Beresford Bushmaster DAC Reviews

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Originally Posted by MartinT

For those who missed Stan's link, I bought one of these 12V rechargeable batteries and charged it up fully before powering the Bushmaster from it.

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NDAwWDQwMA...Jrg~~60_12.JPG

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ws/eBayISA...E:L:OU:GB:1123

Listening to it tonight in place of the provided 12V Unifive SMPS, I am impressed. The whole sound has taken on more solidity, especially in the bass, and there is even less harshness with a sweet, extended treble. In fact, the treble quality with hi-res streams from the Logitech Touch is delicate, airy and resolved in a way that CD cannot manage. Brushed cymbal work is superb. The noise floor seems a little lower, bringing the music up from blackness in a very satisfying way.

Once again, as if it need be drummed into us, a linear PSU works wonders to lower the noise floor, enrichen the soundstage and reduce hash and lack of resolution compared with a switched mode PSU.

A second benefit is that the BM + battery becomes an excellent portable DAC/Headphone amp for use in the field or on travels. I dare say you could charge it from a car socket given the correct adapter. An absolute bargain.

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Well feck it, just when I solemnly promised my wife that Bushmaster will be the absolute last hi fi component I'll ever purchase!

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this battery improves the sound.

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Originally Posted by Hamish

[…] The pc has an optical out that last time I tried it fed horrible clicking and hissing noises into the dac whenever I moved around the room […]

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Hamish, I'm having similar ''signal loss'' problems while playing 96khz content, standard 44.1 khz and 48 khz files are working fine though. I tried two different cables while the more expensive one (better built quality) creates less clicks and pops. Temporarely I had a clean signal @ 96khz but the fireckracker sounds are coming back irregularly.

I ordered three different cables now to determine wether it is the fault of the cable or the 3,5mm optical output + adapter.

I will discuss this topic more in depth in my upcoming BM-Review!

:doh: My English must sound horrible to you guys :whistle:

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Originally Posted by J-PG

Hamish, I'm having similar ''signal loss'' problems while playing 96khz content, standard 44.1 khz and 48 khz files are working fine though. I tried two different cables while the more expensive one (better built quality) creates less clicks and pops. Temporarely I had a clean signal @ 96khz but the fireckracker sounds are coming back irregularly.

I ordered three different cables now to determine wether it is the fault of the cable or the 3,5mm optical output + adapter.

I will discuss this topic more in depth in my upcoming BM-Review!

:doh: My English must sound horrible to you guys :whistle:

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Is this from your PC?

This sounds familiar thinking back to the days of setting up a PC soundcard for use with Digital Audio Workstation software (making and recording your own music). Sometimes solved with new drivers for the soundcard, sometimes solved using different latency settings within the software drivers, sometimes only solved when tinkering with background processes in the operating system.

Could also be a clock-locking problem too - perhaps your soundcard not giving a good 96KHz signal.

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Originally Posted by magiccarpetride

Things keep getting better with the Bushmaster, now that it continues burning in (I'm leaving it on a constant uninterrupted 27/4 burn-in diet).

Hey, I've just discovered a brand new Bushmaster's talent. This is something I've never heard from ANY DAC, but this baby seems to offer it in troves (after the mandatory initial burn-in, that is). It's gonna be very hard for me to describe this new peculiar talent in words, so the impatient should stop reading right about now:

Let me start with a riddle. You know those pesky little sentences many of us keep getting in an email, as a lighthearted joke? Something like this:

H0W 0UR M1ND C4N
D0 4M4Z1NG 7H1NG5
1MPR3551V3 7H1NG5
1N 7H3 B3G1NN1NG
17 WA5 H4RD BU7
N0W Y0UR M1ND 15
R34D1NG 4U70M471C4LLY

For the purposes of my illustration, let's say that regular DACs are converting digital to analog by rendering sentences in the above fashion. Now, what I found about the Bushmaster is that, unlike any DAC I've ever heard, it actually renders the above material like this:

HOW OUR MIND CAN
DO AMAZING THINGS
IMPRESSIVE THINGS
IN THE BEGINNING
IT WAS HARD BUT
NOW YOUR MIND IS
READING AUTOMATICALLY

Looks like a minor difference? Not really. The difference is actually enormous. You see, even though the brain can be trained to read the original gobbledegook, it tires easily, because it's constantly straining to replace the numbers interspersed in the text with the appropriate letters. What the Bushmaster does is it spells out, in full (in clear text), the content it is converting from the bit-perfect digital signal.

