Beresford Bushmaster DAC Reviews

[wee tee cee]

Werner,
HD650S,superlux 330,440,660 and 668b. They are all getting driven hard at just over the first quarter of the dial.....sorry dont know the impedance ratings.
Tony.

[edmondwolfman]

Hey guys, newbie here...at least to this forum. I've been looking at replacing my current DAC and came across this brand in different forums. I currently have a CA DACMagic and while I've liked it I've always felt maybe something else would sound better. My budget for now is $1000 or under. I've been looking at PS Audio DAC III, Schiit Bifrost, MF DAC1, Rega DAC, Monarchy (may be too old technology), Peachtree, and on and on.

Can anyone here compare the Bushmaster to the DACMagic? I'm not hung up on cost, if a DAC sounds great and it costs $250 it wouldn't bother me to purchase and use it. I don't have to be able to tell someone "I spent $2500 for my DAC"!

Also if any of you live in the US did you have extra duty and taxes or was the price on the website accurate (I understand their is an rate exchange).

Any feedback welcome.

[wee tee cee]

Bobby,
I have a dac magic in my other system....Its very good. The Bushmaster is in a different league entirely. As a dac it has surpassed my mf m1 ....as a head amp it betters the mf m1/hpa combo at an eighth of the price. It is a bit special regardless of cost.
Regards Tony.

[edmondwolfman]

Bobby,
I have a dac magic in my other system....Its very good. The Bushmaster is in a different league entirely. As a dac it has surpassed my mf m1 ....as a head amp it betters the mf m1/hpa combo at an eighth of the price. It is a bit special regardless of cost.
Regards Tony.

Tony, can you compare their sound to one another? My music seems a little bright sometimes and while not harsh I would like to get rid of the brightness.

[StanleyB]

Werner,
HD650S,superlux 330,440,660 and 668b. They are all getting driven hard at just over the first quarter of the dial.....

I think that I should somehow build in an impedance selector, which will adjust the headphone gain accordingly. A 32 Ohms headphone needs less of a turn on a volume knob compared to a 300 Ohms headphone before they both produce the same output level in dB. But this in turn means that if you only need a quarter turn on the volume knob to be satisfied with the output level at full turn you'll probably go deaf if you maintained that level for too long.
I do listen to my HD800 at full blast on occasions, but I don't think that is good for my hearing... The air pressure levels produced by bass heavy tracks is truly head shaking. I know that many HD800 owners have reported that the HD800 is bass light, but not when used with the Bushmaster .

[StanleyB]

My music seems a little bright sometimes and while not harsh I would like to get rid of the brightness.

Brightness? Surely there must be something wrong there. Don't you get any bass out of your system when you play your music?

[edmondwolfman]

Brightness? Surely there must be something wrong there. Don't you get any bass out of your system when you play your music?

I do get bass, it's just that sometimes with female singers or upper register notes it seems a little bright to me. I've read in a few places that the DACMagic can be a little bright and was thinking maybe changeing DACs might help.

I use a Logitch Touch and stream flacs (and sometimes mp3s) from my Synology. A lot of my music is high res.

When I play albums that don't go through the DAC I don't seem to get that "brightness". Maybe it's not bright, maybe its a little hard on top...I'm not very good with describing what I hear

I was using Axiom M60v2 speakers with Titanium tweeters and I changed to Dana 640i's and that helped a lot but there is still just a bit of brightness on some music.

[StanleyB]

I do get bass, it's just that sometimes with female singers or upper register notes it seems a little bright to me. I've read in a few places that the DACMagic can be a little bright and was thinking maybe changeing DACs might help.

The Bushmaster was designed to deal with those kind of issues. It is not about changing DAC. It is about applying a known solution. Otherwise you could be changing DACs just about every month till you find a solution.

[magiccarpetride]

The Bushmaster was designed to deal with those kind of issues. It is not about changing DAC. It is about applying a known solution. Otherwise you could be changing DACs just about every month till you find a solution.

I was testing the Bushmaster tomorrow (correction: I will be testing it yesterday).

What I'm trying to say is that the postman attempted to deliver the Bushmaster today, he was at my front door at 11:10 am, but we weren't answering. This is what I just found out by checking the Canada Post site; time to go huntin' for the darn reptilian!

[brian2957]

Same here . My teenage daughter was sleeping when the postman rang the bell at 12.30 PM today to deliver the Bushmaster. Excellent service from Stan as ever BTW. He did leave a calling card . So instead of getting the Bushmaster up and running it is lying locked up in the local sorting office
I will be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning banging on their door
Brian.