Beresford Bushmaster DAC Reviews

[audionewbi]

Just ordered the BM DAC, i am sure I will love it. I was told the headphone output impedance is less than 0.1 Ohm! Insanity!

*cough cough* I hope Stan sends me a free optical cable on the house. :-D

Cant wait to use my gator again with my studio monitor and use the BM as my bedside DAC/amp.

If the headphone section of the BM is as good as the gator I will be a very happy man.

[audionewbi]

What are the list of compatible opamp for BM?

[SteveW]

It's a very very short list.

[DaveK]

In fact, it could not be shorter .

[edmondwolfman]

Ok, I received my BM today. Honestly I don't know how Stan does this but it was in Taiwan on the 12th, Los Angeles yesterday and delivered to my doorstop around 1 today and I live in the middle of the country, Oklahoma.

Anyway I have it hooked up and music running through. I listened to it immediately out of the box compared to my DACMagic and at fist listen the DACMagic has more upper range detail but I've been using the DM for a couple of years so I'm not jumping to any conclusions yet. I'm going to give it a fair break in period and form no opinions until after it has had a few days to burn in.

Since the Logitech Touch has both the optical and coax outs active at the same time I left the optical plugged into the DM and ran coax to the BM. This way I can have music playing and change back and forth on the fly and never miss a single beat of the music.

I'll listen this way for a while and then I'll connect the optical to the BM and the coax to the DACMagic. I'm pretty sure the optical output from the Touch sounds better than the coax or I wouln't have had it setup that way. I can say that the BM sounds very good right out of the box and the 2 are very close right now but with the DM having slightly more upper register detail. That may be the "brightness" that bothers me at times with some female voices and high pitch musical instruments when I've applied a generous amount of volume.

I've seen some of you say you have your cable or satellite box running to your BM, are you listening to 2 channel television?

[StanleyB]

I can say that the BM sounds very good right out of the box and the 2 are very close right now but with the DM having slightly more upper register detail.

Hi Bobby, can you do a break down for me of the differences in the upper register detail between the two DACs? I am particularly interested in such things as:
Instruments and vocals separation.
The presence, or lack of them, of instruments or certain notes or musical passages played with those instruments.
Additional sounds in the back ground etc.
Reverberation of vocals and instruments.
Louder.

Don't forget: I am after the difference in the detail that you can hear and only in the upper register.

[MartinT]

I've seen some of you say you have your cable or satellite box running to your BM, are you listening to 2 channel television?

Yes, I run optical from my Sky HD box (a UK satellite service) into the BM for 2-channel audio. It sounds superb.

[Ali Tait]

Yes, I do similar, though with a different dac

[edmondwolfman]

Hi Bobby, can you do a break down for me of the differences in the upper register detail between the two DACs? I am particularly interested in such things as:
Instruments and vocals separation.
The presence, or lack of them, of instruments or certain notes or musical passages played with those instruments.
Additional sounds in the back ground etc.
Reverberation of vocals and instruments.
Louder.

Don't forget: I am after the difference in the detail that you can hear and only in the upper register.

Stan after I do some more listening today I'll try a describe what I am hearing in more detail but I'm not very good at putting it into words and like I said that may be what comes across as bright when I listen to certain music at louder volumes. I can say for now that I might be listening to something with acoustic guitar or the lead voice through the DM and when I hit the switch to the BM the guitar or vocal seems to move back a bit, not quite as distinct or prominent.
I will swap the optical and coax later today and see if I hear a difference after doing that also.

Has anyone else with a Touch hooked up both outputs at the same time and run to their preamp so they can just change from AUX1 to AUX2 or similar? You can compare without having to shut everything down and don't have minutes between hearing the different DACs, you can compare within milliseconds.

***And remember, these observations came with the BM being plugged in for a few short hours.

[StanleyB]

. I can say for now that I might be listening to something with acoustic guitar or the lead voice through the DM and when I hit the switch to the BM the guitar or vocal seems to move back a bit, not quite as distinct or prominent.

Thanks for the clarification. That's good enough for me.
What you are hearing is the effect of the opamp MFB or Sallen-Key anti-aliasing filter in the DM. The feedback employed in those filters has the effect of pushing mainly the midrange part of the audio forward. The TC-7510 had a mod to counter act that by removing the capacitor in the feedback loop, and the Gator PCB has the feedback removed altogether. The BM doesn't have an opamp output stage so you won't get that type of pushed forward response.