Great What HiFi review of my fave budget DAC - Beresford

Thanks Chris,

I've actually got the latest Mark 6/3 with the Uber-power supply thingammie wotsit, and I was blown away enough to say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH and felt that the quality was very good, i.e. "good enough". I didn't feel the need to spend a lot more money on my Source for not a huge improvement. I actually had the chance to compare a Benchmark Dac 1 and to be honest, didn't think it was any better than the Beresford in real terms, which confirmed my wallet staying put.

In a moment of madness I DID toy with the idea of buying new speakers, but a few words of wisdom about speaker positioning and room treatment from 'Wam members (and some hours of a wet Sunday afternoon) put paid to that. My speeks sound fantastic, everything I thought was missing is now there in spades...but I digress...

If Stan brought out a mark 7/8 or whatever.....good luck to him with that. I'm happy to buy new music for my new Squeezebox ...just need to find a step by step "idiots guide to networking" to get the damn thing up and running!


Cheers.
G


Yeah how you doing Icey-boy, long time no type!

 

Fine ta Gaz, very happy with my current set up, and cant see any swops for a while!

 

No swaps for a while??
Aye right!

You ever thinking about going down the squeezebox route?

I'm wrestling with the networking side of it just now, but I see it as the next (probably last for me) step in my road to hifi happiness.

Its a natural progression I guess, the convenience of CD over vinyl has given way to convenience of Music Server over CD.

For me, this would only be the case if the sound quality was AT LEAST as good as CD...thing is, its potentally better.

Not to mention a different (and better) way to listen to my music collection.


Food for thought...?

 

Hadnt taken too much notice about them Gaz....tell me more!!

 

Hang on...I thought you'd said "no more upgrades"?.....

Struggling with wireless networking side of it last night, turns out the wireless reception in my pad is really really shit. So I need to get the drill and trunking out and lay some cat5 ethernet cable between teh livingroom and the office where my computer lives.

Pain in the ass to be honest, but its gotta be done.

Been checking on forums actually, other folks wireless Squeezebox's can cover TWICE the distance through more walls than mine.
Think I need to play about with the router settings, find out whats happening.

The next thing I'd do if I were you would be to go squeezebox. YOu have the sound quality nailed down....how cool would it be to be able to access ALL your music instantly?
My next buy (and my last...as I keep telling "her indoors" ) is an Ipod Touch, which you can use as a touchscreen remote control, complete with Album Art, and as its a web browser too, can access Wikipedia whatever, for those listening sessions when you think to yourself.."Wonder what ever happened to that Band?"
Stuff like that....

It does Internet Radio as well, literally 1000's of stations from all around the world.
If you have a PC/laptop already, £150 for a squeezebox can get you all this.

ALSO...
There is the technical argument that streamed music to a DAC (as opposed to a CD Transport) has much less jitter, noise, and teh data arrives PERFECT to the DAC because of error checking protocols in computer data transfer.

More food for thought?

 

I see in the latest HiFi Choice that the Beresford DAC has been awarded a Best Buy.

Personally, I have no argument with that. :MILD:

 

You British are full of Weird Jewels .. never heard here about this Beresford

 

I got the 6/4 a while back and the difference over the 6/3 was noticeable. I found the 6/3 good enough cause me to shift on my Copland CDA-823 CDP. I had the 6/3 about a year and still use it in my phones system upstairs
The 6/4 has a more dynamic and spacious sound. Suits me / my system.
Well done Stanley!

must get around to upgrading the 6/3 really...

 

I took my 6/3 to Stan for the mod and have to say what a perfect gentleman he is. I also met his lovely wife.
Today I collected the dac and will be putting it through its paces shortly.

A gentleman to deal with.