Berkeley Audio Design Alpha DAC Owners?

I don't know of any way that I can listen to this unit in my system - there are only 7 listed dealers, and not a single one in my quadrant of the country - so like the originator of this thread I have been trying to find out whether this unit compares favorably on redbook to good, standalone players.

Has anyone done direct comparisons between this unit and highly regarded standalone players on redbook in their systems? I have searched widely and read reviews but there aren't many of these types of comparisons.

I ask about direct and specific comparisons because I had a recent experience with another very highly regarded and very well reviewed DAC which sounded good in the abstract, but when compared directly with an Ayre CD player in the same system at the same time it wasn't even remotely in the same league.

If this DAC is comparable to an Ayre (for example) on redbook in a direct comparison, then it is a perfect solution for the system I am about to build. If it isn't, then it makes no sense for me to sacrifice redbook quality on all the disks I own in exchange for the "next gen" features of this unit.

Computer Audiophile thinks this is on par with the Weiss Minerva. UltraAudio Jeff Fritz said the Weiss Minerva was the best CD he had experienced, better than Arc CD7 and Esoteric X03.
I have compared the Weiss with MBL top transport and dac on very short listen, the Weiss is very good!

Thanks for the response.

I have seen some of Jeff Fritz's comments, but they are mainly focused on the fact that 24-bit/176.4kHz, etc., resolutions are far superior to redbook, and that the Minerva and Alpha One give you access to these resolutions, whereas standalone CD players don't.

I have seen his comment about the ARC CD7 vs. the Minerva but I was hopeful of something that was a bit more substantive. I'm not slighting Jeff here at all - I respect him as a reviewer - but it seems clear from his review that he didn't have the CD7 on hand for comparison when he made his comments (he was moving from a different, inferior DAC to the Minerva), and the CD7 isn't even an ARC current model.

Because aural memories are inherently unreliable, for people like me who are making an "in lieu of" instead of an "in addition to" purchasing decision between CD players and the Alpha One DAC, it would be great to find someone who has done a real time, side by side comparison of their redbook performances.

How it compares to EMM labs and dCS DACs?

I think he compared the redbook performance as well and found it to be superior with the Minerva. I have listened to the Weiss Jason/Medea combo and find it to be one of the best around but I still thinks the Minerva is close to the MBL 1621/1611E combo on redbook.