considering a Beresford TC 7520

davethe11

davethe11

davethe11

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my current setup:

xonar dx pcie
kenwood ka 3020 se
mission 760 se speakers
just have a 3.5mm to RCA stereo lead connecting SC to amp

I know very little about audio equipment, but have been reading up a little as I wish to achieve better sound quality for my FLAC music library on my PC. My budget for some kind of upgrade is around £200, though I would only go this far if I thought it was worth it.

Though my amp and speakers are aging, I would like to keep them as I would like to upgrade my sound system incrementally over time and appreciate individual upgrades gradually (my budget dictates this anyway).

After trawling the web, I believe a dedicated DAC may give me an improvement in sound quality, I believe I can connect via usb from my pc and have read this has advantages over s/pdif. I've read a lot about the dacmagic, but it's higher price and mixed information regarding it's performance compared with the Beresford TC 7520 leave me thinking of buying the 7520 as my first step into a better sound system.

I would appreciate any comments, suggestions, or information you could give me, and please bare in mind that I know very little about audio hardware, but I'm a fast learner :)
 
I'm in a fairly similar situation. Have you looked at the Beresford Caiman? It's about £200 and it seems that everyone prefers it to the DACMagic.
 
What about selling the xonar dx and getting a Xonar essence? Highly regarded on headfi and avforums, beating the 7520 in terms of sound quality... Unless of course you need portability

Other options are a Valab DAC from ebay
 
thanks for the suggestions, still unsure what to do, better sound quality is obviously tempting with the xonar, but I was kind of liking the idea of an external DAC to go with my amp, and as you say portability may prove useful. How does the xonar compare with the Caiman or other DAC's, does anyone have any experience of this? I have a laptop that is collecting dust and am thinking of this setup at the moment:

laptop->external usb sound card with s/pdif->DAC->amp

I like this idea as it is independant of my PC (and thus portable), but requires an extra piece of hardware (the external sound card), though I would possibly need only a cheap one that has s/pdif (i.e. no surround DTS etc required).

Another thing I am wondering about is using ASIO with windows media player which i am currently using for FLAC. From what I have read foobar seems the audiophiles player of choice, but I confess I like the simplicity and gloss of WMP12 (don't shoot me!), though I'm having problems with certain album artwork disappearing (patience is running very thin). I've not found a popular plug in for WMP12 yet for ASIO, only a few works in progress that are reported as buggy at best (please point me in the right direction if you know of a good one).

So I'm thinking this maybe what I am looking for overall:

Laptop->foobar with ASIO and glossy album art plug ins->external usb s/pdif SC->DAC->amp

any thoughts much appreciated.
 
Does the Essence really beat the Beresford for sound quality? It seems odd that it would. I too have been looking at the Beresford, to convert signal and drive my HD650's
 
thanks for the suggestion Y'ha, do you have experience with the xonar essence, if so how does it compare to the Caiman? Am I correct in assuming that the Caiman will plug directly into my laptop via USB so that I will not need an external sound card for my laptop (so instead of laptop->usb sound card->dac I will have laptop->usb to Caiman).
 
Go for a Caiman if you can get hold of one, superb piece of kit. It has completely transformed my setup, I still cannot believe how much of a difference it makes!
 
will consider the Caiman, very tempted, after investigating further I see it is a non-mass produced product which appeals to me, but possibly with a wait on availability, will have to contact the company for further details and have a think on it, thanks for every ones help and input.
 
I actually ordered the Caiman today, and got an emial of Stan Beresford thanking me for my purchace and that he would dispatch it tomorrow. So i should have it by wed :D
 
You should also consider the Music Fidelity VDac it can be USB conected or both digital ways. I have it in my system only thing I use onboard for is mic . It's one of the best purchases I have made I am amazed at the sound that comes from it. Check out Headfi for more. I run hd650 senn's off it :-)
 
Unless you have £1k to spend you'll find it very hard to beat the Caiman, especially once you start opamp rolling - just a great value for money product.
 
thanks for the help, ordered myself a Caiman, gonna try it with optical from my onboard sound card (apparently this is advantageous as coax may suffer from interference from my PC) and then compare it to USB on my laptop, would be nice to have my laptop as a kind of music server (I've just set up a simple windows workgroup in my house), can use it in a low power state, will save me forking out for some kind of network storage for now, will let you know how I get on with the Caiman :)
 
what is your budget? Quite a nice one is for sale on ebay right now for £250, it uses parallel DAC's so no op-amp is needed which makes it high-end (supposedly ;) ).
 
marscay said:
Unless you have £1k to spend you'll find it very hard to beat the Caiman, especially once you start opamp rolling - just a great value for money product.
Click to expand...

I've got to ask, is comment that based upon experience or hype from elsewhere on the net?

I've never heard a Caiman, but owned a 7510 and whilst it was fine for the money, my old Bel Canto DAC2 (now worth around £400) happily killed it. For that matter, so would either of the AV processors I've owned. £1k is a lot of money and could buy some serious kit, so be careful about your comments.
 
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