What DAC upgrade made you say “DAMN, that sounds SO MUCH better than my last DAC”?

I have about $10k’s worth of components in my system. After getting everything else up and running on the performance levels I was looking for, I turned to the last piece of the puzzle, the DAC. I’d been rather happy with an EVS-modified Oppo 103 for some yrs, but wanted to see if I could do better.

Started with a Denifrips Pontus (original version). Liked it ok, except that low-level detail seemed a little reticent and I recall just not being able to get sufficient tonal color out of the thing. It sorta did that "live" sound thing pretty well, which may be the thing these days in Southeast Asia, I’m supposing, but I was intentionally looking for color and hopefully without the attendant "veil" that can come with it (as is sometimes the case with McInntosh gear). Sold it after a few months.

Next up, I tried a Berkely Audio Design, Alpha V2 DAC. Although I ended up passing on this DAC as well, this did indeed have STUNNING amounts of color - just glorious - and by such a huge margin it wasn’t even funny. Almost TOO much color - something I didn’t think would be possible. A rather nice, if tightly defined, sound field, as well. Although resolution was quite good, where it really ended up letting me down was in the bass, particularly the midbass and low end. It just...well..sat there, like a bump on a log. The bass seemed strong enough and grippy, but inspite of threatening the get up and boogie at some point, it just never actually got around to it - it just refused to **move**. Me being a bass fan, that was deal breaker. I sold it after a year. A heartbreaking farewell, as I recall.

Next, on a tip from a friend in the pro industry, I tried my current DAC, a Burl Audio B2 Bomber DAC. This one is made in Calif. by the pro’s for the pro’s. It is what’s known as a "monitoring DAC". That is, it’s intentionally designed to neither gussy anything up about the sound or presentation, or sweep anything under the rug, so that a pro can accurately track the mix down process. It just so happens that this DAC is gloriously musical at the same time. And tonal color happened to be spot on across the range, not just ’here or there’. Gobs of transparency. In this DAC, there are No capacitors in the signal path - very unusual. So the bass is extremely extended, but also very o-p-e-n - the dead opposite of the prior DAC. And complete realism across the board...and with magic, soul, space and all that good stuff...

I’ve been gobsmacked with this DAC for more than a year now. The B2 is Never going Anywhere from here. If it should ever die, I’ll just get another one(!). Very much night and day for me on this DAC.

Ha, sorry if you have no frame of reference, I decided to give mine so you'd know what mine was. 

Last time I checked, this forum was open to everybody...

Apologies to everyone right off the bat here - I do Not want to hijack this thread, but there are some details that will be important should anyone consider buying this DAC that should be known, so I apologize in advance for the lengthy infomercial. Skip now if you’re not interested.

@audiosaurusrex, Sorry for the late response, there are actually 2 physically different B2 Bombers: the ADC and also a DAC version. Professionally, they’re meant to be used together to go from recording phase (ADC) to mix-down phase (DAC). Both retail for the same price, $2450. Burl typically runs a sale twice a year, once in mid summer and again before Christmas when they are known to take off roughly $200-250. I bought my DAC used and paid $1900 delivered. Used prices don’t discount very much with these DAC’s, their resale value is always high and sometimes you have to be patient for one to become available, but invariably they seem to show up.

There are more than 2 versions of the DAC, but for some reason Burl does not use any nomenclature at all to distinguish between them, so you have to confirm which version before ordering, whether from online retailers, used from individuals or from Burl itself. One version includes a Toslink input and analog gain controls for each channel of the XLR output stage (tiny screwdriver adjust) and also, among the ones with the Toslink/gain control versions, there is a version that includes a Dante card for clocking (pro use only) that bumps the price up a couple hundred bucks or so, so don’t end up paying for that one. Looking at a pic of the rear panel will tell you mostly what you need to know about the individual DAC you’re looking at.

One last consideration is that this DAC uses twin class-A, discrete op-amps for the analog output stage. The op-amps are in fact user replaceable, they are not soldered into place. Burl currently makes 2 versions of op-amps: BOPA1, and BOPA8. This DAC debuted on the market in 2011 (it’s DAC chip, incidentally, was chosen at the time strictly for its sound quality alone, rather than for the most recent design or availability vs pricing...it still sounds great even after all this time. My friend in the industry, who is also an audiophile, tells me he thinks this is the best-sounding PCM DAC in existence). But, the first op-amp, the BOPA1, gave the B2 a reputation for being the most analog-like - (think tape rather than vinyl) sounding DAC available...complete with something of that nice, tonal density (despite having nice separation of instruments) that good, analog tape playback is known for. The 2nd one, the BOPA8 was meant to ’modernize’ the sound a bit and give things a less ’identifiably’ analogish sound and go for something more neutral - straddling between the best analog and the best digital type of sound.

The BOPA8 has been the production variant for some years now, but if at any time you wanted to swap out and try the other, you would just order the op-amps from Burl and try them yourself. I have the BOPA8 version and it sounds so good to me that I don’t really have any great interest in trying the BOPA1, unless it were out of sheer curiosity or something. Burl sells the BOPA1 for like $50 and the BOPA8 for like $80, but I can’t recall at the moment if that was each or for a pair - you need 2, one for each channel. Contact Burl and they can tell you.

Ok, disclaimer over.

http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/burl-b2-bomber-dac-review-holy-sh-this-is-good.9575/

(This link works better). This is from a headphone site, but includes discussion of sound quality