Berkeley Alpha DAC: cabling and breaking-in time

Gladly. The Berkeley replaced a benchmark dac. The Berkeley is more resolving and threw a wider and deeper soundstage. The biggest difference was that the music through the bada just sounded right. The touch into the dac sounds great but up sampling the touch with the g25u (replaced a monarchy combo which up sampled to 96k) brought it to a fascinating level. Increased air, detail and resolution. Picth black backgrounds and an absolute ease in listening. No fatigue at all. I can hear deeper into the music and have more tonal colors (the reeds, vocals, cymbals, bass strings). They sound much more like the real thing. Eerie, actually. I use 172k instead of 196k as it is a natural multiplier of 44.1. I will experiment with the 196k again in future.

Dennis

I have been using the Berkeley for over a year now. I do think it went through some changes over the first month or so and a fellow member who received his around the same time had similar thoughts. I find the dac very sensitive to changes in digital cables. That sort of surprised me. I spoke with Michael Ritter about recommended digital outputs and cables. He strongly encouraged using the AES3 and with some prompting suggested a Straightwire digital cable. I did experiment with that cable and went through a lengthy trial of many others, all price points. This included Kubala Sosna, Stealth, Nordost, and many more. The no contest best in my system, for my taste, was MIT. I used the Digital Proline Reference for a while and eventually decided to invest in the Oracle MA-X. I am very pleased with the cable.

I also do find the dac sensitive to power cables and power devices. I won't bore you with the list I have tried but I currently use an Acoustic Revive Power Reference plugged into an Acoustic Revive RTP Ultimate. I also do like the MIT Oracle Z3 for a little more neutrality (the AR stuff leans to the warmer side).

I also use Logitech stuff, a Transporter currently. I plan to change this as I have the Berkeley Alpha USB converter on order. I have no idea if this will be better but figured I liked the dac so much I would try their proprietary interface.

Enjoy the BADA!

*** for Dennis:
my question about Logitech Squeezebox was simple: when I connect it to BADA i disliked the sound from this device. With the same cables, the digital output of my Acute CD (essentially Arcam stuff in digital section) sounds many times better than the Touch.
Because of this early experience I decided to ask in this forum, to BADA owners like you, which is your best configuration, thank you for sharing!

Actual digital cable is a MIT shotgun. I also tried a Kimber D60 with poor results... and now...

*** for Richard:
as you can read a couple of rows above, in these first days I discovered the BADA is very sensible to the digital cable :D and with MIT I taken the same direction of you, very intresting...
Is your cable a Shotgun or another model from MIT ?

Because, in this moment, EAR Acute is superior in global musicality imho and in my setup of course, but my intention is to let the BADA sound at its best.
My main perplexity is the (imho everytime!) poor performance on bass frequencies, especially the lowest ones, this is the reason because I asked about breaking-in. To clarify: in the last month I listen in my system a Vitus SCD10 with superb bass and even an Hegel DAC that was not bad at all. Both equipment was breaked-in. I'm sure I'm missing something but it is too early maybe to have a definitive opinion.

Thanks
-Massimo

Have you tried the different filters in the BADA?

Hi Dennis,
the filter I'm currently using is 1.24

I have an update: now, after 15 days of uninterrupted functioning, the sound has changed a lot, better bass frequencies but I can say globally better.
Somewhere I found a suggestion about breaking-in time of approx 200 hours and now I can confirm this is the right time for the Berkeley.
I can also confirm that the BADA sounds very well with MIT digital cables. About interconnects in my setup the Cardas Clear interconnects are not the best solution. I will try next week the Kubala Sosna Emotion and Kimber KS1130. I know Cardas Clear was not good also with Vitus CD but for EAR setup they are very good.
FOr power cables at the moment I haven't try anything due to not add too much variables ;-)

Stay Tuned. The BADA is starting to sing and it has a beautiful voice :-)