Is berkeley dac as good as absolute sound review?

I know of two A'gon members who tried the Berkeley and Bryston in their own systems and while they found the Berkeley was better they couldn't justtify spending the extra cash for the extra performance and purchased the Bryston. Now, how much does the extra price represents to them, I don't know. Maybe it's 10% of what they save in a month, or maybe it's 6 months savings...very different picture. Yet these were two real world decisions after A/Bing.

As I said earlier, I have a Berkeley as well as an Esoteric X03 SE. Interestingly, my computer where my squeezebox server resides experienced some toasted ram to go with a toasted cpu when I installed the Juli@ so I have been listening to the Esoteric and very well recorded redbook CD's for the past two weeks. The server is back up and running so I listened to the Berkeley yesterday for the first time since. While I had always felt that the Berkeley and Esoteric sounded different (giving the edge to the esoteric on dynamics),I noticed yesterday that the Berkeley sounds very unike digital. It takes you into this deep, tall, wide, full of music soundstage with absolutely no glare, harshness, coldness. There is an incredible attachment to the music. It becomes a presentation. Obviously sources and the rest of the system matters and it is not cheap but you all need to listen to one to see what the fuss is about. And then there's hi res music...

I have heard the DCS Puccinni, though in a much better system than mine so I cannot make a compariosn. It was (and still is) the best system I have ever heard. The Puccinni chiseled out a detailed, refined 3d (3D!) soundstage that had to be heard to be believed.

I heard the Berkeley dac at a show, admittedly it was about three years ago, so it's maybe improved by now. It was in a room with Verity Audio Lohengrin speakers. I listened to one or two familiar tracks which I own and I found the sound veiled and unengaging. The rest of the audio equipment chain was not to blame as the turntable (A Schroeder setup) was absoutely spellbinding. Personally, I'll be shopping for a used high-end dac soon and the Berkely will not be on my list.

I must hear the Bryston -maybe even as a CD-Player (yup still use the discs), I just get the feeling it is a real sleeper (though it has had good reviews)at a very competive price given its performance, and needless to say, Bryston reliability - would love to hear it against the "Kings of the Hill".