Stan's New Dac - any reviews yet?

[StanleyB]

Whats the supply voltage to the op-amp in the TC-7520? seriously guys if you run one of those discrete op-amps with less than 24v it'll sound S**t

Spot on. I got a pair of those Bunson chips but they sound even worse than the 5532 in the TC-7520.

Stan

[kalozois100]

Spot on. I got a pair of those Bunson chips but they sound even worse than the 5532 in the TC-7520.

Stan

I think its Burson. Saying bunson reminds me bunson burner in A level chemistry all over again. Gulp.... 22 years ago!!!!

Then its not for the TC-7510/20 series. if someone wants to spend a 100 on an opamp for their beresford dac what other options do they have?? Afterall you have provided for opamp rolling so let the rolling begin???

You see Stan i have an agenda. i ll come clean like an honest fellow should. I'm not going through again what i had to with the TC-7510. i don't have the talent to modify(but can very easily f**k up anything you like) . If I'm gonna get a TC-7520 its gonna be from you with all mod cons thrown in( with extra price ofcourse) . Brian is right when he suggests a different price range according to the modded specification... A few guys walk into a bar one wants a brunette, another wants a blonde, but in the end the best lookers cost you most in the end!!( heart and money that is!!)

[kalozois100]

Good evening all,
I went over to my friends to have a listen to his modified dacmagic with burson discreet opamps(Dual in the case of magic). Hes had about 50 hours of burn in time so far....
It was certainly an improvement to his original opamp that came with the dac. He was using B&W 601s and an arcam A70 amp. The sound seemed at first similar to what i'm getting out of the modded TC-7510. After much listening with various types of music, classical, jazz, progressive rock etc i was unable to have a direct comparison to my beresford as i did not take it with me but i did have the feeling that i wished i was back home listening to my dac but couldn't quite put my finger on the reason. When i did get home and put same music on i found it to be more inviting/ involving than the magic but having similar clarity , soundstage and fidelity . This means that the modded TC-7510 IMH(personal)O outranked this modded magic. This for me is one hell of an achievement from a financial point of view . My TC-7510 with mods cost me 140(inc. black gate caps!!) pounds vs modded dacmagic at 350 pounds.( I left out the costs for the electrical engineer as mine was done for free but my friend had to pay for his mods by a professional uping his costs further from 350 ). The National semiconductor opamp I am now using in the TC-7510 is unbelievable value and performance and i now disagree with burson statements that it kills off the competition. Perhaps it is a different in the case when equipment used is in the thousands price bracket range but it was not the case in this class of equipment used. Another variable i neglected to mention is I now use a maplin p/s whereas my friend uses the p/s that came with his magic.
I think I now finally understand discussions I have read in past on various sites on the topics upsampling processing vs non upsampling processing. Here is the only other area i can put my finger on what may explain why i prefer my Dac to the magic. If it was better I'd say it. And the magic did sound better when my TC-7510 was a 6/3 version. Its alot easier to understand in practice when it is heard rather than trying to make sense of it in theory from written articles. And yet again it comes down to personal taste as my friend probably totally disagrees with my comments above. Such is the beauty of democracy!!

[StanleyB]

I think I now finally understand discussions I have read in past on various sites on the topics upsampling processing vs non upsampling processing.

You mean oversampling versus upsampling...
On the Norwegian forum hifisentralen quite few people have tried the DM against the TC-7520. Sales to Norway have been very rewarding of late.

Stan

[kalozois100]

:

You mean oversampling versus upsampling...
On the Norwegian forum hifisentralen quite few people have tried the DM against the TC-7520. Sales to Norway have been very rewarding of late.

Stan

Ah yes, over vs up.......
Stan if there was a forum on the remotest part of the planet I do believe that you'd find it
Clever lot the Norwegians must be all that omega 3 in the fish they're eating.

[kbuech]

I am still in Blitey, and I am glad it's raining in Cyprus - reservoirs up from 5% to 20% eh - I don't want any water rationing when I get to Nicosia. We have our own well, but we can't drink it!

