Trends Audio UD10 /Beresford 7520

[jtay]

I was wondering if anyone give me an idea of the comparative sounds of the Trends Audio UD10 as compared with the Beresford TC7520? Actual experence would be ideal.

My idea is to use it with a pc/media player front end. I'm going to be experimenting to try to get the best sound, and may put together a media pc or possibly try a media player as front end. I like the idea of using USB to get a clean digital out of the pc/player - especially if I can use something like cplay to playback audio from RAM, rather than hard disk. If I don't go that route, the media player that's piqued my interest is the Digitech HDX1000, if anyone has personal experience of how that works with audio.

At present, my pc based setup is a bog standard Windows 2k pc; usb out to usb/spdif converter, to Beresford TC7510, to Trends Audio TA10, to monitor audio R90s. Sounds lovely (fan noise aside) and I know from its use in other setups that I like the sound of the 7510, and have compared it with a number of other DACs/players.

So, I want an affordable DAC, ideally with USB connectivity to avoid a separate converter. I've been catching up on this forum with some of the things said about the new Beresford dac and this has confused me more than anything. I had assumed the 7520 would sound like my 7510 with the benefit of USB input. It now seems that the sound may be significantly different - Stan and others call it a big improvement, but I know from experience, that one man's improvement, can be another's loss.

The new Beresford is also more expensive than I'd realised - that 'excluding VAT' always catches me out. So, I'm stumbling a bit. My preference for the Beresford over the TA UD10 was on the assumption I knew and liked the Beresford sound. Now that I am no longer sure of that, it's more even playing field, with the UD10 looking like better value plus offering the possibility of a pass through digital signal, should I want to use any other DAC.

Can anyone give guidance? I'd love to know if anyone has heard the UD10 and can spell out how it stacks up against the TC7510 and TC7520. I've read the reviews which are very positive. Tall order I know, but thought I'd ask. My budget for the DAC is around the £100 mark and the TC7520 would stretch it to almost twice what I was envisaging.

Thanks

Chris

[StanleyB]

I had assumed the 7520 would sound like my 7510 with the benefit of USB input. It now seems that the sound may be significantly different - Stan and others call it a big improvement, but I know from experience, that one man's improvement, can be another's loss.
Very valid point. Based on that alone I would suggest that you try the Trend Audio. The TC-7520 might be far too big a step upwards in terms of musicality if your main interest is PC based music.

As for the price: The TC-7520 costs the same amount of U$ today as the TC-7510 cost in U$ this time last year. I haven't increased the price. It's the £ that lost value.

Stan

[Spur07]

jtay,

I've got a UD-10 and a beresford 7510 MK4.

I'm not entirely sure from your post what your reasons are for contemplating between the Trends and the 7520, because it appears you already have a pretty good set-up - PC/USB converter/7510. :scratch:

Anyway, as a stand-alone device (i.e, used as a DAC) the UD-10 isn't a patch on the beresford 7510, so therefore it won't be anywhere near as good as the 7520. It's probably the difference between a £200 CD player and a 2K CD player on my system - (Naim amps/Royd speakers). I been using my UD-10 as USB converter to get my music from my Mac to the 7510, which it does very well. Recently, however, I purchased a Toslink cable to go straight from the G5 to the 7510, which enables me to stream 24 bit, although its hard to tell the difference tbh.

I wouldn't worry about the 7520 being that much different in sound to the 7510 - others on here will give you first hand opinions. Some say the beresford tends to shine more in higher end systems, but you're obviously getting plenty from the 7510 in your current set-up. I must say I like the idea of USB as an output - many people prefer it to digital.

Anyway, if you decide to go for the UD-10 i'll be selling mine if your interested. It's about 6 months old, comes with the rechargeable battery pack and original box, USB, papers, etc. Let me know.

[Krisbee]

Surely, £100 is not going to buy you a new UD-10.1 now. Prices jumped from around £99 to £139 early last year. I've not heard a UD-10.1 in my system, but I was always under the impression it was designed primarily as a USB/SPDIF converter, all be it a rather good one.

There is a cheaper UD-10.1 lite model at around £70 see http://www.desktopaudio.co.uk/daconverters.html

I've also read elsewhere that its analogue out is optimised for headphones not for connecting to a hi-fi amp or receiver. That may or may not be true.

S/hand TC-7510's are fetching good prices on Ebay at the moment. So unless you need two DACs, you could sell the TC-7510 and then buy a TC-7520 and yet both USB audio and a decent headphone amp.

[leo]

The U10 is based around the PCM2704 , it provides spdif out and anolgue output, the anlogue out is tapped from the PCM2704 internal dacs output.
Theres no op-amps or separate dac chip although it does use a decent ish external oscillator for the USB.
These things are ok if you want a way of converting USB from the pc to spdif.
Don't expect top quality from the analogue out from any of these pcm270* based chips, their best to be used as USB to SPDIF, some also have I2S output

[jtay]

Great replies and have got to say that not having delved into hifi forums for a while, I'd forgotten how contentious they can end up being, when belief systems are challenged directly or by implication.

