Beresford Bushmaster DAC

I've got my bushmaster now but I can't easily do a comparison with my naim cd5i because I only have one set of analog phonos, chord crysalis. Is there an analog stereo phono you guys recommend?

We can recommend loads, but don't buy from a dealer, since they often add 250% at least to their buying price from makers who have a substantial range of cables to sell. Good basic interconnects can be got online from £20 or so (even cheaper of you know what to look out for), but now the Mark Grant HD1000 is around £50 and others here are doing similar priced wires, have a look here and see what floats your boat.

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Originally Posted by jandl100

Ah - that's interesting!

Over the last week or so I've been using a TVC passive pre with the Bushmaster, where previously I had used only active pre's, and the treble is just a tad rolled off and smooth. So I slipped in a slightly 'hot' interconnect and all is well with the world. :)

... mind you, some reviews of the TVC pre (a Bent Audio NOH) say that it's a bit on the smooth side, so it may not be down to interaction with the BM at all, just a characteristic of the pre.

Dynamics remain full-bloodied and pretty damn awesome from the BM!

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I'm not so familiar with the specs of TVC's but from the bits I've read I think they might have better input and output impedances compared against the more usual types of passive attenuators. So a TVC might be a better match with the BM than say a stepped ladder attenuator.

Out of interest, what was the "hot" interconnect you used?

In theory a cable with very low capacitance should help in this situation.

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Originally Posted by HighFidelityGuy

Out of interest, what was the "hot" interconnect you used?

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Ha ha - oops! - here goes my "audiophile credibility" -- again! :lol:

:whistle: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...m=180935954190

Stupidly low price, but very very transparent. But a little forward in the upper regions - which suits my TVC passive pre perfectly. :thumbsup:

Thanks Jerry. Belkin make some good cables from what I hear. I bought some of those silver ones that everyone went mad for a while ago. Unfortunately I put them away in a safe place for later use and now I've lost them. :doh: Hopefully I'll find them soon.

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Originally Posted by HighFidelityGuy

Thanks Jerry. Belkin make some good cables from what I hear. I bought some of those silver ones that everyone went mad for a while ago. Unfortunately I put them away in a safe place for later use and now I've lost them. :doh: Hopefully I'll find them soon.

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That sounds familiar... :lol:

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Originally Posted by synsei

That sounds familiar... :lol:

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What - you did that with your marbles? ;)

I lost those years ago Alex when I mis-laid my other head... :ner:

I was listening to my BM last night and found it a bit fatiguing, at least that's what I think it was. I have metal tweaters and I've removed the grills. I do find that vocals are very prominent with the dac compared to my old naim cdp. It could just be that I'm not used to music being as revealing as this. I've got my old squeezebox playing some flacs rather than my pc now though so may be a different spdif source will help the situation. For the moment it sounds to me like the treble is the cause of my issues..

The Bushmaster has a set of very low noise power rails and a passive output stage. These two combine to allow playback of frequency details that would otherwise get lost in the signal to noise ratio of a DAC or CD/DVD player.
Try some poor quality phono cables. Many of them introduce a significant amount of attenuation of the treble, which would in turn reduce the amount of detail in the music and perhaps bring the BM more in line with the frequency response of your Naim CD player.