Benchmark, Bryston and Berkeley Labs DAC for a PC audio system
default -- Wed, 02/25/2009 - 07:09
I am trying to build an all digital music system. As a first step I have been studying my options for a stand-alone DAC's and I have narrowed my options down to three. Auditioning will be either a difficult or an unavailable option. However, I am starting with a clean slate so I have no other components to match to. Since my system will be only digital, I am really looking to forgo the pre-amp which will only serve the volume control function for my purpose.
The qualities I like are clarity, articulation, ability to render musical passages well delineated without being mashed into an audio mess. Detail is welcome if it is not unnaturally emphasized as I find that sometimes distracting. Most importantly I like the listening experience to be musical, engaging and non-fatiguing. I have had some experience with a couple of quite expensive audio systems that ranged from listening to a sound that was annoying and devoid of beauty to listening to what sounded like a faultless presentation which I just could not find myself drawn to. Surprisingly, I still remember my first experience with a good music system as being one of the best. No exotic components were involved. Only T+A transmission line standmount speakers (around USD 2000) driven by Cambridge Audio components. That big smile and that foot tapping the floor came naturally and involuntarily. Glancing at the slyly smiling salesman who had steered me away from listening to mid-priced B&W speakers that were getting good reviews at the time, I thought he was used to seeing that reaction. The sound was totally engaging, entertaining, and beautiful. Unfortunately, I listened to this system in a different country and there are no T+A distributors where I live, so I can not repeat the auditioning. Cambridge Audio amps are, however, on my audition list.
So here are my three choices.
1- The Benchmark DAC USB or USB/Pre
Pros: Supposedly very good sound. Unmatched package at the price. The only DAC that allows USB input up to 24bit/96 khz. TAS product of the year. Stereophile calls the built-in headphone amplifier outstanding. It pleased many reviewers. Company strikes me as transparent about the product and its measured performance.
Cons: Reviews emphasize the value for money and the dead quiet background. Other than the tremendous value for money, I am not sure where on the sonic scale it compares to other products in the $1500 to $4000 price bracket. This DAC opened the door to great reasonably priced DACs a few years ago but ever since DACs have been getting better and cheaper each year.
2- Bryston BdA-1 ($2000)
Pros: Company says the DAC sounds the same as the BCD-1. TAS review gives the BCD-1 the rare comment that "It gets the music just right" and gave it a PoY award. There is no shortage of favorable reviews about it.
Cons: No volume control (big minus for me). USB input is limited to 16 bit and low freq.
3- Berkeley Labs Alpha DAC
Pros: The rave review by Robert Harley about the Alpha DAC performance with everything from CD-quality signal to high res. makes me wonder if (while the price is outside the outer stretches of my budget for a DAC) it could be an investment against quick obsolescence. DAC also has volume control.
Cons: No direct PC input of any type. Price. I will have to import it from the U.S. (same case with the Benchmark DAC) so a mistake will be costly
My question is: What do I lose sonically by picking the Benchmark over the Bryston? and what do I lose sonically by picking the Bryston or the Benchmark over the Berkley DAC?
I also need some help on how to ascertain that the DAC can feed a particular amplifier without distortion. What specs to look for? How can I judge if the Bryston for example can feed an amplifier through a passive volume attenuator (do not know if any high quality options are available for these as well)? Do power amplifiers require large current levels from the device feeding it? I am good with mathematical formulas by the way.
Thanks and Best regards,
Hesham
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I'm also using the Lynx AES16 card in a PC (to drive the Berkeley DAC). There's universal agreement that the Lynx is the state-of-the-art in output cards.
Hi Robert,
I am in the search for a quality hi rez DAC as well. A web search for the Berkley Audio Alpha led me to this thread. Since you have reveiwed both, the Berkley Audio Alpha and most recently the NAD M2 you are a person I would like to hear from. I am not likely to be able to audition either of these pieces before I make a purchase. The M2 is more versatle but quality sound is my quest. For your reference system which way would you go for The Absolute Sound? The Berlkey Alpha would be used as a preamp driving and Edge NL 12. I have two sets of speakers which I switch off. Merlin VSM Mx's and PSB Synchrony One's. My current digital souce is an Ayre D1-xe DVD player.
Thanks
Vinny
I received my AlphaDAC Thursday, and just swapped it into my system today, in place of my Meridian 861 - latest version, with balanced 24/192 output cards. No other differences - same MBL 116 speakers, Mcintosh MC501 amps, Harmonic Tech Magic 2 interconnects, HT Pro 9 speaker cables. Source is a PC music server, running J River Media Center, outputting through a pro audio Weiss AFI1 Firewire digital breakout box.
