dCS Rossini vs. Berkeley Reference dac 2

My pleasure, happy listening!

I have heard both the dCS and Berkeley DACs in comparison but not in my system. Maier Shadi at The Audio Salon in Santa Monica carries Berkeley, dCS, Wilson, D’Agostino, Transparent etc and is a most accommodating proprietor. I chose a partial dCS Vivaldi stack ( no transport since I use a NAS directly into the Upsampler) but easily understand the allure of the Berkeley. I also run the DAC directly to my Momentum S-250. I had Transparent XL Gen V balanced ICs custom tuned to interface between the Vivaldi DAC and the Dag and have yet to find a preamp that improves on that setup.
Heresy, I know!

Hey khrys. What did you prefer about the sound from the Vivaldi? And have you heard the Berkeley Reference V2? Big improvement over V1.

Thanks khrys,
Heresy indeed!  Another vote against the preamp.  I will have to revisit this.  I just ordered two pairs of Transparent Audio Ref. interconnects and a pair of Ref. speaker cables, which arrive tomorrow.   I will break them in and listen both ways.

Perhaps I will speak with Maier- thanks for the reference.  The Vivaldi is a transcendent piece!  Just to refocus, I visited Music Lovers in San Francisco, which also sells both Berkeley and dCS, where I heard a well controlled comparison of three dacs- Berkeley Ref 1, Rossini and Vivaldi, no upsampler or clock with the dCS units.  All were fabulous, but to my ear, the Rossini bettered the Berk. by enough to justify the price gap; the Rossini took it several flights up, and I gather the other "stack" accessories just keep sweetening it up.  I was leaning toward letting the Berk go for Rossini when I learned of the upgrade option from Berk 1 to Berk 2, at a nominal cost.  So it seems I owe to myself to learn whether Berk has narrowed the gap on Rossini before spilling more money on this obsessive hobby.  

Again, thanks for your interesting post.  Music Lovers is now breaking in their Berk Ref 2, so perhaps I will be able to answer my own question in a few weeks?  

Best to all, D

oops, I meant the Vivaldi took it several flights up!