My Bricasti M1 expereince......

Glory,
It a totally different price point and market. The M1 is a $8,500 unit where the PWD MKII currently reatiles for $4,000 (over priced IMO) and is already talked for $2,500 which is the on going price for a mint unit.

The potential buyers are the ones with no DSAC or entry level DACs that don't want to spend $8,500 but ipgrade what they have.

Musicman,
Congrats on your new Bricasti M1 DAC. My personal experience with the M1 unexpectedly turned out to be rather brief. I was rather disappointed as I had very high hopes for it.
I auditioned it at home by connecting my dCS Puccini player (with U-clock) to the M1 via Kimber Kable KGDL digital cable. With the Puccini as CD/SACD transport driving the M1, I felt I lost what the U-clock was doing for the Puccini. Somehow, the sonic performance could not be optimised - the M1 imposed a veil between me and the music when before, there was none. I think the audio path for the Puccini and U-clock together is compromised to an appreciable degree when the digital signal is routed out to the M1.
Needless to say, I returned the unit but I am quite confident, given all the rave reviews that the M1 has received, that it would sound superb connected to its very own dedicated transport. So, over to Bricasti to bring us that missing link.

Hi. After side by side in home auditions between the Berkeley w/USB and a later in home audition of the EMM DAC2X the Bricasti is on order. To my ear, the Bricasti's dynamics and "air" around vocals and instruments slightly bested the Berkeley.

While I could not do side by side comparisons to the EMM, my notes on the two were very similar. The EMM MIGHT have had a slight edge in transparency but at the end of the day, I couldn't justify the thousands of dollars of cost differential. And I in know way am convinced of the superiority of the EMM to the Bricasti.

They were all fabulous sounding. It was a great way to spend a couple of weeks with all this gear to play with in house !

Lucky you! I've been looking for comparisons of the Bricasti with the Meitner MA-1, which I think should be similar but presumably not as good as the EMM, so your comments are helpful. The Calyx FEMTO is another in that price ballpark.

I've owned the Bricasti for about 6 weeks. It's world class. My previous DAC for 15 years was the Sonic Frontiers SFD-2 mkii, which I love. I've had the Weiss 202 in my system. Bricasti won hands down. I've also listened to the MSB Sig Platinum with Femto clock and Analog DAC. While I might give the nod to the MSB Sig Platinum, at $23K the difference was not worth the extra $14K.

The Bricasti will be in my system for a long time.