1 is super transparent to the source or transport hence it really has a big input on the sound. What transport - source do you use with your DACs?

Also - in my system the M1SE upgrade made a very significant upgrade - huge bang for buck add - it doesn't make it an entirely new DAC but it mattered a lot and I was very happy with the significant improvement! I loved it!