What happened to Berkeley Audio Design

The Berkeley Alpha DAC Reference Series was introduced in 2014.  A Series 2 Update was announced on May 31, 2016.  The original Series 1 has been discontinued and replaced as a result. 

I am curious why you think the original and completely unique Series 1 was not a new product.

I’m curious what you think made products introduced in 2014 or this year new.

I have no evidence of a truly vibrant engineering effort at BAD. I see more effort on marketing materials and cases. Out of many features that could have been added, or trickled down for more affordable products, or trickled up from the USB converter, I see little.

If I’m missing the boat, please enlighten me.

I’m really curious if the original engineering team is still there and focused on BAD or has moved onto other jobs or products.

Like i said, they’re locals to me so I hope they are doing well, I just hope they haven’t been turned into a Zombie company run by marketers who are just trying to keep the lights on before they jump ship, like Theta Digital was for several years.

Also, it's kind of weird no one on LinkedIn seems to work for them. That's another bad sign. 

Erik, your "questions" come off as accusations.  If you have any solid information to offer, then please do.  Otherwise your speculations makes me wonder about your motives.  It just doesn't seem like curiosity on your part.

I'm really OK with you taking my questions as accusations.  It's kind of irrelevant and impossible to refute. 

I'm however much more interested in facts about how they are doing that comes from outside of their web site.  Being unable to find them on LinkedIn I'm also now curious if they are "real" or a brand without any engineering employees of it's own.  Is that an accusation ? No, but if you feel better take it that way. 

Mostly this is my own ignorance hoping to connect with people who know something. 

If this company is real and involved in innovative new products then the proof will come along soon enough and I'll go "yeay! They're alive!" 

None of this affects their products however, which in my mind stand on their own, for better or worse. I honestly would love to hear they are working on something, like a cool digital streamer that finally makes me want to get off my Logitech Squeezebox infrastructure, a digital preamp with built in DSP, something, anything like that would be wonderful to hear about them. 

Best,


Erik