After only 3 hours of listening, I have two words: Wow. Wow.
This is not a minor difference. Familiar recordings sound not just a bit better, they sound almost like completely different recordings. I've never heard Dave Brubeck's "Time Out" like this before - the vivid, rounded sax, the clean, natural cymbal sound, the vast soundstage populated with clearly defined instruments. I stumbled on The Mamas and the Papas Greatest Hits while surfing my library, and decided to play a track. The vocals, and the whole presentation, were so startlingly engaging I ended up listening to the whole thing. More later - I'm off to a dinner engagement - but I can already say without reservation that this DAC represents a major leap forward in music reproduction compared to what I've experienced before.
Thanks for the feedback. The Alpha DAC is truly wonderful. I listen to one every day. Along with the Spectral SDR-4000 Pro, it's the best sounding digital I've heard.
I did a lot more listening last night, after the dinner party. It was hard to stop and go to sleep, actually.
With more listening time, I'd say three things stand out for me.
First, as RH said in his review, the soundstage is huge in both width and depth. And unlike some components which generate such a large space, the AlphaDAC places images within the stage with unusual specificity, both laterally and front-to-back.
Second, the midrange is simply outstanding. Vocals, Sax, Woodwinds, Horns, Piano, etc are reproduced with a clarity, tonal richness, and three dimensionality that is absolutely addictive. It is this quality that most makes existing recordings sound brand new.
Finally, the AlphaDAC significantly mitigates the treble anomalies normally associated with the Red Book CD format. Massed violins have a more natural sheen and air. Vocal sibilance loses its disembodied, unnaturally harsh quality. The somewhat opaque, hashy, closed-in presentation of cymbal sound is greatly alleviated, allowing much more detail and color to come through.
All of this listening was still to losslessly ripped CDs. I can't imagine what my hi-res downloads are going to sound like, or the HRx sampler disc that comes with the AlphaDAC.
Caveats or issues: It's hard to tell, because my current system is quite limited in the bass anyway, but the bass may be slightly lean (although very well-defined). I never found the sound to be etched, harsh, or fatiguing - quite the opposite - but I wouldn't call it "warm" either, if that's what you want. Finally, the AlphaDAC will not generate the very high output levels of some preamps. My McIntosh 501s have unusually low gain on the balanced inputs - 20 db on the 4 ohm tap - and combining that with my very inefficient MBLs meant that I had to use volume levels in the mid 50s (60 is max) on some recordings. There may be some recordings where I would run out of gain. Fortunately, the MBLs are being swapped out tomorrow for much more efficient Magico V3s. Honestly, I'm not deliberately trying to buy everything that you rave review, RH, it's just working out that way - and I'm gaining great respect for your capabilities as a reviewer as a result. Maybe Spectral DMA-360s are next?
ScottB,
Hi. Great feedback on the AlphaDAC. It's the next DAC I demo. I currently have inhouse a Weiss Minerva firewire DAC currently, and what you describe as ear-opening for the AlphaDAC is exactly what I'm hearing from the Minerva...all except the soundstage. The Minerva soundstage is more front-row, with a slight collapse horizontally, and Id love to have the best of both worlds..great SOTA DAC resolution and the wide deep soundstage I'm used to. The midrange, however, is superb, and I'm comparing it to the wonderful Modwright Transporter custom tube-rolled streamer. (I'm presently having an issue with the firewire detection, dunno if it's my pc or the Minerva...I suspect the Minerva...but earlier this week the drivers and software were working fine). Hi-rez 24/192 and 176 was great, but so was FLAC and Wavpack redbook. Wow.
Question to RH and all: has anyone on this forum heard the Minerva or its pro version, the Dac2?
Questions for ScottB rearding the Weiss mutichannel interface: what do you use as a mch digital source to feed it (and ultimately your 861)? Anything like the modded Shawn Fogg cards and Oppos, etc? Meridian DVD-A? Also, if you use it for the Berkeley DAC does it have enough inputs/outptus to continue to use mch or do you swap cables?
thanks
Ted
I think computer audiophile website has a review of the Alpha DAC and the Minerva comparing both in one of those reviews. I remember they said the same thing about the soundstage. Otherwise, I think they said they were quite close..
Hesham,
Thanks, yes, I've read and spoken with Chris (compuetraudiophile) about them. He loved the Minerva, but his new girlfriend is clearly the AlphaDAC. ;) I wondered if there was another person that has heard both. Thx
Ted
Scott, Thank you for the great feedback. You wet my appetite even more. Now concerning the volume attenuation, I think it might not be a good idea using it at the extremes. Early in my investigation, I was worried about the fact that the Alpha DAC uses digital volume control, which mormally means that the volume control happens on the digital signal. I knew that while this solution avoids extra components in the signal path it can have different problems in some cases. So I asked he company how that affects the performance of the DAC and I quote their reply next.