And as to Keo. Na. Never. No one has every convinced me that alcohol isn't anything but what it is - the product of rotten fruit and vegetables - yuk. It's only fit for stripping paint or cleaning the drains.

I'll stick to lemonade made from the trees in my own garden.

Hey Brian,

Long time no post by me. Glad to hear of another non-drinking audiophile. I'm sure that there are many of us out there. We're a tought lot to please, I think, as sober I find I'm much more discerning in my listening to kit.

I finally have my main system up to warp-speed, now that I've added the Martin Logan Descent subwoofer. This unit transformed the sound of my multi-channel system. I'm often listening to Apple Lossless tracks though the Beresford 7520 then converted via DSP to Neural THX 5.1 multichannel using my Onkyo PR SC-885 preamp/processor.

Have a fine weekend!

Kurt

[Labarum]

another non-drinking audiophile.

Hey, gin is probably quite good for degreasing CDs - but since they never come out of their cases these days . . .

[kbuech]

Hey, gin is probably quite good for degreasing CDs - but since they never come out of their cases these days . . .

LOL!!

[prenzlberger]

I can reference a number of "eureka moments".

One in a HiFi shop a number of years ago - Quad Electrostatics and Cello Music. Before the music started I heard the resonance of the cello as the cellist picked it up. Aha! That's just how it is.
...... One day I will have a pair of electrostatics.

Hi Brian!
You inadvertently provided me with a Eureka-Moment when you described yours.

Some years ago (I was still living in Canada, having moved there from Germany at 19), I owned a very simple and elegant system: A Revox B226 going through Counterpoint hybrids into a pair of the special reinforced QUAD Freds.

I had known that this was "my" sound during the first few bars of Julian Lloyd Webber's rendition of Elgar's Cello Concerto! Goose bumbs. I had never heard recorded music sound so compelling. The speakers literally disappeared.

Now I live in Berlin with my teenage daughter (whom I had given a cello at 3 - yes, you can laugh! - but who finally decided on the saxophone instead. Nice, too...)

Instead of in a house, we now live in an apartment, with neighbours, who wouldn't appreciate having to share my lust for Ludwig at 2am. So, I have been looking for something, which comes close to the QUADs ... and I have found it: A pair of STAX 404 electrostatic headphones with the small amplifier. (My music server is a MacBookPro.)

I had recently tried a Corda Aria DAC/Amp with AKG 701 phones. Not quite there yet. The AGKs are transparent, allright, but they also seem to have a hole in the middle - spacially! - which especially with concertos tends to push the soloist too far back.

Enter the STAX, which I found used (but still with a year of warranty) for €450.
Much better.

What brought me here was the belief that the transducers (be they speakers or phones) account for perhaps the biggest bang for the buck.
At the other end of the chain, the source represents the next challenge, and so I was looking for a reasonably priced DAC, in order to move the conversion off the MacBookPro.

Enter the 7520, which (after a few mails with Stan) I purchased today from the inofficial distributor in Germany, who is somehow related to the manufacturer. Anyway, I drove the 40km from Berlin, picked it up .... and then spent 2 hours re-exploring my music library.

Right out of the box, this little item really sounds fabulous. Wide open, soloists and vocalists clearly positioned, tight enough bass for classical music, and completely in accord with the STAX' innate transparency and musicality.

I admit to not having listened to any of the recent €1000 units. Back in Canada, I had auditioned a Cyrus, but the Revox seemed just fine. And now, my priorities have changed.

But perhaps the trick is to just find components which augment each other, which the STAX and the 7520 do.
I have found sonic bliss for €650.There is still the opportunity of uograding those OpAmps, and of course, the lure of a STAX Tube-Amp in the skies.....

But I know what good sound is, and that I have found.

So, Brian, your comments kind of made me register here, communicate with Stan and become a customer... all in 2 days.
Thanks!

By the way, I really like the tone among members here!

Regards from Berlin!

[Covenant]

What a nice post from Prenzlberger-hope its the first of many.
Upgrading the op-amps in the 7520 is a MUST! A significant improvement for next to nothing. If you only listen to headphones you only need to buy one. There is lots of information here and people to help if you get stuck.