Norway audiophile

Thank you all for your replies! I ended up buying the Berkeley USB unit. I bases my decision “in the blind” mostly on the assumption that it do not need a specific driver for Mac indicate that it should be more stable, the separate power for the clock should be a good way to go, and the Swiss dealer digitalcom.ch gave me a good price. Now that I have received the unit I am very happy indeed! The setup was done effortless within less than an hour, and I now run Itunes remotely on my Ipad controlling a separate MacAir running Amarra: all extremely user friendly and all my coverart present and albums transferred easily from my main Macbook Pro. This alone would keep me happy all day. And then came the improvements in sound (over my previous not-user friendly Bryston BDP-1): The soundstage separates better between different instruments and the soundstage is also deeper, “more” micro details are reviled and the overall sound is more engaging on low volumes. For me the problem with the Bryston was not the sound (it does sound good), but to me the sound from the Berkeley Alpha USB from the MacAir is noticeably better, and the Berkeley is vastly superior in user friendliness. Highly recommended.

I am planning to connect my MacBook Air running Amarra/iTunes to my Bryston DAC, and I am looking for a no hassle asynchronous USB to SPDIF converter (will actually use balanced AES output). The Berkeley Audio Alpha USB seems like a good candidate. My question is this: do anyone have any thoughts on how this will compare to the upcoming Solution 590? Or are they both just a nicer looking version of the better priced upcoming Bel Canto $795 uLink? Some background: I currently have a Bryston BDP-1 connected to a Bryston BDA-1, playing files up to 192/24. It all sounds very good indeed, but I am not at all satisfied with is user friendliness: transferring files over the network to the attached storage is very unstable and the Coverart are nowhere to be seen on the remote app, even if the unit is setup according to the manual. I may at a later stage upgrade to another DAC, but for now the iTunes interface is really what I am looking for for everyday convenience.

Hi,<br /> <br /> I am planning to connecting my MacBook Air running Amarra/iTunes to my Bryston DAC, and I am looking for a no hassle asynchronous USB to SPDIF converter (will actually use balanced AES output). The Berkeley Audio Alpha USB seems like a good candidate. My question is this: do anyone have any thoughts on how this will compare to the upcoming Solution 590? Or are they both just nicer looking versions of the better priced upcoming Bel Canto $795 uLink?<br /> <br /> Some background:<br /> I currently have a Bryston BDP-1 connected to a Bryston BDA-1. It all sounds very good indeed, but I am not at all satisfied with is user friendliness: transferring files over the network to the attached storage is very unstable and the Coverart are nowhere to be seen on the remote app, even if the unit is setup according to the manual. I may at a later stage upgrade to another DAC, but for now the iTunes interface is really what I am looking for for everyday convenience. <br />