" Unless the amount of attenuation is extreme, our experience and the experience of almost all Alpha DAC users is that there is less loss of detail, resolution and body from using the Alpha DAC’s digital attenuator than from using a preamp or passive attenuator. That is because we do digital attenuation properly, unlike many manufacturers.
In addition to its digital attenuation being done correctly, the Alpha DAC sounds very good connected directly to power amps because the analog output stages are carefully designed to drive cables properly and terminate reflected supersonic energy. Using balanced topology power amps and driving them with the Alpha DAC’s balanced outputs produces excellent results. Our reference power amps are Spectral DMA-360’s connected in balanced mode.
I understand your concern, and probably the only way you can convince yourself is by listening."
You might want to change other components or seek the company's / dealer's advice to make sure you are getting the most out of the DAC in your setup.
Scott, Thank you for your great feedback. You wet my appetite even more. Now concerning the volume attenuation, I think it might not be a good idea using it at the extremes. Early in my investigation, I was worried about the fact that the Alpha DAC uses digital volume control, which mormally means that the volume control happens on the digital signal. I knew that while this solution avoids extra components in the signal path it can have different problems in some cases. So I asked he company how that affects the performance of the DAC and I will quote their reply here.
" Unless the amount of attenuation is extreme, our experience and the experience of almost all Alpha DAC users is that there is less loss of detail, resolution and body from using the Alpha DAC’s digital attenuator than from using a preamp or passive attenuator. That is because we do digital attenuation properly, unlike many manufacturers.
In addition to its digital attenuation being done correctly, the Alpha DAC sounds very good connected directly to power amps because the analog output stages are carefully designed to drive cables properly and terminate reflected supersonic energy. Using balanced topology power amps and driving them with the Alpha DAC’s balanced outputs produces excellent results. Our reference power amps are Spectral DMA-360’s connected in balanced mode.
I understand your concern, and probably the only way you can convince yourself is by listening."
You might want to change other components or seek the company's / dealer's advice to make sure you are getting the most out of the DAC in your setup.
Scott, Thank you for your great feedback. You wet my appetite even more. Now concerning the volume attenuation, I think it might not be a good idea using it at the extremes. Early in my investigation, I was worried about the fact that the Alpha DAC uses digital volume control, which mormally means that the volume control happens on the digital signal. I knew that while this solution avoids extra components in the signal path it can have different problems in some cases. So I asked he company how that affects the performance of the DAC and I will quote their reply here.
" Unless the amount of attenuation is extreme, our experience and the experience of almost all Alpha DAC users is that there is less loss of detail, resolution and body from using the Alpha DAC’s digital attenuator than from using a preamp or passive attenuator. That is because we do digital attenuation properly, unlike many manufacturers.
In addition to its digital attenuation being done correctly, the Alpha DAC sounds very good connected directly to power amps because the analog output stages are carefully designed to drive cables properly and terminate reflected supersonic energy. Using balanced topology power amps and driving them with the Alpha DAC’s balanced outputs produces excellent results. Our reference power amps are Spectral DMA-360’s connected in balanced mode.
I understand your concern, and probably the only way you can convince yourself is by listening."
You might want to change other components or seek the company's / dealer's advice to make sure you are getting the most out of the DAC in your setup.
Sorry for the multiple replies. An connection problem led me to think the reply was not posted.
I am wondering if anybody ever compare Berkeley to the much more expensive dCS, specifically dCS Elgar Plus.
Since the Scarlatti is introduced, my local dCS dealer has a few traded in dCS Elgar Plus stacks at the store and
offer them at a more manageable price.
My two hold back points for Berkeley is that there is no local dealer so I can't try it out first and no DSD which means
I would have to keep my old digital gears for SACD for now and no upgrade for SACD path. However the price is very attractive,
no need to mess with external clock, external upsampling unit etc.
I am also using Lynx AES card so hooking up to Berkeley should be no problem where as dCS would be a bit of a headache,
either hooking Lynx directly to dCS via dual XLR, so no upsampling or using external upsampling unit (Purcell) which only
supports upto 24/96 unless I run single AES/EBU to Purcell for 16/44 and 24/96 files playback and separate dual XLR directly
to Elgar Plus for 24/176 playback. I have not try this yet but assume that it will work, but thinking about it makse my head hurt.
