Berkeley dac1 versus Esoteric K-03

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.

An interesting development for me. My puter was going into an esoteric clock/upsampler (G25U) and then into Berkeley DAC. The stand alone K03 blew that away but I have had two recent developments. One was to add the G25U (w/o clock engaged as internal K03 clock is a bit more accurate)between the puter and K03 - and the benefit (using 192k) was pretty incredible. The 2nd development was to have my PC 'tuned up' my a microsoft level 5 tech (I am a computer guy but these gys take it to a whole other level) and, never mind the speed I picked up (I was not slow before) but the improvement in sound from their clean up and tweaking was also amazing.

Thanks, Cerrot for the heads-up.
It looks like no matter how well implemented the usb interface is, asynchronous notwithstanding, spdif remains superior for sound quality.
An alternative to souping up my pc would be to get a high end usb to spdif converter betwen the pc and the spdif input of the K-01.
Cheers!

I have posted my experiences on other posts. I was originally running the USB directly from modified Mac Mini to USB input to K-03. After a couple of months of listening, I decided to install the BelCanto RefLink USB Converter. USB from K-03 to BelCanto RefLink and SPDIF out to K-03. Everything improved (Width of sound stage, improvements in Micro/Macro Transients - just removed additional digital artifact to bring me closer to hearing whatever I throw at it.

That said, when playing back the same CD's in the K-03 transport, it is still superior to playing through my computer based rig. I still listen to music mostly using the computer mainly for convenience sake. I would recommend getting a demo unit (BelCanto RefLink) for a trial. My experience is that it will allow you to get the most out of your K-03 or K-01 for the price we often invest in power and interconnect cabling.

Regardless of all the Phile and TAS pulling people into computer audio, Every burned CD and download I've tried the CD sounds much better than any burned disc regardless of program and the downloads at times worse,if the mastering was better in the down load then a hair better, but that is rare. I am staying with well recorded CD and my LP's stay for Lp's that never were released on CD. I trust my own ears and don't need a reviewer telling me what sounds good or sucks. Besides they are now the mouth piece of the manufactures. Keep buying well recorded music, soon so much will be gone due to buyers buying tracks instead of a whole recording. I am have enough music for my lifetime already.