astromensch

The Berkeley is a rather expensive DAC, and if your question is whether it's worth it or not, I would say "It depends." It depends on whether your other equipment is transparent enough (I didn't say expensive) to decipher the subtle differences. It also depends on your type of listening. Do you plant yourself in the sweet spot and do nothing but listen, or is the music in the background while you work? The Bryston BDA-1, as an example, will do almost as good for $3000 less. Having said that, I think the Berkeley is the best DAC that I've heard. It's not only extremely detailed, but suffers none of the brittleness of lesser DAC's, and has an expansive sound stage. It might also allow you to get rid of your preamp. I was feeding the Berkeley with a Bryston BDP-1 media player, using ripped CD's and d/l'ed hires files, so I can't speak about any other sources.