The new Scarlatti upsampling unit also only support input upto 24/96. All in all, I am leaning more toward Berkeley just because
of the complexity of setting up dCS with computer server. However, I still like to hear opinion of other people who have experience
with this 2 units. If I go dCS route, it may also give an easier stepping stone for eventually moving upto Scarlatti.
ted_b, the Weiss will output 5.1 multi-channel on 3 S/PDIF connections, which the 861 accepts on a multi-channel input. I have just few multi-channel hi-res downloads, from iTrax and Music Giants. I also have a Shawn Fogg modified Oppo 980, which converts SACD to 24/88.2 PCM as 5.1 on 3 S/PDIF, if configured to play the multi-channel layer. I eventually concluded that 5.1 is just not worth it for me at this point - very few recordings use it well enough to improve on straight 2 channel, and the intersection of good music with good 5.1 recording was too small. I was therefore listening almost exclusively to stereo, anyway.
I will still be using the Oppo as an SACD transport, configured to play the 2 channel layer, outputting 24/88.2 PCM into the BNC input on my AlphaDAC. Probably not quite as good as the best single-stage DSD converters, but I'll bet it's pretty good anyway!
Just to post my little experience with "liquid" music and DACs: after trials I ended up with Mac Mini over PC and now I'm running in parallel to test the BDA-1 and the Elgar Plus. I run from FireWire to a TC Electronic Konnekt X32 digital interface converter and then via AES/EBU to the aforementioned DACs. The FW gave me more substantial results than TosLink or USB. The 2 DACs sound really different, both are in the upper range of performance but the Elgar is much much more "analog" with more soundsatge nuances, more organic, finer but smooth details with the well known company "dark" imprint. I like the flexibility of Elgar up to 24/192 and the wordclock in/out (not yet experimented though). The BDA-1 is really good for his price tag, someone compared it to its player brother, but I listened to both and I was impressed by improvement feeding the BDA with the BCD digital out . Compared to dCS the BDA-1, was putting the stage forward, more vivid with a sense of bold outline of note borders, giving an immediate sense of more detail retrival just for this. Definetely a more light sound presentation than Elgar, but still with what I call the "digital" sound imprint. DCS in my experience is the digital stuff that sounds less digital than any, so damn close to the listening feeling I have with my analog set-up. Elgar mid-bass range have less punch but seems to go deeper bass, be more homogenous and tone rich. This compare I did just with 16/41 red book ripped music. In my opinion all DACs sound different becouse this is how they have designed for, each brand give an imprint that outline its product out from the rest, and to me it's valid for home and pro solutions. Is a building block that has to match with the other building blocks of our own music reproduction chain.
I would be interested to know some experience and comments from who tested the Alpha DAC versus the Elgar and the Weiss DAC1 MK2 (which I hope to test soon). Those 3 now more or less in the same price range, as Elgar been replaced by Scarlatti can be found in the second hand market.
The greatness of the Alpha DAC is that it gets out of the way of the music and imposes so little sonic signature. The ease and smoothness you mention on CDs is alone worth the price of admission. Wait until you hear 176.4kHz/24-bit files decoded by the Alpha DAC; it's fully up to the job. You'll have a new appreciation for its extraordary resolution of low-level detail.
So I did, finally, import the HRx sampler files and listen to them, as well as the free hi-res sampler download from HDTracks.com. And, well, yeah. Words, words, don't fail me now.
I guess the simplest summation is, many of the assumptions I had about the limits of an audio system to create the illusion of reality are wrong. This is both encouraging, and depressing. Encouraging, because the very best recordings are so startlingly realistic, even on a system that is very good but short of the absolute state of the art. The depressing part is the distance between the best recordings, made by the best engineers and transcribed on the most transparent media, and the recordings of most of the music I have, and want to listen to regularly.
I suppose this is to be expected. Both Robert and frequent AV Guide poster Barry Diamante have made the point that the very best high resolution digital recordings are now essentially transparent to the microphone feed. That is to say, in the context of all the colorations imposed by microphones, recording techniques, cables, mixers, amplifiers, speakers, room modes, et al, the colorations imposed by the very best digital recording systems are essentially no longer detectable. And the inspiration for the designers of the AlphaDAC was to create a device which would equal or better the output of the state of the art professional digital recorder, the Pacific Microsonics Model 2. Following the chain of inference, listening to a late generation HRx recording over the AlphaDAC is aurally equivalent to having the live microphone feed from a Keith Johnson-engineered recording session connected directly to your amplifiers. For source material, you won't do much better than that, ever.
More than ever, the HRx experience convinces me that the future of high-end audio lies online, where the download format is not limited by artificial licensing and compatibility with mass market electronics. As the leveling influence of low-resolution formats receeds, we'll begin to hear the creativity of recording engineers in the same light that we currently hear the creativity of speaker and amp designers. At least, such is my hope.
