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Full Version: Compared to Astell & Kern. Or how to save yourself 600 quid.
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I went to my local HiFi shop to listen to the Astell and Kern K70ii and the SR15. I could clearly hear the difference between the two, the SR15 had more space around the instruments in the soundstage; if you compared it to a camera, you'd say the SR15 had more megapixels. Only just though.

My Raspberry Pi2, with the DacBerryPro  running MoodeAudio 4.4 and oversampling to 24/192 is *nearly* as good as the Sr15. And its close, real close. The resolution of the sound is the same. Listening to Micheal Jacksons 'Beat It' you can hear the slight echo of the vocal booth used to record his voice; all systems resolved this. The size and separation of the instruments in Ry Cooder and VM Bhatt's 'A meeting by the River' was the same between the Sr15 and the PiBerryDac.

There is maybe only a subtle difference in the vocals on the Cowboy Junkies 'Trinity Session', occasionally my PiDacberry pro had a hint of cupiness about the vocals, possibly... But there is *no* 'night and day difference!

The point is the SR15 costs £600, compared to my PiDacBerry's £100. Any HiFi upgrade of this magnitude should give you a whole new music collection to listen to; going from a phone and ipod to the dacberry did. The Astell and Kern wouldn't... So even though I really wanted to buy it before I went into the shop; I didn't.

I've never had enough money to buy a really good DAC/DAP system,so previously have had nothing to compare my experience to; so I'd be interested to hear the experience of those that have!
I thought of getting the DACBERRY PRO but it was not in the MoOde list of devices nor was it on listed on the website last I looked. Seems you have no issue, so maybe I may give it a try. Assume I2S devices is set to none? 

What ya doin with the 500 quid you saved?  Big Grin
Well, it uses the same chipset as the Iqaudio Pi-dac Pro, the TI Burr Brown 32-bit/384kHz DAC (TI Pcm5242), which is on the list... I just told Moode that was what it was and it worked!

I told my wife I went to listen to a £600 Walkman and quick-as-a-flash she said "you didn't buy it did you?"

So I guess the £500 has given me a happy wife! And I get to live!!!

A narrow escape, I'm still buzzing; I really thought the A&K would be another level of sound quality and that I'd *have* to buy one.