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Rega vs Burson Dac

I've recently been listening to the Burson 160D headphone amp and dac. I'm amazed at it's price performance ratio, and while it's a great headphone amp, the dac is also very impressive. Has anyone heard both the Burson and the new Rega dac? A trusted friend believes the Rega is the best in it's price range, and while I have no doubt that it's good, I'd be curious to get comments from someone who has actually compared it with the Burson.
84audio
thesoundhouse
250 posts
 
I have heard both and the Burson sounds better to my ears.

singleendedsingle
664 posts
 
Both are nice units on the price range. I find the Burson more natural sounding, but why not do an A/B test with your friend and see the difference?
lrsky
1,118 posts
 
Singleendedsingle,
I haven't heard the latest Rega...but your comments re/neutrality don't surprise me. Rega IMHO has never sounded neutral to my ears. They HAVE been remarkably consistant with their voicing though, to their credit.

The average consumer who hasn't dabbled in circuitry can't imagine the diversity/predictably so, of sound that one can 'engineer' into an audio piece...after experimentation, one can predict and create pretty reliably.
Kudos to Burson for such great gear for what most of us would seem to think is budget pricing.

Good listening,
Larry
vinyl_lover
1 posts
 
I have heard both, and to my ears the Rega is by far the better DAC. The Burson did not impress me at all with red book CDs, but it was much better with hi-rez files. I only heard the Rega with regular CDs, and I find it to be the best I have heard so far (but have not heard that many).

On another comparison with the Bryston DAC, I also preferred the Rega by a significant margin. That audition was on a very revealing system that included Vandersteen Model 7, an expensive AR preamp and Bryston amps. The Rega was very close to good analog sound and was free of most digital artifacts. I borrowed the Rega for a couple of days, and my opinion has not changed. As with all digital electronics, make sure the unit is broken in and has been on for about a day before a serious audition. The Rega sounded a bit harsh when cold.
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