Berkeley Audio Design Alpha DAC Reference

My pleasure Flex. I hope you find it enjoyable.

NativeDSD.com should be the main provider of DSD128 material going forward. Cant wait for them to get MA records on board. Todd Garfinkle's recordings are stunningly good.
 
Just read the TAS review on this DAC. Extremely positive opinion. I may need to listen to it as I consider upgrading from my ARC DAC-8. Don't care about it not having USB digital in. I don't have any DSD recordings. If it's as good as suggested and don't have to do an MSB Sig or Dia, DCS Viv or Eso D-02 investment which are all a ton of money, it may be worth considering. I'll be looking at this DAC over the next few months. We'll see!
 
Hi Anthony, same Bonzo from the MLO forum. Just stumbled onto Audioshark because a tweaker recommended it. Do try the Lampi. Haven't compared to BADA, but it beats various on PCM much more expensive, and the DSD is outstanding. After you listen to it, you might make DSD the deciding factor, because you will likely not be giving up quality on PCM anyway. They usually have excellent trial service as well. I too started last year with 1% of my songs on DSD, now I have a lot.

Check out this quote from What's Best Forum "I auditionned at home Vivaldi Dac , Metronome c 8 and a new Gryphone Kalliope fed from W20. All of them had some advantages over La Fontaine, but the overall presentation of Audio Aero is closest to my preferences : fast, detailed and precise sound but on the musical , rich and warmer side. My former player before I switched to AA was ARC Ref 8 and I liked it a lot during nearly 3 years. Then I decided to go " files" and that's a pity AA is closed - my next upgrade could be La Source.
I will go dsd with Lampi instead."

Sorry to go off topic guys, back to the OP

asindc said:
I haven't heard the Lampi or JRiver in my system so I can't comment on either. With that said, I don't doubt your listening experiences with them. I did a bit more reading on the Lampi, however, and this caught my attention (the ALL CAPS are their's, the bolding is mine):

"THE LAMPIZATOR DSD DAC HAS USB PORT BUILT IN, SOLID STATE DIGITAL FILTER, PASSIVE DISCRETE ANALOG FILTER AND ACTIVE DISCRETE TUBE FILTER. IT DOES NOT MANIPULATE THE DATA IN ANY SHAPE OR FORM, IT DOES NOT CONVERT IT, UPSAMPLE, RECLOCK OR DOWNSAMPLE. IT DOES NOT GO THROUGH PCM PROCESS EITHER. IT IS PUREST NATIVE DSD WE KNOW OF. WE PRACTICALLY ONLY GENTLY REMOVE THE CARRIER FREQUENCY FROM THE RAW DATA AS IT COMES FROM HARD DRIVE. NOTHING MORE NOTHING LESS."

I don't know if this is unique to Lampizator or not, but other DSD DACs do in fact either convert (Benchmark, Mytek), process (Chord, CH Precision, TechDAS, Wyred4Sound), or upsample (EMM, Meitner) DSD. In addition, Schiit also believes decoding both PCM and DSD in the same DAC would compromise performance, just as Berkeley does. In fact, this is what Schiit says about its DSD-only DAC:

"Because Loki is a DSD-dedicated design, with no PCM decoding, we were able to optimize the output stage and filtering to the unique requirements of DSD. The result is cleaner output, from a stage that isn’t compromised to try to accommodate both DSD and other digital sources."

Whether Schiit and Berkeley are correct in saying such or are just saying it for marketing purposes is beyond my expertise to reasonably scrutinize. I just know that less than 0.1% of the music I want to buy is available as DSD download (I wish it wasn't so). If I was to buy a Playstation 1 to rip SACDs, that number 'might' climb closer to 1%, but I seriously doubt it would be more than that. With that in mind, I'm not concerned about my DAC handling DSD. When I do upgrade my current DAC, I might buy one with DSD capability but that won't be a deciding factor for me.
Click to expand...
 
Yeah, Bruce Brown said this:

Bruce B
Well I've had this DAC for just over a week now and it's been running constantly with no stop. It has about 200+ hours on it now and while I was sitting here doing nothing, waiting for some file transfers, I decided to crank up volume. It's been running in the background the whole time.
Listening to some 70's rock, I can't believe the clarity and transparency this thing has. I know with some 70's rock the sound isn't that great sometimes. Most of the time it's pretty homogenized with not much separation between instruments and such.
Listening to Boston, Dylan, CCR and such I can't believe how much this DAC has improved since the first inception that I reviewed months ago. I listened some to it last weekend and I'll tell you the truth. I wasn't really impressed. It was good, but no where near the PBD or PS Audio. I'm listening to it now and it's a total transformation! This is certainly the best DSD I've heard from any DAC! Again, on 70's rock, sometimes the guitars can wear on you and the vocals, especially on Boston, can become strident. Now they take on a roundness that will only encourage you to turn it up!! The snare has snap, the bottom end bass guitars have a clear beginning and end and not lost in the kick drum. You can hear a definite separation between the two. I particularly listened to the cymbals. I know they can get lost in the hiss and sibilance but not with this DAC.
On Dylan, I feel some of his music can become pedestrian and boring. Not with the Lampi. I've been listening to "Blonde on Blonde", "Nashville Skyline", "Oh Mercy", "Love and Theft" and "Planet Waves". Dylan is exciting again. I'm enjoying my server much better. It's definitely closer to tape, but with the convenience of digital.


and Mep said:

mep
I'm going to throw out a little tease and say that the Lampi Level 4 DAC in combination with my REF 5SE and REF 75, is doing something via DSD that I have never heard digital do before.​

​

and then:

marslo
I am among those happy people who may listen to Lampi dsd dac at home. I received a demo unit from Łukasz last Tuesday. The first day i wondered what do you guys hear so special in this Lampi. My Vega did much better. I left Lampi for some 20 hours playing and the next day I could not belive my ears. This is completaly new experience for me -digital sounding better than analog. After few days in Munich I am back home and enjoy Nat King Cole singing in front of me.​
 
[h=1]Comparing the Berkeley Alpha DAC Reference Serie DAC and the NAGRA HD DAC will be interesting : Similar pricing but totally opposite approach (Berkley do not play DSD, NAGRA convert everything internaly to DSD). Who is right ? :-)[/h]
 
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