Berkeley vs. Simaudio

There's a review of the Berkeley Audio Reference DAC in this month's edition of The Abosolute Sound. Robert Harley put's the DAC's performance right up there with much more expensive DAC's from the likes of DCS!

Camb,

I remember Robert Harley's review of the Berkeley 1. I believe it is still online. This reminds me of Ted Denney (Synergistic Research) when he wrote about the famous Master Coupler -- and a lot of other products. Superlatives are the norm with manufacturers and with the reviewers who do their bidding. Let your ears tell your mind what you are hearing -- not a manufacturer or a seasoned reviewer with an agenda. Can you count the times you were let down by an audio product -- and were left scratching your head about the manufacturer's copywriting or the reviewer's applause?

Sabai, yes, there are two pieces of equipment I bought based on reviews from professional reviewers and from members here at Audiogon and I frankly was very surprised when I experienced it. This is no slam on Pass Lab; Nelson Pass has proved himself to be one of the finest designers in audio and also one of the most generous with his willingness to release his early designs to those that build from scratch, but I bought a brand new 350.5x amplifier to try in my system and it sound dreadful! I allowed it to break in over two months hoping to hear the described Pass musicality and smoothness and it was for me the worst sounding amplifier I had ever purchased in my several year audio passion! I quickly sold it and tried the 100.5 XA, I think the model was, and this provided me with a glimpse of the magic of a Pass Lab amp. The XA is pure class A design and runs hot but sounded very musical. I could have lived with that amp and the reviews on that one were correct. I ended up going back to VAC tube amps and for me, I have never had better sounding amplification and pre amplification in any of my past systems. VAC is musical and effortless and has allowed me to just enjoy music. Again, the Signature 2a line stage from VAC has been reviewed favorably and describes this masterpiece accurately and without any additional hype. So occasionally reviews do hype a product too much. The only other piece I owned that received glowing reviews from professionals and members here that I didn't care for in my system was the Audio Research REF 5! Compared to the VAC Signature 2a it sounded sterile, flat, without much meat and body on the notes. It was clear and had good imaging but to my ears sounded hifi and not very engaging. If you like detail, you might like it, but I want detail that also sounds like music!

Camb,

It does not appear that the Berkeley Audio Reference DAC can do what the PS Audio DirectStream DAC does -- making PCM sound like DSD -- at less than half the price of the Berkeley. The PS Audio DirectStream DAC allows you to listen to ordinary CDs as though they were DSD. After all, most of us listen to CDs.

How many of us could afford to buy more than a handful of hirez recordings? If hirez were available for an entire CD collection, how many of us would be able to afford to replace our collection with hirez files? Let's see 3000 CDs x $40 each -- why that's only $120,000. Count me in.

Hifimaniac,

I have also had the "Component Blues" a number of times after reading and researching. Berkeley 1 and AMR DP-77 and several Synergistic Research cables come to mind.