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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 1 response by mgrif104

mgrif104
328 posts
 

@efoo 

You mention your source for your DAC is a Bluesound Node 2i.  I’m curious if you’ve tried a better streamer.  While there is a wide variety of opinions on the importance of source, in my own experience, I enjoyed a bigger performance gain by improving my source than I did by moving to a better DAC.  While my own DAC isn’t as well regarded as yours, it’s still very good.  I’ve auditioned some that were in the price range of yours but didn’t feel it enough of an improvement over what I have to merit the spend.

I should note that there are some here who say source makes little to no difference (either out of belief, but some from experience) and/or that their DAC is immune to jitter.  Regardless, some of of us have experienced significant improvements with a better source.  FYI - I started with a Node 2.  It was very good for what it is, but I wouldn’t go back.  Of course, YMMV and perhaps you’ve already explored this, but I’d be curious as to your experience.  

Best,

 

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