Hi ScottB,
Great as it is (and it certainly had been my favorite until a couple of years ago), I would no longer call the Pacific Microsonics Model 2 the "state of the art professional digital recorder". Right now, I think Sonic's 305 beats it (based on direct comparisons in a long running multi-unit "shoot out") as does the prototype unit -the source of which I am not yet at liberty to divulge- I have been using for the past couple of years.
Eliminating the SPDIF interface between computer and DAC (whether via AES/EBU or 75 ohm SPDIF) takes things up another notch too.
Best regards,
Barry
www.soundkeeperrecordings.com
www.barrydiamentaudio.com
I'm demoing the Weiss Minerva now, and have the Berkeley AlphaDAC shipping today (prolly get it Monday). I'm not yet ready to commit to one or the other, without hearing both, and therefore I am not ready to spend $700 on a Lynx card for the demo. In the case of the Weiss DAC, it's design (and best input choice) is firewire, and doesn't require but their own driver software and a firewire cable from my Vista pc. In the case of the AlphaDAC, has anyone heard it in its best (Lynx) setup and also being driven by a transport or more-jiiter-prone setup and can tell me what I have in store. I'd like to hear a perspective of someone who can relate and somewhat quantify how much my hands will be tied without the Lynx.
TW, the Minerva was an incredible DAC, and paradigm shifting in my setup. Never have I expereicned something that handles great recordings with care and respect, yet allows the classic compressed shrieky cd to sound good also. The midrange is almost tube-like, without the THD.
I look forward to the AlphaDAC arrival. Thx
Ted
My observations of the AlphaDAC to date have been based mostly on driving it with the L/R digital output of a Weiss AFI1 Firewire box. Weiss has an excellent reputation in the pro-audio field for building low-jitter digital interfaces. Your Minerva has digital outputs, over AES or coax, which are likely even better than the AFI1, so I would drive the AlphaDAC from the digital output of the Minerva as one way to hear what it's capable of with with a very high quality transport.
That said, although I've done no rigorous A/B testing, I have driven the AlphaDAC from the digital output of a modified Oppo 980 universal player, and the basic excellence of the AlphaDAC seemed pretty much all there, even with what is probably a fairly high-jitter signal by high end standards. I would think all of that experience with digital pro audio has taught the Berkeley engineering team a thing or two about cleaning up high-jitter digital inputs.
Scott,
Thanks for the Oppo reference. My Transporter supposedlly has low (17ps) jitter out it's AES/EBu digital outs so I'll bet it's lower than my Oppo or Denon 3910. Unfortunately, your AES dig out suggestion won't work cuz I'm shipping back the Minerva tomorrow (already committed to Daniel Weiss that I would). Good idea, though. :(
Ted
For CD playback, I'm driving the Alpha DAC with the AES/EBU output from a Classe CDP-502, a CD/DVD-A/DVD-V player with excellent results.
The Alpha DAC presents a bit of a paradox with regard to the quality of the signal you feed it. On one hand, it seems to be good at rejecting interface jitter. On the other hand, it is so resolving that it reveals the slightest differences in the digital input signal. For example, I've found that how the extra XLR-terminated cables coming out of the Lynx card are dressed can affect the sound. It's best to coil them together tightly rather than spreading them out.
Robert,
I just switched over to the AES16, which sounds very similar to the Weiss firewire interface I was using, but doesn't have the Weiss' occasional glitches recognizing sampling rates through the low-quality firewire interface of my fanless server. There is a company called Redco (http://www.redco.com) which will custom make cables with only the outputs that you need - I'm ordering one, for aesthetic cleanup as well as any possible sonic cleanup!
Scott
Scott,
I definitely would like to hear more comment from you regarding AES16 vs Weiss AFI1 firewire interface. I already have AES16 but
somebody is offering a good deal on Weiss Vesta (same chip as AFI1 as far as I know) but I am not sure that it will be much
of an advantage over Lynx except for separate power supply and the ability to use better cables.
With my Esoteric D-05, Aes16 cannot locked on D-05 using PLL2 mode. I am not sure if that is a jitter problem or something else
and wonder if Weiss could do better?
The Weiss AFI1 seems fairly sensitive to the quality of the Firewire hardware it is connected to. I've made it work with several different brands of Firewire controller, but sometimes not with reliable switching of sample rates when playing tracks of a different sample rate to the previous track. I can always make it work by changing the sample rate manually in the Weiss control panel - not what I want to do, but not that much of a problem considering the limited number of high-res tracks in my library at current. But I have to say, I've not yet used the AFI1 with the recommended Texas Instruments or LSI chip in the Firewire controller - something I'm about to do.
