Beresford dac has arrived - mini review

[kingnothing83]

At long last I got to test out my new setup today complete with Beresford DAC. Along with the DAC i bought a new soundcard, a cheap and cheerful trust 5250 for £15. This soundcard has a bit perfect digital output and courtesy of some unofficial drivers http://code.google.com/p/cmediadrivers/wiki/FAQ it outputs music from mp3, flac, etc without any resampling or processing. This lets the DAC do all the hard work. To test the difference i have the toslink going from my soundcard - to dac - to amp, and also my 3.5mm analogue out direct to amp (arcam alpha 8, tannoy mercury custom f1 speakers, chord crimson interconnect and qed silver anniversary speaker cable)

Switching between the two, the sound difference really is night and day. Of course, as a cheap soundcard the analogue is bound to sound poor, it certainly does a worse job than my old soundblaster x-fi did. But the digital out to the dac certainly does a much better job than the analogue of the x-fi.

The main difference is the strength and clarity of the bass, it sounds like i have just bought a sub woofer, it really is a massive transformation! Also the clarity is transformed and any muddyness has gone. The crashing of the symbols seams less harsh and less fatiguing as well.

So there you go, i doubt the beresford will make such a difference to people who play their music from cd players but as for anyone with a pc based system i really recommend it.

 

[Anonymous]

I'd imagine it would improve my playback of DCs via my cheapo Sony DVD player too..........

Did yuo buy it from that HomeHiFi dude?

 

[kingnothing83]

Hey it got it from him direct. Customer service was excellent too.

Thanks for the comment frog - yeah you are right, but its good to know at least that no processing is going on with the crappy sound card.

Maybe some decent headphones will be the next investment. Acutally thats not the case as i still don't have any stands, that has to be the next investment - might leave it for a good few months after that.

 

[Anonymous]

Couldn't agree with you guys more! This DAC is so far the most effective upgrade I did for my PC based listening; and at such an attractive price tag, it's a real bargain! I'm planning to add it to my hi-fi set up as well.

 

[kingnothing83]

I havent heard a bad thing said against it yet.

Do you leave yours on all the time? I leave my amp on all the time, are there any benefits in doing so?

 

[Anonymous]

I usually leave it on all the time, don't know if this would help in the way it sounds - my reason being rather serious one, pure unadulterated laziness of the highest order.

 

[PJPro]

Thanks for the review kingnothing83. Much appreciated.

 

[kingnothing83]

No problem, glad it was some use.

I think i'll leave it on to "burn in" for the next 24 hours to see what (if any) difference i can here.

 

[kingnothing83]

Yeah that backs up when stanley beresford said, i asked him which output to use with my setup and he said definitely this one, although it would differ if i was putting the dac into a power amp.

I seem to be collecting useless volume knobs, volume doesnt work in winamp with kernal streaming on, beresford volume is defunct too!

 

[kingnothing83]

I'm surprised at detailed it sounds at lower volumes too. I have it on very quietly now and the detail is still coming through.
Definitely the best £100 ive spent in a long time. Well, more like £150 all in all but still. I was in Paris last week and the cheapest beer i bought was ?8

 

[kingnothing83]

Interesting that it didnt make too much of a difference, i guess it shows how good the beresford is. I know people try solar powered supplies for power etc, when it gets into that area it looses me.

We'll all be paying £5 a pint soon i think. Then people will stop going to pubs and the world will go into recession - leading the government to subsidise beer, bringing the cost down to 50p per pint.

...or possibly thats wishful thinking