I've got 4 audio/hifi setups (5 if kitchen included) at home; one of which is the pc setup mentioned in my earlier post. Elsewhere, I get very nice sound out of more conventional setups. But why are people so down on computer front ends for transport purposes? I'm not sufficiently technically minded to understand electronic debate in other than simple terms, but I've set up my home computer network to share and stream media files and I want to rationalise further ultimately, if quality doesn't IMO suffer, to do away with searching through hundreds of discs when I want to play an album or track (though that pleasure will be reserved for vinyl).

It's because I am prepared to trust what I hear, even when technical analysis or the audiphile status quo may do down a product that I've stuck with a beresford 7510 about two years and happily use a playstation 1 scph 1002 to front a lounge system. The Beresford sounds very good in my opinion and whereas other dacs have come and gone, this one hasn't. But I do want to investigate further computer front ends (pc/windows/linux/media server .....) to see whether I like what this approach can deliver. And I already find that my current pc setup does some 'audiophile' things better than my other traditional setups.

Stan: I don't think that an inclination towards experimenting with computer front ends for music playback necessarily means a compromise in musicality. I appreciate what you say on price and currency change, and I'm not saying you are charging too much, just that the price has gone up more than I'd expected. Your 7510 that I have is terrific IMO and the sort of contribution to the hifi world that people like you make is a welcome break from the mainstream, but I always get nervous/skeptical when a hyped product (even if it lives up to that hype) is regularly replaced or modified by a significantly better version. If the one before was good enough to displace Chord 64s from someone's system, then how much better is the successor? It may be that I would hear the 7520 and find it even better, or maybe not. I've just got to decide whether to take that plunge.

Spur07: thanks for your direct experience of both products. I'm interested to hear that you find such a big difference between the Beresford and the Trends Audio. I have used my Beresford dac with various cd players into sugden a21a amp and musical fidelity x pre xp200 with various speakers, so I've got a good idea what it did in those systems. And it has been my favourite dac among those I've owned and rivals my playstation 1 for its analogue like midrange (and that is high praise IMO :-)).

Like you, I really find the idea of usb output intriguing, getting the digital signal away from the heart of a computer and all that interference. This is why building a media pc (video too for me) or a media player, attacts. I read an article about creating a quiet pc - only those components needed for audio/video; audio is passed to ram and takes issues with disk reading and playback out of equation/jitter as low as can be; either quiet fans or no fans; external power supply and maybe even solid state hard disk. I've read some terrific views of how good a transport can be made for audio purposes which appeals a lot to me. Certainly, once finances are less strained, I shall be exploring that 'road' as part of my interest in hifi.

I am interested in your offer of the UD10. Is there a way to send a message on this forum so I can discuss details about this?

Krisbee: You're right about the TA UD10 prices from desktop audio - I had got it in my head that prices were still around £100. I read the complementary TNT website review on the UD10 (and wasn't there a very good review recently in Hifi World?) which was based on using the UD10 as a dac. But I'm not selling my Beresford - I like it too much for that.

Leo: noted your comments, though as mentioned above, some of the UD10 reviews as a DAC seem pretty glowing whether or not it has a separate dac chip.

Hell's bells, is that the time? Time for bed methinks.

Chris

[Spur07]

Chris

Have you explored this website yet?

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/

It has discussions/articles about how to build PC/Mac servers. There's also another good review of the UD-10 on there somewhere.

"I'm interested to hear that you find such a big difference between the Beresford and the Trends Audio."

It's all relative I suppose, and very dependent on your system. Naim audio users seem to get the best out of the 7510.

I think you can contact me on here via private message. If not let me know and i'll provide an email address.

[StanleyB]

Anyone got a clue how the PCM2704 in the UD10 compares to the PCM2902 in the TC-7520?

[leo]

When used as just USB to SPDIF? the chips are very similar, main differences between all these versions is mainly just features, inbuilt clock generator, THD and noise for the analogue outs vary a little, I2S out etc

I've got one one of those Trends Lite units here , I just use it to provide SPDIF to the external dacs
I'll dig out a picture

[tizer2000uk]

In my opinion you would only want to upgrade to the 7520 if usb connectivity + headphone listening was a priority for you.

[leo]

In my opinion you would only want to upgrade to the 7520 if usb connectivity + headphone listening was a priority for you.


Interesting
The 7520 looks the cheapest solution if your wanting a good USB dac , I'd only use the Trends if you want an easy way of providing SPDIF from USB

[jtay]

Spur 07

Have you explored this website yet?

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/

Very interesting site. I think it was there that I first read about building your own media pc. If I remember correctly, enjoythemusic made reference to cmp and cplay software which led me through to the site link you gave.

PM on its way to you btw

Chris