DAC - DCS Bartok or the new Berkeley Alpha DAC 3

@gerryah930

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

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.

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

Go with whatever looks best.

@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.