dCS Rossini vs. Berkeley Reference dac 2

There must not be that many people who have heard both the dCS and the Berkeley DACs. But I did have a dealer, and it wasn't Galen, tell me he preferred the Ref 2 to the dCS stuff. But he is a Berkeley dealer, so take that one with a grain of salt. When I initially talked to Galen about upgrading to a Ref 2, he mentioned to me he was running one direct into a pair of big Jeff Rowland amps in one of his showrooms, to great effect. So, if you have one, I highly recommend at least trying direct. And FWIW, I noted a substantial improvement on AC cords swapping to a Venom Digital on my transport. The Berkeley seems to like the regular Venom cord just fine.

I appreciate your power cord comments aldenberry. Informative.

My pleasure, happy listening!

I have heard both the dCS and Berkeley DACs in comparison but not in my system. Maier Shadi at The Audio Salon in Santa Monica carries Berkeley, dCS, Wilson, D’Agostino, Transparent etc and is a most accommodating proprietor. I chose a partial dCS Vivaldi stack ( no transport since I use a NAS directly into the Upsampler) but easily understand the allure of the Berkeley. I also run the DAC directly to my Momentum S-250. I had Transparent XL Gen V balanced ICs custom tuned to interface between the Vivaldi DAC and the Dag and have yet to find a preamp that improves on that setup.
Heresy, I know!

Hey khrys. What did you prefer about the sound from the Vivaldi? And have you heard the Berkeley Reference V2? Big improvement over V1.