This feat produces such clarity, such enjoyable listening experience, that it can indeed rightly be compared to a good analog reproduction. It is, to my mind, a major breakthrough, because what I've discovered is that now I can literally listen for hours on end, and continue enjoying music, while not getting tired or fatigued even one bit.

I don't know what exactly is going on inside this DAC, but I call it 'continuity'. When I compare it with other DACs I've listened to, I'm startled to hear the lack of this 'continuity' in other DACs, which causes tiredness and irritability to the listener. Basically, all other digital reproduction that I've listened to seems to expect the listener to 'fill in the blanks' (in a similar fashion to how we were expected to 'fill in the blanks' with the above letters-and-numbers sentences). It is this 'continuity' that seems to be a special talent of the Bushmaster, because it does not expect us, the listeners, to fill in any blanks. Because of that, it is now incredibly easy to follow any instrument, or any chosen cluster of instruments/voices, from the beginning to the very bitter end, without losing track for even a split second. Musical performance now feels completely coherent, as there are no hiccups or little burps on the journey. In short, the music flows joyously!

That, to me, is a major accomplishment. I'm pretty sure there must be other high end DACs that can compete with regards to this ability to offer uninterrupted 'continuity' and the joyous flow of music, only I haven't ever been able to hear such rare beasts. Did anyone ever hear DACs that can pull this stunt? Did what I wrote here even make any sense to anyone?

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This sounds like something I've thought about before, why some things you want to turn up, some you want to turn down the volume, sometimes you want to turn off the music..

Your brain is so relaxed and at ease with the sounds coming to your ears that your brain can kind of switch off and not be on the alert to certain I-can't-quite-put-my-finger-on-it unnatural sounds that keep tweeking its attention.

Happens often between digital and vinyl - some digital can get annoying after a while whereas you can listen to vinyl all day and you always want to crank up the volume rather than often tweeking it down.

I guess it is real detail, resolution coming through.

I always imagine it comes of real low noise conditions.

I really need to get myself a BM! Have some other holes for money to go in before I start to have spending money unfortunately but hopefully with some sales of unused gear I'll fill those financial pot-holes up soon and begin to enjoy a smooth ride.

Hi Nat,

My setup:

Macbook Pro early 2008 with 6Gb of RAM, Mac OSX Lion 10.7.4

Software: iTunes, Amarra, Fidelia

I can reproduce the problem by changing the sample rates manually in the os audio/midi setup. The built in 3.5mm optical out is limited to 96khz so it should work properly.

I turned off every third party process, Spotlight and the OS sounds but without any change. Only the better built tos-cable changed a bit. I found mac users with similar problems, some saying that it is the fault of the built in output and others are saying that a better adapter (tos with built in 3.5mm jack) should be used. Oo

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Originally Posted by J-PG

Hamish, I'm having similar ''signal loss'' problems while playing 96khz content, standard 44.1 khz and 48 khz files are working fine though. I tried two different cables while the more expensive one (better built quality) creates less clicks and pops. Temporarely I had a clean signal @ 96khz but the fireckracker sounds are coming back irregularly.

I ordered three different cables now to determine wether it is the fault of the cable or the 3,5mm optical output + adapter.

I will discuss this topic more in depth in my upcoming BM-Review!

:doh: My English must sound horrible to you guys :whistle:

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This isn't a recent issue as such for me ... And it was seemingly (from memory) a connection problem as it only happened when I moved (I think - it was about 18 months ago that I last tried the optical out on the pc)

Guys I would like to point out that any drop out between source and DAC won't be masked by the Bushmaster. It does not use a mute circuit to hide drop outs and blips in the music, which is different to many other DACs.

Yeah, that's definitely not what I was suggesting ... I was after a cable to see if it did happen with the bushmaster as it used to happen with my majik ds ...
But even then I knew it was at the pc end

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Originally Posted by Hamish

Yeah, that's definitely not what I was suggesting ...

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I was not saying that you did Hamish. I was making a general point since I have had a few emails from various people asking about it.

I wasn't saying that you were saying that I did Stan, just backing up your comment ;)