Beresford Bushmaster DAC

[seoirse2002]

Sorry,New here,so Im on a steep learning curve.Is it possible to have the bushmaster without a headphone input/board when its released?I would prefer maybe better other components instead.What do you think Stan?

[StanleyB]

Sure George. But a personalized DAC like that would cost you between £500 to £1000. We would design and build a different PCB and front panel for you and solder each individual component by hand. The bulk of the extra cost will be purely labour.
PM me a list of the components that you would like to be better and I'll PM you a more accurate cost. I'll need a non-refundable deposit as well .

[seoirse2002]

Ouch.....my middle name is obviously naive...never thought of all that.
I think Ill just wait for the bushmaster..
thanks for the reply though.

[chrism]

Ouch.....my middle name is obviously naive...never thought of all that.
I think Ill just wait for the bushmaster..
thanks for the reply though.

Don't let it worry you George, you will soon get used to the "Customer" not always being right!

Regards

Chris

[StanleyB]

I have had a lot of email correspondence on this whole headphone output thing. Part of the problem is tied to a different thread where a couple of people imply that DACs with inbuilt headphone circuits are inferior in some ways. Some readers of AoS put two and two together and concluded that a DAC without a headphone output is superior. It just goes to show how personal opinions can be seen as established technical facts.
Another point raised on those emails to me is whether the Bushmaster will be sold without a headphone output. The answer to that is NO. I shall be designing a DAC without headphone output however, but it will cost more than the Bushmaster since many of the parts are high end and expensive.

[Val33]

I shall be designing a DAC without headphone output however, but it will cost more than the Bushmaster since many of the parts are high end and expensive.

This sounds very interesting, more information needed

Val

[MartinT]

I shall be designing a DAC without headphone output however, but it will cost more than the Bushmaster since many of the parts are high end and expensive.

Now that is of interest, although my souped up Caiman sounds so good there is no hurry

[Werner Berghofer]

Stanley,

Part of the problem is tied to a different thread where a couple of people imply that DACs with inbuilt headphone circuits are inferior in some ways.

guess I’m part of the “couple of people” you mention, so I would like to put some facts straight here. I always wrote explicitly that I’m not a hardware engineer, and I never claimed to describe facts about the quality of components used in DACs and headphone amplifiers.

I expressed that according to my own personal listening experience the stand-alone DAC plus the stand-alone headphone amplifier I use now sound a lot better and pleasing than your DAC/headphone combinations known as (gatorized) Caiman and TC-7520. The headphones used for my A/B tests were the AKG K271, AKG K701, Beyerdynamic DT 990 and Beyerdynamic T1 (both models with an impedance of 600 Ω).

I encourage anyone who considers using high-end, high impedance headphones with any of your DAC/headphone combinations to compare its performance to the playback quality of an audio chain with a stand-alone, bare bones DAC and a stand-alone headphone amplifier and to develop an own opinion afterwards.

Nothing more I stated, but also nothing less.

Werner.

[Reid Malenfant]

Part of the problem is tied to a different thread where a couple of people imply that DACs with inbuilt headphone circuits are inferior in some ways. Some readers of AoS put two and two together and concluded that a DAC without a headphone output is superior.

Stanley,

guess I’m part of the “couple of people” you mention, so I would like to put some facts straight here. I always wrote explicitly that I’m not a hardware engineer, and I never claimed to describe facts about the quality of components used in DACs and headphone amplifiers.

Yes I think I might be a guilty party to

If you read what I posted though you'll see that at no point did I say that a DAC will be inferior with a built in headphone amp, though obviously it could be, it depends on the quality of build & components etc.

What I did say is that the headphone amplifiers built into DACs are generally a compromise A DIL IC is not going to be happy to drive low impedance headphones, where as it may drive higher impedances fairly easily. However if the voltage supply is low then it may well not even do that very well.

Hense unless some purpose built headphone amp that doesn't involve the use of a DIL IC (or maybe just as a driver) is built then the headphone output will be a compromise & an external headphone amp would be a wholly better proposition

If people can't read properly it is hardly my fault...

As a perfect example of a no-compromise headphone amp take a look at this PDF file Low impedance, high impedance it just wouldn't matter... It'll sound the same & drive them all to full level

[Welder]

Definitely guilty along with Mark and Werner
It’s not so much a question of the Dac being inferior because of it having a headphone output, it’s that its likely that the headphone output is likely to be inferior to a stand alone dedicated headphone amp.

Cant see why anyone should have a problem with this.