The Lynx AES16 with latest Lynx drivers has no such issues. But I have to say, after several more hours of listening and switching back and forth between these two digital PC transports, I think there is a small difference in sound quality, and not in the direction I expected. Through the AlphaDAC, the AFI1 has a sense of ease, and transparency into the soundstage, that I think isn't quite matched by the AES16 - at least, in my system as currently configured. The AES16, by comparison, seems to have a very slight bit of brittleness in the extreme treble, and a very slight congestion, which becomes more apparent over time. I don't want to exaggerate this - it's a small enough difference that it's still possible I'm imagining it - but I don't think so, and I spent quite a bit of time switching back and forth before reporting it. I'm back to listening to the AFI1 for the moment.
Now, there are quite a few reasons why this is not a final judgment of the two transports. I am not using the consensus audiophile configuration of the AES16, which consists of Windows XP, and older legacy firmware and drivers. I'm using Windows Vista, with WASAPI driver, and latest Lynx firmware and drivers, and J River Media Center rather than Media Monkey. Also, the breakout cable which comes with the AES16 may not be the same quality as the Monster AES/EBU cable I'm using with the AFI1. And there may be some differences in internal RFI noise in the horizontal case fanless PC server I'm using, vs. the vertical case RH uses. On the other hand, I'm not using the AFI1 with its preferred Firewire chipsets, either. I am leaving for a 5 day vaction, but having identified what I think are the characteristic differences, I will run these possible causes to the ground when I get back.
Meanwhile, the AlphaDAC through Magico V3s continues to provide hours of musical pleasure every day. Ever heard Bernstein's Serenade, an inventive and hauntingly beautiful work, live? Not likely that you ever will. But via Perlman, Ozawa, and the BSO, you can hear it in your listening room any time, as I just did. Enjoy.
I just went back and skimmed this whole thread, and one more thing I should say is that after switching speakers this week to the Magico V3s, I've never found the bass to be lean, as I mentioned in a post above. Speaker choice, speaker positioning, room modes, and personal preference will all play into preferences of bass balance, and in my opinion, it's probably a mistake to choose a component based on low frequency balance considerations if they are equally addressed by moving speaker or listener position by inches.
ScottB, thank you for your comment. I have Sunix firewire PCI card which uses TI chipset so hopefully it will work better. I tried custom made
cable from Redco (usng Morgami wire) which I did not like as much as Lynx' own cable. Currently I am using a
custom made Audience AWG 21 internal wiring cable which offer some improvement over Lynx cable but because of the size of HD26 jack, it is
quite diffcult to find wire that could fit inside easily and none that would truely be 110 ohm so I keep thinking that from that aspect, Weiss might be a better choice. Currently I am running clock output from Esoteric to Lynx and I need to switch the clock manually everytime I change files from 44.1 to 88 to 176. Most of time, Esoteric and Lynx will lock on easily but occasionally I still have to go back and reset the clock again.
This make Berkeley sounds even better as I won't have to deal with clock input. Unfortunately they have not answer my email regarding their distributor/dealer in SE Asia or way of ordering it overseas.
They sometimes take a little time to answer but they do. Questions are always answered by Michael Ritter. They do not ship directly overseas. They asked me to contact their US distributors. You can order a 220 volt set up Alpha DAC if you need that and they will provide one through their dstributors. If you do not have a distributor in your area, try contacting Goodwin Highend or the Audio Salon. May I ask what the offer you are currently finding on the Weiss Vesta is and where it is located?
Hesham,
Here in Thailand, I was quoted around $2700-2800 for Vesta and AFI1 is around $1800 (assuming 1 US$ = 36 bahts). Unfortunately it is one of those item that I would need to special order and there is no demo unit that I can try.
If I go this route, I am leanign toward AFI1 since Vesta does not really seem to offer anything more over AFI1 except for cleaner and nicer chassis , I think. The difference is better used for better digital cable/firewire, I think.
Thanks for the tip on BADA.
I remember when I compared the AFI1 and Vesta, I noticed that the Vesta documentation emphasizes and elaborates on the jitter reduction implementation more. I think the Vesta is just a Minerva without the DAC. I have faced the need to make the same decsison and found that for much less than the price of the Vesta , I could build a well spec'd PC equipped with a Lynx card and decided to take that route. When a more flexible interface (which for me is a network interface) and more reasonably priced options become available , I will still have a good PC that I can use the way I need. It is only a matter of time bofore a more convenient interface becomes available. Weiss seems to have a reputation for quality products though as Scott's experience attests.
I also faced the same situation before when I thought that Vesta would cost about the same as it is in the US so I went
Lynx route initially. However, now that I have Lynx for a while, I felt that the system may be a bit handcuffed by Lynx's choice of cable.
