This is a review and detailed measurements of the Beresford Caiman SEG TC-7535 stereo DAC and headphone amp. It was kindly sent to me by a member and costs £199.99 or about US $272.
The front panel and enclosure is neither exciting, nor bad:
The owner also sent me the "Dorado 3" DC to DC regulator which you are supposed to put between the power supply and the DAC:
Well, I tried that but could not get it to work. The AC adapter did output 15 volt as it indicates. The Dorado MKIII however, put out a variable 4.5 to 5 volt which barely lit its own red LED. The barrel connector going to it and coming out were both quite loose but I don't think that was the problem. I wanted to test the unit with just the AC adapter but the back says 12 volt and manual seems to imply maximum input of 13 volts. So I did not and instead used my lab power supply for all the testing.
Beresford Caiman SEG Measurements
I tried to test using USB as I always do but here I also ran into problems. Windows complained with a very odd USB controller error and the DAC kept going in and out of USB mode. And it never output anything using that input. So I switched to coax for all the tests:
Well, this ain't good. We have quite high distortion that loses even to my PC motherboard:
The news stays depressing to the end:
Conclusions
This DAC seems to have been designed in a different era where performance didn't matter. Today it does and it can't remotely compete. Instead of screwy ideas like a post regulator that sits in its own box rather than inside the DAC, company should retool and build a proper, performant DAC. Just about any device you own has as good or better onboard DAC than this thing.
Needless to say, I can't recommend the Beresford Caiman SEG.
EDIT: further testing using its own power supply here: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...aiman-seg-review-stereo-dac.27135/post-934109
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
The front panel and enclosure is neither exciting, nor bad:
The owner also sent me the "Dorado 3" DC to DC regulator which you are supposed to put between the power supply and the DAC:
Well, I tried that but could not get it to work. The AC adapter did output 15 volt as it indicates. The Dorado MKIII however, put out a variable 4.5 to 5 volt which barely lit its own red LED. The barrel connector going to it and coming out were both quite loose but I don't think that was the problem. I wanted to test the unit with just the AC adapter but the back says 12 volt and manual seems to imply maximum input of 13 volts. So I did not and instead used my lab power supply for all the testing.
Beresford Caiman SEG Measurements
I tried to test using USB as I always do but here I also ran into problems. Windows complained with a very odd USB controller error and the DAC kept going in and out of USB mode. And it never output anything using that input. So I switched to coax for all the tests:
Well, this ain't good. We have quite high distortion that loses even to my PC motherboard:
The news stays depressing to the end:
Conclusions
This DAC seems to have been designed in a different era where performance didn't matter. Today it does and it can't remotely compete. Instead of screwy ideas like a post regulator that sits in its own box rather than inside the DAC, company should retool and build a proper, performant DAC. Just about any device you own has as good or better onboard DAC than this thing.
Needless to say, I can't recommend the Beresford Caiman SEG.
EDIT: further testing using its own power supply here: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...aiman-seg-review-stereo-dac.27135/post-934109
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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