Beresford Bushmaster DAC Reviews

[Gazjam]

Sorry I'm late to this thread guys , been working all day .Firstly I would like to thank Gaz for inviting us into his home and provding me with food , copious amounts of coffee , and a very interesting day. And also thanks to Ali for giving us access to his excellent and interesting valve amps and DAC. I have to say that I agree with everything that Gary and Ali have written in their excellent reviews. Alis' valve DAC was indeed excellent through the Rega Brio R and came into its' own when used with the valve amps.
I think the Rega DAC , for a cheaper and commercially available DAC was a pretty close second . In my opinion the fully specced Caiman did sound pretty good in the scheme of things. The Bushmaster did not sound as good , to my ears , on the day. One thing that has been niggling me all day today was the fact that the Bushmaster had been given around 96 hours of use / burn-in. Perhaps Gary will correct me if I'm wrong here as we had to use his system since my laptop simply would not work with the Bushmaster. Was this enough burn-in ?
This may or may not be a relevent point . The bottom line was that we all came to more or less the same conclusions on the day using all four DACs on two different systems , solid state and valve.
Brian.

hi Brian,
I wanted the Dacs to be on as even a keel as possible so had my Tivo box running through the BM 24/7 from Friday round 8pm through to Tuesday late morning when you arrived.

The Rega was still running in as well.

Burn in could be a factor, who knows.

[James_Woods]

Tobi, habe alles ausgeschaltet, sogar spotlight. Es gibt keine Veränderung!

Tobi, I disabled everything, even spotlight. The problem still remains!

For Windows Users - if youre facing dropouts please check first if youre Latencys are alright:

http://www.heise.de/download/dpc-latency-checker.html

If not, there is some process/device blocking.

Are you using MacOS Lion, Snow Leopard or Leopard Paul?

[brian2957]

Hi mate , I was thinking more of the Bushmaster versus the Caiman which had many hours of use . This is perhaps a moot point since I was unable to burn the Bushmaster in for any length of time on my system.
Brian.

[magiccarpetride]

Hi mate , I was thinking more of the Bushmaster versus the Caiman which had many hours of use . This is perhaps a moot point since I was unable to burn the Bushmaster in for any length of time on my system.
Brian.

I don't think it could factor in, because in my case I have my Caiman on burn-in for more than two years and still it sounds bleached, anemic, and two dimensional next to the Bushmaster with only around 48 hours or so of burn-in.

[MartinT]

What EDO version are you running? I've heard that the latest version (0.7) brings audible degradation to the SQ. Correct?

I'm using 0.5 and will leave it alone as it works. Can't comment on 0.7.

[Gazjam]

Lots of opinions of Stans previous stuff benefiting from some burn in.
I found it with my 7510 and my Caiman.

All 4 dacs were good, none were poor on the day.

[brian2957]

Lots of opinions of Stans previous stuff benefiting from some burn in.
I found it with my 7510 and my Caiman.

All 4 dacs were good, none were poor on the day.

I wholeheartedly agree. Just wondering.
Brian.

[Alp]

I just received my BM yesterday, so its got less than 20 hrs burn-in but I must say that so so far I prefer the sound of my passive modded Caiman. I am using the stock PSU with the BM comparted with a tweaked Maplin linear CB-Radio PSU with the Caiman.

The BM is more analogue sounding and but lacks the soundstage and highs and lows of the PM Caiman. In my system the BM still sounds a little harsh. The BM output is much higher than the passive modded Caiman, which might also be a factor. My poor old Linn Kairn pre-amp could not handle the output of the Gator board but the BM does not seem to be distorting like it did with the Gator.

I am using EDO 0.7 with the SBT before and after.

I am just hoping it gets more rounded with some more burn-in... I might try the Maplin PSU to see if that makes a difference.

[MartinT]

Give it time, Alastair. Both burn-in and power supply make a difference.

[Ali Tait]

I just received my BM yesterday, so its got less than 20 hrs burn-in but I must say that so so far I prefer the sound of my passive modded Caiman. I am using the stock PSU with the BM comparted with a tweaked Maplin linear CB-Radio PSU with the Caiman.

The BM is more analogue sounding and but lacks the soundstage and highs and lows of the PM Caiman. In my system the BM still sounds a little harsh. The BM output is much higher than the passive modded Caiman, which might also be a factor. My poor old Linn Kairn pre-amp could not handle the output of the Gator board but the BM does not seem to be distorting like it did with the Gator.

I am using EDO 0.7 with the SBT before and after.

I am just hoping it gets more rounded with some more burn-in... I might try the Maplin PSU to see if that makes a difference.

That's exactly what we found.