May be I am thinking too much here but after spending thousands of dollars on cables in the rest of the system, I kept thinkng that
I should be able to do better than Lynx's interface. After exploring all the mod route to make better cable, I think I could do better with something
with conventional connection so I started to look around. Locally, there is dCS U-clock/Scarlatti upsampler and Weiss. dCS cost is just a bit prohibitive at this time and with no support for anything above 96 kHz currently so that's out. Weiss turned out to be more affordable than I thought and since
Mr. Daniel Weiss did say that AFI1 is the same as Vesta but with 8 channels I/O and ability to sync to external clock (why is it cheaper and can do more, I am not sure), AFI1 starts to look better and better. Mind you, there is no local dealer for Lynx here so I mailed order it from the US, with shipping and 30% tax so it is not exactly cheap either.
I also heard back from Berkeley, look like there will be a distributer/dealer here in Thailand soon so I'll wait until I can audition it locally first and see what I will do with my DAC.
Great that you will be able to audition locally. If you are lookingin the $1000 and higher range for an interface, there are several options in the professional audio products. However, I think the XLR output does not seem to be that common in these products. As far as I remember, most of them seem to offer SPDIF RCA connectors that are said to be switchable to AES/EBU (whatever that means).
You can easily get M-Audio ProFire 610 which is capable of working as a firewire interface or standalone AD/DA converter at frequencies up to 192kHz. The headphone amp is built in as well.
Thanks for the tip. I am already expecting delivery of a Lynx card. Although I pretty much checked all of M-audio interfaces before, it is the first time I notice this one can output 24/192 on the SPDIF output.
Thanks to your recommendation, I've just bought the M-Audio ProFire 610. The price is very reasonable and it seems to be working well with my Benchmark DAC1 PRE on 24/192 materials.
Looking forward to try this with the Berkeley Alpha DAC. I wonder how the M-Audio compares with those from Weiss.
Or Linn Majik DS.
It supports 192/24 as an UPnP client.
Well, frankly I do not think the Linn Majik series have a reputation for overachievement. In most cases when a company's top of the line DAC is priced at $18500 , I tend to doubt what they have for offer for $3500 but there are always exceptions.
I've tried the digital cable that is supplied with the Lynx card, along with an aftermarket cable that terminates at the Lynx card at one end and has an XLR connector on the other end. The aftermarket cable was slightly brighter, more detailed, and forward than the stock cable, which was, to my ears, smoother and more relaxed. I went back to the stock cable.
@ Hesham:
Not mentioned yet but in your target range is the TADAC. Current model has an outboard option for USB/PC connectivity as well.
http://www.angelfire.com/biz/bizzyb/TADAC.html
Note that for some reason the manufacturer home page doesn't mention prices although they do "sell direct". For that piece, one must go to the mighty Audiogon.
The reviews indicate a strong preference for this DAC over such standard stalwarts as the Benchmark family, good as they are.
Thanks for the tip and link.. I find their USB low-jitter interface interesting. It is cheap enough that I might consider buying one to use beside the lynx card.
Robert, the aftermarket cable that you tried sounded like Morgami wire that Redco made for me. I just got a cable using Kimber AGSS wire which I am currently burning it in but the initial listening before burn-in was very promising, very fast, smooth, very detailed and bigger soundstage than Lynx cable.
I also located a local dealer for BADA here. They should be getting in a few units by the end of April so I am looking forward to compare it to my Esoteric D-05.
I've just completed testing a number of configurations of the Lynx AES16 against the Weiss AFI1, as I promised above. It took me a while; for one thing, in the process of trying to set up my media PC as a "dual boot" XP/Vista machine, I ended up with "no boot" instead. But that's a story for another day ...
I tried the AES16 with latest firmware, version 23, as well as the version 22 recommended by Reference Recordings on their HRx setup page:
http://referencerecordings.com/HRxSETUPS.asp
I listened to it under Vista with latest Lynx drivers and waveOut, ASIO, and WASAPI audio drivers from J River Media Center; under XP with legacy Lynx drivers and waveOut and ASIO audio drivers from JRMC, and waveOut audio driver from MediaMonkey. I used a test track which highlighted the treble brittleness or splashiness I mentioned above, Joni Mitchells "Raised on Robbery" from Court and Spark (HDCD remaster), a track I never much liked in the first place, and now am really sick of :) Test system was my fanless media PC, Berkley AlphaDAC, McIntosh 501 amps, Magico V3s, Harmonic Tech cables, Rives Audio listening room. In my system, to my ears, in this limited test, there was no difference between any of the firmware/driver/audio driver/media software combinations on the AES16. Unfortunately, the slight (emphasize very slight) treble splashiness, soundstage confusion, and lack of ease compared with the AFI1 seems to remain. I say unfortunately, because the Lynx is less expensive, and has none of the driver/UI problems of the AFI1.
