Beresford Bushmaster DAC Reviews

[webby]

Would a system sound from the mac trigger this command?

[StanleyB]

An audio file frequently includes several information bits, and a CD audio file contains even more of them. Those information bits are designed to activate or deactivate things such as emphasis (pre- and de- ), mute, audio type (DTS PCM, etc.), signal presence, etc. They can also include tagging information such as file name, length etc. A break in the command or an error (which could have been introduced during a file ripping process) will in turn send out an error condition to whatever device is using that data. It is not source specific so I wouldn't point the finger at the MAC. You can take that same tune and play it through a PC running Windows instead in order to find out if it still does the same thing or not.

[webby]

Stan,

Now you understand the context, do you concede that I am not a troll?

Thanks

[StanleyB]

If you got issues direct your complaint to Marco or any of the moderators.

[Gazjam]

Courtesy Stan courtesy.......

Been guilty myself of shooting off at the mouth one time, but I took responsibility for the words that come out of me and contacted the person direct and apologised .
Hindsight is a good thing.

[StanleyB]

I think that Lee is trying to bait me Gaz. I have been paying notice to some of the things he has written in the past. He thinks through his strategy in order to come up smelling of roses afterwards. This is not about courtesy. It is about pointing out that I can see through such things. Others are playing a similar trick as you very well know.

[bigmarty]

Hi Folks, not seen many pics of the Bushmaster on the site yet so here are a few in my system, and I think it sounds as well a looks great

Marty

[Jamtoast]

I am using the audio presence command from the source (be it laptop or CD player etc.) to activate the auto search mode. So if the MAC for whatever reason suddenly fires off that command the Bushmaster will execute a search right away.

Weird that it's intermittent. I've been experimenting with a multiple output driver, the standard system out driver, and with software (Bit Perfect, vanilla iTunes etc), lots of different tracks. Haven't managed to pick a pattern yet but if I work out a consistent combo that causes it I'll be sure to let you know.

A minor glitch. Have mainly just been enjoying the way it sounds. <- me

Would be interesting to see if a delay in the firmware solves it - keep me posted if you update the chip.

[Werner Berghofer]

Graham,

The only small issue I've had is occasionally the DAC not recognising the signal (TOSLINK) from my Mac Mini and going into search mode

as Lee already supposed, this might be caused by system sounds routed to the Mac Mini’s optical out. Visit “System Preferences → Sound → Sound Effects → Play sound effects through”. Try to uncheck the box left to “Play user interface sound effects” and hear if this makes a difference. When playing sound effects via the optical out, Mac OS X disables the optical out as soon as the effect has been played. Probably this triggers the DAC to enter signal search mode.



If your Mac OS X version supports this, you could also route the sound effects to another audio port or device, which currently is not used for music playback.

Another option would be to use BitPerfect, a small, unobtrusive high-quality audio player for Mac OS X. Unlike other audio players, it integrates itself seamlessly with iTunes and might improve the playback quality. As a welcome bonus, it offers a “hog mode” option, suppressing all other audio events except iTunes during playback. This prevents the optical port enabling/disabling cycle of Mac OS X.

BitPerfect is available from the Mac App Store for US$ 9.99, so you won’t risk much money should you want to try it out. It has to be mentioned that currenty BitPerfect does *not* support natively wireless streaming of audio data to a remote Airport Express station (“AirPlay” via iTunes).

Werner.

[DSJR]

Hi Folks, not seen many pics of the Bushmaster on the site yet so here are a few in my system, and I think it sounds as well a looks great

Marty

Better than the X-Ray? I'd have put the X-Ray on its own as above the Caiman in all honesty (it was a superb player in its time) and it easily responded to interconnect improvements (we liked a Siltech gold-infused one at the time, but the Mark Grant HD series should also be ideal).....