Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

Erikminer,
Thanks for the heads up. The review at CA was extremely positive - sounds super delicious! Berkeley saw it fit to not include any usb input altogether. Looks like they subscribe to the philosophy that coaxial spdif is superior to any usb implementation out there.

The USB compared to SPDIF is interesting and has been debated for quite sometime. There are very experienced and talented designers who insist that USB is inferior sonically. USB supporters counter with it all revolves around implementation. It seems Berkley has joined the former camp.

Agear,
your wife sounds a lot like mine. Very intelligent, great sense of humor and never a dull moment. Grannyring, the same could be said of your wife as well. We're lucky guys.
Charles,

"Berkeley saw it fit to not include any usb input altogether. "

I'm thinking their attitude is the typical "separates" thought process.

Many believe that USB to spdif conversion should be looked at similar to a phono stage; separate units to achieve ideal performance. I hit this opinion early on with my Rowland Aeris and even more with the Big 6 eval.

Since Berkely has a well reputed and reviewed USB to spdif converter in their product list, it makes sense to me that their reference DAC would not include internal USB to spdif conversion.

As music servers become more robust and user friendly I believe computers may become less prominent for an audio source and USB may go away.

I think that more reference DAC manufacturers may avoid a USB input over time if music servers become the reference level, fluid user interface source that they should be.

Interesting times.

In the TAS review there is an interview with the designer (s) of the Dac. They feel that building a USB input with the associated hardware degrades the SQ of the unit. Could that be BS since they sell the pricey outboard unit? Who knows but I'll give them the benefit of knowing what they're doing.