About which: I installed a firewire card based on Texas Instruments chips, but the issues with the AFI1 changing sample rates remains. If I start playing a track with a different sample rate, the AFI1 takes a couple of seconds to recognize the new rate and reconfigure itself; meanwhile, it seems to lose the audio stream, and won't output sound until I restart the track. Also, the AlphaDAC will sometimes display the new sample rate incorrectly, in a fairly random way - say, 41.2 for a 44.1 khz signal, something it never does with the AES16 driving it (playback is still fine, just the display is wrong, and if I switch away from that input and back to it, display corrects itself). Perhaps most disturbing, the AlphaDAC never recognizes the HDCD encoding on high-res tracks (24/96 and 24/176.4 tracks from Reference) when being driven by the AFI1 - it always does with the AES16. Those tracks still sound magnificent, however. Curiously, 16/44.1 HDCD encoding is recognized just fine.
I'm wondering if there isn't something problematic with the interaction between my media PC and the AES16, perhaps some EMI issues in the small fanless case. I note Chris Connacker at computeraudiophile.com mentioned in his review of a PC built with the HFx Mini case that it didn't seem to sound quite as good as other configurations using AES16. I'm going to test the AES16 on another PC we have around here, just to try to eliminate that variable. And I'll report my AFI1 driver issues to Daniel Weiss, and see if he's got any suggestions.
So, obviously, still not a definitive comparison - but at least I'm eliminating some variables!
Scott, Thank you for answering a question that I was wondering about for some time and that is whether the software part of the playback chain sounds different from one audio playback software to another. I think your query on why the AES 16 sound different from the Weiss firewire interface is a difficult one to answer conclusivley. It could be the cable quality / cable length, the noisy PC interior, the PC power supply or that simply that the AFI is a lower jitter device. Do you have the PC connected to a power conditioner by the way?
My PC, and the rest of my electronics, are connected to a power conditioners - a pair of Equitech 2Qs. But I think I've found most, if not all of the answer. I performed one last obsessive experiment, briefly switching the AES16 into my son's vertical mini case HP computer, using Vista and the other software mentioned above. Viola - most, maybe all, of the treble purity and soundstage differences went away! This suggests to me that there is a negative interaction between the small horizontal fanless PC - based on an mCubed HFx case - and the AES16 card. One suspect is the PCI bus - there is an extra ribbon-style bridging cable between the motherboard and the mounting location for the PCI card, and that ribbon cable looks to me like a perfect RFI antenna. I'm now regretting buying the more stylish horizontal case fanless PC:
http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/std/sku=mcubed_core2_htpc
Instead of the vertical case:
http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/std/sku=tnn_music_server.html
I might buy the vertical case, and switch over all the components ... or try to build some shielding for the card in my current case.
Anyway, these are my final experiments and thoughts on this issue for now. I continue to be amazed and delighted by the AlphaDAC, which repeatedly sucks me in to listening for hours when I would ordinarily be doing something else. Enjoy, all.
Thanks for the update. This gives an idea on one thing to look for in motherboard/pc layout
Scott, thank you for your report. I definitely would like to hear more about AFI1 problem and if Weiss can offer solution for both HDCD encoding and sample rate problem.
On my Win XP PC (regular full tower, aluminum case) using Mediamonkey, I find some differences between waveout and asio driver and prefer waveout over asio driver. Asio seems very midrangey, very nice on some vocal recordings but not as extended at both ends of the frequency, I think.
The failure of the Alpha DAC's HDCD LED to illuminate indicates that the Alpha DAC is not receiving an identical bit-for-bit version of the original datastream. The HDCD flag is put into the LSB on high-res recordings so that one can verify the data integrity. Any change in the data and the flag is lost. This is cause for concern.
Yes, that's why I called it "disturbing". I'll see what Daniel Weiss says.
I'm interested in what you're saying, though. Does this mean that there is actually no HDCD encoding per se in the hi-res files? That would make sense, since HDCD is basically designed to overcome dynamic range and transient fidelity limitations in reproducing Redbook ...
Robert,
The cause for concern is in the Berkeley Alpha DAC or is it in HDCD/hi rez files? i.e. is the flaw in the Alpha DAC?
Neither - since, as I said above, the AlphaDAC recognizes the HDCD bit when driven by the AES16, using the same files. The issue lies with the AFI1, it's drivers, or some software interaction between it's drivers and the media software.