Berkeley Reference 3 DAC

[kswanson27]

Monday I'll be picking up a Berkeley Ref 3 to home demo for a bit. I'll be doing some A/B comparisons to my Berkeley Alpha DAC 2/MQA and will report back by the end of next week.

 

[kswanson27]

For some reason my equipment list doesn't show the Pass Labs XP-30 which I recently added.

 

[tdimler]

Anxious to hear the report.

 

[kswanson27]

Work got in the way of listening more than I planned this week but this weekend I"ll get caught up. I should have a full report by the end of the day tomorrow. In the meantime, as you might expect, I can say the Ref 3 is better than my Alpha DAC by a fair bit. Whether it's $20k better is an open question at this point.

 

[kswanson27]

Mods: When I update my equipment list in Account details the changes don't transfer to my posts. They do show up in account details though. What am I doing wrong?

 

[kswanson27]

Last winter I compared a Berkeley Reference 1 to My Alpha DAC 2/MQA and couldn't hear a difference. I have not heard the Reference 2 but waited until the Reference 3 came out, thinking there should be an audible difference between that and my Alpha DAC. There is but to use an overused term it's incremental which I guess it should be at this level.
Using 53.0 as a gain setting on both DACs I initially listerned to the REF 3 and then started AB'ing between the two. I then settled on the REF 3 listening on and off for the last few days. This afternoon I listened a bit more to the REF 3 then switched back to the Alpha DAC for a few tracks. The differences were apparent but not what I would call significant. The REF 3 has more authority in the lower piano registers and bass notes, a bit more clarity and a sweetness to it without losing any detail. The REF 3 is a little more dynamic too. Soundstaging was equal between the two.
If all this sounds like Robert Harley's TAS review I guess that means we heard the same things. I'll talk to my dealer tomorrow and hopefully we can work something out because I'd definitely like to make the change but, truth be told, I could live with either DAC.