    
New member Username: Jandl100
Gloucester
UK
Post Number: 1
Registered: Nov-06
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| Posted on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 - 05:01 am: |
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Has anyone else here tried the new TC-7510 DAC and headphone amp by Stanley Beresford? It was making a bit of an initial impression on Head-Fi forum, and the little beast sells for less than £100 on eBay. As it was on money back offer I gave it a try. IMHO it was a significant upgrade from my Benchmark DAC1. I now am a happy owner of the £100 Beresford and have ditched the £1000 DAC1. Ridiculous on the face of it, but true. The Beresford DAC made the Benchmark DAC1 sound a little anaemic and boring. The headphone amp part of the Beresford is a little noisy with my sensitive cans (Sony MDR-CD17) but the noise is fixed level, so a small volume pot in between 7510 and phones, and a tweak of more gain on the Beresford unit and all is sweetness and light (powerful, clear & detailed sweetness & light, mind you!). Fantastic value for the DAC alone anyway. Here are some more detailed comments on the unit.
Description.
The Beresford TC-7510 is a nicely finished little unit. It has 4 digital inputs - 2 RCA co-ax, 2 optical TOSLINK. There are 2 sets of stereo line-level outputs, and a 1/4 inch jack headphone socket with associated volume control. Available in black or champagne (I prefer black).
A couple of extra facilities would perhaps be useful too - one of the two sets of output sockets could be linked to the volume control, allowing direct connection to a power amp; and a digital pass-thru output socket to allow easy digital recording. I'm sure these would impact the low cost though.
Performance.
(NOTE - my comments are necessarily comparative, based on other DACs and CD players with which I am familiar, as well as with the sound of live music. For the record, here is a list of some of the digital components that I have owned over the years, and with which I am inevitably making comparisons of the Beresford DAC: Mark Levinson 36 & 37 DAC & transport, Mark Levinson 39 CD player, Linn Karik 2 CD player, Benchmark DAC1, Eastern Electric Minimax CD player, Meridian 500 & 563 and 200 & 263 Transport/DACs, AudioNote DAC3, Perpetual Technology P3 DAC (with P1A upsampler & Monolithic power supply), Musical Fidelity FCD player, Musical Fidelity 3.24 upsampling DAC, Midiman Flying Calf DAC, Cyrus Discmaster & Dacmaster. All fine performers in their own right. Note also, I only address the DAC section of the 7510 in detail here, not the headphone output.)
Straight out of the box, the TC-7510's sound is pretty grim. Cramped, claustrophobic, shut in, midrange prominent. Not nice at all. Leave it playing for 24 hours though and the veils lift & the sound opens out - and how! The following comments apply to a unit with a few days playing time under its belt.
Images hang in space, independent of the speakers. Quite startlingly so, in fact.
Excellent lateral imaging - very precisely focussed, and stable, too.
Very good depth, with images placed between and behind the speakers. Excellent capture of the acoustic space of the recording. There is a realistic "solidity" to the presented stereo image that is hard to describe, but both remarkably enjoyable and rarely heard with other DACs or digital components. (The Benchmark DAC1 sounds a little vague and amorphous in comparison). Much more of a "you are there" than a "they are here" sound. Overall, the stereo imaging is impressive - relaxed, natural and well focussed. I've not heard better. In fact, I've not heard as good.
Tonal quality is very fine - with no unnatural thinning out of tonal colours in order to falsely accentuate recorded detail. E.g. clarinets and oboes have distinct and realistically different tonality and tonal weight through the TC-7510 - this can be quite a difficult test for a digital component. No greying-out of tonality here!
Detail and transient attack are excellent. The initial "spang" of acoustic guitar or harpsichord are superbly caught. Voices are very "present" & focussed, with excellent articulation and attack, where appropriate. Percussion has real speed & impact.
Treble is smooth and very well detailed. A string section sounds like a string section for a change, not a silky undifferentiated mass or a shrieky cacophany.
Bass is deep, well controlled and articulate. Good "slam" too, especially on DVD blockbuster soundtracks! Great fun.
Dynamics are very good, but I suspect that a higher current "wallwart" transformer than the 1.7A unit supplied would work even better. The largest dynamic swings are, I suspect, just a little constrained. Still impressive enough though, and well controlled.
The DAC is quite sensitive to the choice of digital interconnect used - it would be all too easy to cloud over the excellent transparency on offer here by using a poor or inappropriate cable. I would recommend Supra Trico as a reasonable place to start, and cheap too, although my current fave is Ensemble Digiflux.
Summary.
This is a fine digital control center, incorporating a truly excellent DAC, pretty much regardless of price, I think. For the money asked, this is a supreme bargain that, overall, soundly trounces many a far more expensive "audiophile" DAC making them appear either cloudy, vague & slow - etched & zippy - or just plain boring. (I wouldn't trade back for my old Benchmark DAC1, for example). With Stanley Beresford's money-back trial offer, you really can't go wrong here. Just make sure you run-in the DAC for a day or so before passing judgement. Strongly recommended.
His website is at http://www.homehifi.co.uk/main/main.html
You can get to Beresford's eBay listings here http://search.ebay.co.uk/_W0QQfgtpZ1...3aMEWAQ3aMESOI
(BTW - I have no links with Beresford, apart from being a very happy customer). He also makes phono sections, but I have not tried these. |
