dCS Rossini vs. Berkeley Reference dac 2

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!

Let us know what you think of the Ref. 2, aldenberry.

Imgoodwithtools I have heard the Berkeley Rv2 and still feel the dCS Rossini is preferable. The Rossini is so good and got so close the Vivaldi 1.0 that they needed to release the Vivaldi 2.0 update way early to mollify that siituation. 
The Berkeley is sweet, polite, pleasant and eminently listenable. But somewhat homogenized to my ears. It is airy and diaphanous but also somewhat amorphous. To my ears it only worked well with high end transports. Data files and streaming were subpar. 
The dCS is a chameleon. Fire breathing dragon or  2 day old lab puppies depending on the file. 
Texture, front to back sound stage, precision of instrumental placement, lack of upper midrange glare, precise articulate bass, noise floor, body and density of the instruments/voices were superior with the dCS. 
The Berkeley's interfaces make it instantly obsolete IMHO.
I think people will like delta sigma DACs or r2r DACs ultimately.
dCS makes the best delta sigma DACs and I'm still deciding if MSB  or Lampizator makes the best r2r. And boy do they sound spectacular. What a golden age for digital.  

Good feedback. Right now I'm waiting to see where this MQA thing goes.