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Your opinion members of the sonics of the Bricasti M21 and Berkeley Alpha Reference 3

Hello Audiogon members and I hope all is well and you are staying safe. I have looking at some DAC's over the past few months and looking at these two. I have a couple of other threads here on Audiogon on the Berkeley's and my research continues. I do not stream music at this time....I will in the future but not now and that from what I am learning does have an effect on what DAC is best for that option, but that is down the road. I just have my own Redbook library at this time. I have set up a system to my ears that is both musical as well as detailed and we all know that there were ultimately concessions made on trying, trying to obtain that balance. When you add a DAC you are adding a lens or adding a '' flavor '' if I may, so looking for a DAC that has both of those characteristics if possible. Let me know if you have possibly auditioned either one of the se DAC's and your responses would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.
garebear

Showing 2 responses by efoo

Ag insider logo xs@2x
efoo
87 posts
 

Hi

I have the Berkeley alpha ref 3 fed by a blue node 2i.

It performs well.  It does a nice job with Tidal MQA but also sounds great with spotify low res.

I also tried the lumin X1 but lumens multiroom does not sync which is a joke.  I also had the DCS Bartok which is great as well.  

I have never done an A B on any of these.

Good luck in your search,

Ag insider logo xs@2x
efoo
87 posts
 

Hi Mgrif,

I had a DCS bartok with a built in streamer.  The performance was better than the Node plus Berkeley Alpha 3.  I do multi room so I also had a node going through the Berkeley for the multiroom.  I sold it all to go to Lumin but had sync issues with the lumen multiroom.  So I am now back to square 1.  I am going to use the node Berkeley combo till someone comes out with a High end streamer that does multiroom.

NAD just discontinued the M50.2 so I am hoping that they will replace it with something that does not have CD ripping and storage which I do not need.

If NAD comes out with a higher end streamer I would try that and plug it into my BlueOS system.

If anyone has any suggestions I would be interested to hear everyones thoughts.

I need a high end streamer with multi room capability to feed my Berkeley Alpha 3. Then I need something to run the 2 other zones.  Price is not really an issue but I would like to keep it under 15K for the 3 zones.

 

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