DAC - DCS Bartok or the new Berkeley Alpha DAC 3

@efoo Yes that's correct, no wifi or Roon only hard wired LAN to another Aurender unit.

Aurender does not do multiroom.

A few contributors above have suggested get a good streamer/front end before the DAC. This is the best advice. The enemy of every DAC is jitter and even if a DAC has zero jitter it can't compensate for the jitter coming in. So spend on your front end like you're going to keep it for 10 years and get a $1000 or so DAC.

An Aurender ACS10 will shock you when coupled with a cheap DAC and a N10/N20 will completely blow you away.

An expensive DAC just like expensive speakers will reveal shortcomings from down the line.

It appears that most of the DACs are not set up to receive 2 channel input from a CD transport.  They all have 2 channels out, but just various connections for streaming, but nothing for transports.  How would I connect a transport to one of these?

Based upon a very good deal I ended up with a Berkeley Reference 3.

Which Berkely did you buy?

 

I auditioned both the DCS and Berkeley family of DACS. Both are fine DACS. I found the DCS house sound to be very smooth. While the Berkeley house sound is leaner and more engaging. In the end I thought the DCS sounded better but I enjoyed the Berkeley more. 

I know almost nothing about DAC, except that there are at least two different approaches to DAC: a delta sigma approach, and an R2R approach.  Are all of these DAC's (ARC, Berkeley, and DCS) delta sigma DAC's?

@efoo that's not a bad problem to have.  I would love to be in position to be purchasing a Bartok.

I actually have experience with the Bartok I used to own one ...  I sold the bartok cause lumin announced multiroom I bought the X1 and 2 M1s and I thought I was all set.  

The problem was the lumins do not sync they play a half second off so it sounds horrible in a close zoned multi room set up.  Lumin has this in fine print on their site but I think they should make it clear in their marketing material.  Why make a multi room set up which does not sink.

Anyway....I will be listing a bunch of Lumin gear once I buy the new stuff.  I like the sound of the Lumin and the bartok and a ways back I had the Berkeley Alpha dac 2 which I liked as well.

One thought I had was to go with the Bartok which I could use for 2 channel critical listening and then go with the blue sound or mind2 for the multi room listening.

I know what your thinking I kinda have a gear problem LOL 

@andyhifiman

For your Node 2i, did you happen to do the PSU upgrade(PD Creative) and get an SBooster LPS or other LPS?

I did all that and added an upgraded power cable and all of that made a very big and perceptible sonic upgrade to the "basic" Node 2i.

All that being said, I would assume that a HiFi Rose RS 250 et al would best my upgraded Node 2i as I am using the Burr Brown PCM 1792 DAC in my Classe SSP-800 processor. Which is very good still....

But I do wonder if a quality external DAC like a Benchmark 3B or Holo May would best a streamers internal DAC. But you are increasing your investment.

Go with whatever looks best.

I was in the same predicament. I demo’d the DCS which I found very good but unfortunately I couldn’t demo Berkeley.

A local dealer let me home demo a lumin x1 and to my surprise I found the lumin better... so now I own that. Punches above it's price point imo

I currently utilize a DCS Bartok in my system which does pair with a Mac Mc302 and C48 Preamp. I was blown away with the soundstage of the Bartok. Coming from a Bluesound Node2i I was able to hear the comparison. Two completely different leagues. The Bartok opened up the sound and vastly increased both the upper and lower registers with a tighter crisper sound. Best of luck.

@gerryah930

How does the Esoteric sound compare to DCS, ARC in your opinion?

With the quality and cost of DACs that you are considering, I would opt for a much higher quality streamer than Bluesound... Perhaps   something like Aurender, Auralic, HiFi Rose ???  Bluesound represents spectacular value but it is also considered more of an entry level unit.  All depends on your streaming service provider too...  GOOD LUCK !

Accountants don’t make for good audiophiles :)

as for a streamer / DAC, would take the SimAudio 780D over anything mentioned thus far. 

Good discussion. I use network equipment to stream, and the dedicated audio streamers sound better in my limited experience. 

I use an Esoteric K-01XD with a FPGA-based sigma alpha DAC ("master discrete") like the N-01XD because I like to spin disks. I have owned a DCS Vivaldi One and a DCS Bartok. In this comparison, most folks prefer the DCS systems because they are capable of filtering the sound to produce something "warmer", but I prefer more analytical sources that are modulated downstream (Luxman->ARC->Wilson). 

