dCS Rossini vs. Berkeley Reference dac 2

Thanks, Aldenberry.  Good luck in your research.

I haven't heard the dCS. But I just received a Berkeley Reference 2, swapped from an original Reference. The difference is Not Subtle. Huge Upgrade. Much more musical. The trace of hardness in the upper mods and highs is gone. I'm super satisfied with the Berkeley Alpha Reference 2.

Spell check. Mids, to be clear. Also, the Berkeley is Awesome driving amps directly. I prefer it driving my Ayre MX-R Twenties directly, to running through an Ayre KX-R Twenty preamp.

You aren't doing something right then.

Thanks for these latest posts.  I'm queued up for the upgrade program, ref 1 to 2, but it may take a while.  Great to hear the change is substantial.  I too am scratching my head over your experience with vs without preamp.  It raises the question of whether you have a cabling issue?  I also run the same Ayre products and with ref1, using the KX-R 20 sounds vastly superior, well beyond issues of attenuation.  Enjoy!