Berkeley dac1 versus Esoteric K-03

@ cerrot, Hi, I have been asking you for a while about the Esoteric K-03 player!,, What you just posted is what I am looking for!, Damn, Its about time you posted what this player can do, I needed to know about the sound before I take on a very long road trip to audition one, there is no Esoteric dealers around me for atleast 300 miles!, thankyou!

What were you feeding the Berkeley?

I was using a gateway computer (windows 7, JRiver 18, Jplay, ESI Juli@ sound card); 10 meter apogee spdif cable into an Esoteric G25U upsampler/clock - the clock went to the Berkeley via an AES/EBU Purist Audio Design 20th Anniversary digital cable; the other surce was my Esoteric X03 SE into the upsampler via a Tara Labs The be Spdif digital cable, into the berkeley (this sounded better than the X03SE by itself).

Cerrot,
It is interesting that you use the spdf out from your PC and not the usb. I have not tried this but the usb route from my computer to my K-01 player is nowhere near the sound from the CD transport, even with hi-res downloads.
I may try the spdf way but need to get a better pc set-up like yours first before running it to the spdf input of the K-01.

Jon,

I would never use the USB out of my PC. Nor, would I ever use the usb input the dac. usb is the poorest interface you can use. USB was desgined to attach peripherals like mice and keyboards and printers and transmits data in packets, not streams.

God luck Jon.