*NEW - Berkeley Audio Design - Alpha DAC Series 3

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mdp632

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May 17, 2016
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Just checking out the latest digital issue of TAS and noticed an ad for the yet un-announced Alpha DAC Series 3.

Visually looks the same but, of they are promoting trickle down tech from the Ref 3.

I'm personally looking forward to reading more about this DAC as well as the MSRP.
 
I'm in the market for a DAC and am wondering if the Alpha DAC 3 is really viable. For just a little more I could buy a used Alpha Ref 2. Thoughts?
 
Mike said:
They don’t believe in USB residing in the DAC.


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I nice sounding unit, not the 3, but in my opinion no contained USB interface is why a lot of want ta be users bypass this dac as they don't feel like having to purchase the Berkeley USB interface ( or another manufacturer) to use this unit. If they, Berkeley, didn't believe in USB they would not have developed a USB interface that really is a nice top notch unit.
 
I've had the Berkeley Ref DAC in all of its incarnations since soon after it launched. To me, it has always been a great sounding DAC although like everything else digital it continues to evolve over time.

The guys at Berkeley believe that having USB onboard will detract from the sound. Likewise, they believe that having the ability to decode both PCM and DSD will lessen its performance. If you want/need USB going into the DAC you must use their Alpha USB unit. It is an added expense but the reasonable price for the Reference DAC makes it more palatable. I used the Alpha USB with my Ref 1 and 2, as it sounded better than AES/EBU from my Aurender N10.

It's a different story with the Aurender WE20SE / Ref 3 combination - in order to use the Aurender's upsampling feature you must use either the AES/EBU or S/PDIF outputs. In my system, to my ears the upsampling via AES/EBU sounds better than the non-upsampled via USB (by way of the Alpha USB).

For me, the lack of DSD decoding is a non-issue... I have two viable options for playing DSD. The Aurender is fully capable of converting DSD to PCM on the fly (again, only as long as I'm not using USB out of the Aurender), or I can take DSD files (either purchased online or ripped from SACD) and convert them to FLAC (or whatever flavor PCM you like) via JRiver on my PC, then uploading the decoded files to the Aurender's hard drive.
 
The Sandman said:
For me, the lack of DSD decoding is a non-issue... I have two viable options for playing DSD. The Aurender is fully capable of converting DSD to PCM on the fly (again, only as long as I'm not using USB out of the Aurender), or I can take DSD files (either purchased online or ripped from SACD) and convert them to FLAC (or whatever flavor PCM you like) via JRiver on my PC, then uploading the decoded files to the Aurender's hard drive.
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Sure any file can be converted with JRiver or other software. We all have our preferences also, of course. Why would anyone download DSD files if they are not DSD fans? Anything you can D/L in DSD can also be gotten in several PCM flavors.

My point was that some of us prefer the sound quality of DSD, all else being equal. Some companies, such as T+A, do not intertwine PCM and DSD internally, but instead have two totally separate paths to be used with each including completely different decoding processes.

Of course Berkley is not the only company that does not support DSD, while others convert everything to DSD :).
 
Randy Myers said:
Sure any file can be converted with JRiver or other software. We all have our preferences also, of course. Why would anyone download DSD files if they are not DSD fans? Anything you can D/L in DSD can also be gotten in several PCM flavors.
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JRiver is what Berkeley recommends. They seem to think it's best for conversions.

The only DSD material I have is from ripped SACDs. Very often the SACD content is a totally different version from any of the non-SACD versions of the same album (and often the only hi-res version available). I certainly wouldn't download DSD files only to convert them to PCM unless they also contained unique material unavailable in PCM format.
 
The Sandman said:
JRiver is what Berkeley recommends. They seem to think it's best for conversions.

The only DSD material I have is from ripped SACDs. Very often the SACD content is a totally different version from any of the non-SACD versions of the same album (and often the only hi-res version available). I certainly wouldn't download DSD files only to convert them to PCM unless they also contained unique material unavailable in PCM format.
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Yea, I was assuming that but it was a head scratcher :).

I use JRiver for any conversions that I ever have to do.
 
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