Hello from NY!

[Codifus]

Hello everyone.

I'm a budding audiophile who's recently been trying to make the best of his computer based hifi system. I was looking for an economically priced DAC to replace my other economically priced DAC, an EMU-0404USB. That 0404 is great, and sounds wonderful, but I felt the need to get a DAC hifi component, not a portable recording/mixing console that happens to have a great DAC inside it:) Great sound with quirky functionality.

I googled and came across several mentions of the Beresford DAC, the 7510 being mentioned in several audio forums at the time (December 2008). I decided to try one and got the new 7520. Mine was purchased in March 2009 and had the originally not-so-perfect PSU. I found the sound a bit lacking, light in the bass mostly.
I e-mailed Mr. Beresford and he recommended that I wait for the new PSU. He also pointed me to this wonderful site.

Fast forward to now where I've had the new PSU for about a week and find that the 7520 sounds especially good now!

The modding potential has me excited as well. I'm going to go with the LM4562NA upgrade chip on the LINE out terminals only. I'm not much of a headphone listener. It's all 2 channel stereo speakers for me!


A little about myself: I'm a sysadmin with basic understanding of electrical tihings. I've soldered speaker terminals and that's it! Me, a soldering iron and a PCB? Not a good combination.

My system is a PowerMac G4 running iTunes 7 on OS X Tiger 10.4.11. The G4 feeds an Airport Express over wired ethernet, which then optically feeds the TC-7520. The 7520 finally feeds its analog fixed line output to my Yamaha AX-596 integrated amp which powers a pair of Cambridge Soundworks Tower IIs.

My musical tastes are anything so long as it is good, and I guess my basic musical foundation is contemporary jazz.

That's all for now. I look forward to interacting with you all.

Thanks

[DaveK]

Hi Codifus,:)
Welcome to AoS from the east side of the 'pond'. Loads of others will be along shortly with minor variations on the same theme. I and several others on here are also into PC based music through a StanDac 7520 so there'll be lots of advice and experience available, should you need to tap into it.
The next request you will get is to post some pics of your set up/equipment.
Nice to hear from you.

[Codifus]

Thank you Dave! I will post PICs when I get a chance.

Thanks

[Spectral Morn]

Welcome to the ART OF SOUND...Codifus

Could you add your first name to your signature. Here on AOS we are all (most) on first name terms. It just helps to make this the warm friendly place it is.

Enjoy and get stuck in.


Regards D S D L

[Beechwoods]

Fantastic to meet you Codifus! An old-school Mac user (I have a Mac house, and am currently typing this on a 1st Gen PowerMac G5 which is positively new compared with your G4 :)) We'll both be left in the cold when Snow Leopard comes out unfortunately :(

It's good to hear that Stan is still recommending the best forum on the interweb! And it's great to have some US members joining too - your perspective is always interesting compared with that of us folk from the old country.

Looking forward to reading your contributions - get stuck in!

[Codifus]

Welcome to the ART OF SOUND...Codifus

Could you add your first name to your signature. Here on AOS we are all (most) on first name terms. It just helps to make this the warm friendly place it is.

Enjoy and get stuck in.


Regards D S D L

Hello Neil,

how's this for an extremely sophisticated sig?:)

[Spectral Morn]

Hello Neil,

how's this for an extremely sophisticated sig?:)

Hi David


:lol::lol::lol:


Regards D S D L

[Codifus]

Fantastic to meet you Codifus! An old-school Mac user (I have a Mac house, and am currently typing this on a 1st Gen PowerMac G5 which is positively new compared with your G4 :)) We'll both be left in the cold when Snow Leopard comes out unfortunately :(

It's good to hear that Stan is still recommending the best forum on the interweb! And it's great to have some US members joining too - your perspective is always interesting compared with that of us folk from the old country.

Looking forward to reading your contributions - get stuck in!

Hello Nick! Thanks for the welcome. It's nice to find another Mac user online. We may be left behind with snow leopard, but honestly, how badly do we need an upgrade? I believe that today's OSes and software have a very very long functional life. For example there's iTunes 8 which I am not really tempted to upgrade to. I was the happy camper with iTunes 6 on a G3 until Apple itunes store started selling 256 k AACs. Then I had to upgrade to itunes 7 and it insisted on at least a G4 with 500 Mhz. I obtained a G4 733 (with a level 1 AND level 2 cache, don't I feel powerful, LOL!) and have been with it ever since.

My other Mac which I use for daily work, and am typing on now, is a dual G4 1.25 Ghz. Not quite totally modern but good enough.


I see your a cassette person. So was I. It was my favorite analog medium. Reel to Reel was completely fantastic but also fantastically inconvenient . I miss those days, TDK MA-X or SA-X on my 3 head dual capstan JVC deck. Never used any NR as it always killed the life in the music somehow. As if all the musicians were homogenized:) For me it was all that hiss, and that was fine so long as the music was still there. I couldn't afford a Nakamichi but dreamed of them often.

Take care

[Steve Toy]

When I heard the 7520 in the AOS system at the Scalford Hall Show I thought then that a decent linear PSU would work wonders and really make it compete with the CD player/transport of mine - the very American Bel Canto CD2 powered by my AOS/Tube Distinctions linear PSU as supplied by Anthony of this forum, which with a different plug on the end could have powered the Beresford 7520.

If you want propulsive, articulate bass at your front end a decent power supply that isn't a nasty, noisy switch-mode job is the way to go.

[Beechwoods]

I see your a cassette person. So was I. It was my favorite analog medium. Reel to Reel was completely fantastic but also fantastically inconvenient . I miss those days, TDK MA-X or SA-X on my 3 head dual capstan JVC deck. Never used any NR as it always killed the life in the music somehow. As if all the musicians were homogenized:) For me it was all that hiss, and that was fine so long as the music was still there. I couldn't afford a Nakamichi but dreamed of them often.

It's a shame those days have passed for you, and I couldn't agree more re. NR - 'done badly' it's a killer. And it's very difficult to get done well. There's a thread a couple of us have been posting to with some examples of our transfers - you should check it out, it might bring the happy memories back. and you don't need a Nak to get good results. Alex proved that in his contributions to that thread :)

http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=2737

[Codifus]

When I heard the 7520 in the AOS system at the Scalford Hall Show I thought then that a decent linear PSU would work wonders and really make it compete with the CD player/transport of mine - the very American Bel Canto CD2 powered by my AOS/Tube Distinctions linear PSU as supplied by Anthony of this forum, which with a different plug on the end could have powered the Beresford 7520.

If you want propulsive, articulate bass at your front end a decent power supply that isn't a nasty, noisy switch-mode job is the way to go.

Hi Steve,

I did the linear PSU upgrade on my other thrifty DAC, the EMU-0404USB. I definitely noticed an improvement as well.

Regarding the 7520, though, There's a thread with Stanley Beresford suggesting that a linear PSU, or even a battery, won't help the 7520 much due to his new "virtual battery" circuit within the 7520.

Here it is;

http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=2477&page=1


The "Exclusive for Beresford.me" power supply is quite decent.....and this is with the original NE552 opamps. I can't wait to drop an LM4562NA in there:)

Thanks