Quote from: purrin on January 05, 2014, 03:59:11 AM

updated with Vega and Berkeley Alpha2.

A note on the BADA link, as far as I'm aware it's not on the new Alpha Reference DAC. I think Berkeley abandoned the whole idea.

Or they integrated it perhaps by upgrading the USB section?  For the Alpha DAC2 it works.  For me, I'd put the Alpha between the M7/PWD pimped out and the Lavry/Vega.  Almost need another category.  It also had a little greyness to the background similar to stock PWD via USB.  I did not have my transport to confirm whether this improved or got worse via coax.
___________

The Luxman DA06 sounded a lot like the P1u amp oddly enough.  Colored.  A warmer, syrupy low end.  Not bloomy or loose, nor detailed.  Rather blended but not loose.  It's a euphonic sound I would not recommend for a DAC.  It's not a shitbox, definitely 'tuned' I'd say for a certain sound.  Smooth and warm over detailed, resolving or accurate.  Like the P1u amp, very flat sounding with a lack of transient inner dynamics and 2-D soundstage.  Absence of depth or layering.  This aspect combined for a lack of finer resolution to lock in imaging makes it unable to render a holographic audio picture of the instruments and performance in general (take this with a grain of salt as I heard the P1u like 6 months ago, I hear I was supposed to forget how it sounded after 2 seconds from some internet experts on audio memory ).

Quote from: DaveBSC on January 05, 2014, 05:55:21 AM

A note on the BADA link, as far as I'm aware it's not on the new Alpha Reference DAC. I think Berkeley abandoned the whole idea.

'

I wonder if it's i2s. Just a matter of knowing the pins.

If it was, you'd think they would've just called it that instead of making something up. If they didn't want to use the PS HDMI spec, there's always RJ-45 or DIN. In any case, it never made it onto the Alpha USB, and the new BAR has two S/Pdif (presumably one RCA and one BNC) AES, and Toslink. No BADA.

I don't think it's SABRE, but there's a treble sheen, raspyess, and grainyness which gets to me in about 10-20 minutes. But overall, it just sounds bad - like "low fidelity" bad. Hard to explain. There's decent detail, but notes lack authority. Poor extension in the bass. Unrefined. Uncontrolled and imprecise. Gray background. It's a bit flat sounding, but not necessarily boring because the "bad" keeps reminding you that it's bad. It lacks immediacy and realism. It sounds like a chain of op-amps with poor PSRR being fed with a noisy power supply.

• Think HE-400 midrange.
• Think of an old Honda accord with bad shocks, but with a really good paint job on it.
• Think <insert random Cleveland Browns QB> bad (hard to describe that kind of bad other than just "bad"), rather than Tim Tebow bad (which is a more easily explainable kind of bad, i.e. "brain can't handle the speed and complexity of the pro game")

   Think HE-400 midrange.

I won't have heard an HE-500 until the loaner eventually arrives, but in the meantime, is there a qualitative difference between the HE-400 and HE-500's midrange - apart from frequency response spikes ?