I know this may drive the OP nuts, but I have to recommend that you need to listen to the DACs and streamers for yourself to make these judgements. There is no such thing as the best sounding product components in this domain - listeners differ in what they enjoy most in terms of reproduced music and which audio characteristics they enjoy best. 

I’m sorry if this offends anyone, but I will never understand how some of you spend tens of thousands of dollars on glorified networking equipment (e.g. a streamer)

OP @efoo 

Both of your choices are great. 

IMHO, I think you should check out the Holo May Dac. It isn't a chip DAC. It is a NOS R2R DAC. I'm leaning towards one myself. 

Either Level 2 or penultimate KTE. 
http://https//www.kitsunehifi.com/product/holo-audio-may-dac/

Best of luck. 

Thanks for all the great thoughts,  I am certainly willing to spend more on the streamer side but I need multi-room capability but I do not want to use roon.

I think simaudio/moon, naim and auralic all have multiroom.

Are there any other brands I should consider?

Just to be clear the Berkeley I am looking at is the new Alpha 3 (11K) not the reference (25k).

I have a Node2i, Pi2AES (roon endpoint), NUC (Roon rock), and Innuos Zen Mkiii. No contest, there are definitely improvements as you go up the chain. Look into a Innuos Zen MKIII as I think for the money, it's hard to beat. 

@mgrif104

+1. Very definitely over fifteen years I fiddled with streamers of all types: PCs, $100, $500, $1000, Auralic Aries G2, the Aurender 100n… and quickly Aurender N10, and finally Aurenders flagship WE20SE… the last initially seemed ridiculously expensive at $22K until a few seconds in my system when my impression immediately changed to what a great bargain it is.

While I can’t add constructively to the discussion between the two DACs you’re considering, I do want to share an observation which I hope will be helpful.  Given the level of the two DACs you’re evaluating, I believe you will be leaving a significant amount of their performance on the table if sourcing them with a Bluesound Node or Moon MiND2.  I have directly compared streamers both of those streamers (I have a Node 2i in a kitchen system - it’s great for what it is) to better units.  In A/B comparisons, my Aurender, and now Auralic Aries G2 series streamer handily outperformed the Bluesound in terms of spatial depth, and low level detail. The Node2i sounded “flat” spatially in comparison. There are a number of us here who believe the source is as important as the DAC.  In my own case, it was more impactful - which surprised me.
And, I had the opportunity to directly compare my Auralic unit against the Mind2 unit built into Sim Audio’s 680 DAC (as I was able to separate DAC and streamer functions).  I did this at the dealer that caries Sim.  We both agreed - no contest in favor of the Auralic. Sim’s DAC is pretty sweet though and definitely worth a listen, too, but I would upgrade to a different streamer than what’s built in so as to enjoy the significant benefits of their DAC.  I’m aware that some of the others in this thread will prefer Aurender - another line of streamers that’s very, very good and well worth auditioning, too.
Regards,
mgrif 

Just curious, how would an Esoteric streamer/DAC, such as the $20k N-01XD compare with the $15-20k DCS, Berkeley, and ARC DAC's?   
Thanks. 

Yep both the Berk and Bartok have a bit more detail than the excellent ARC. Yes, i have heard all three at length. Two i would add to your list are Aesthetix Pandora - Signature and the Brinkmann Nyquist. Both w tube analog stages , both w minimum phase filters. Any of the above will get you great sound, future upgrades, dependable support / service that should be around for the long haul.
You might also consider a NAIM streamer / DAC. 
best to you. enjoy the journey and the music.
Jim

The ARC DAC 9 is about $12K less than the Alpha. The ARC DAC 9 does not have the SE designation but it will probably sound roughly similar to the ARC CD9se ($17K).


Every time I switched another component to high quality tubed component it sounded better. ARC is really good at very high resolution / musical sound.

I see the AR DAC 9 is about the same price as the Alpha DAC 3.

Tubes may be interesting.  Might pair well with my C22

I had a Berkeley Alpha 3 in my system for several weeks and was able to do direct comparisons with my DAC. It is outstanding, detailed, natural, and musical. I could not imagine anyone not being happy with it. (My system shown under my ID).

I was comparing it with my Audio Research CD9se (as DAC). I actually liked the ARC better… a tiny, itsy, bit warmer in the midrange (really small), the Berkeley a tiny, itsy, bit, barely detectable greater detail.