Originally Posted by ghostboy  I was zooming some youtube vids and came across Rich, (Mr. Burl if your nasty). I had an impression right away from his flippant, strange presence. I thought, wow, this guy, in a way, does not give a shi$. He is probably really onto something. I can trust him.
Forward 2 weeks, a few e-mails, and Fed-Ex drops off a Burl DAC yesterday. I jumped right in to a major comparison between it and my Mytek 8x192. I have just sold my Lavry DA-10 for monitoring, because I have arrived at a point where I'm sick of total seperation in listening. I want to hear the instruments glued together in a unified picture and not start off mixing by trying to achieve this. I've been on a big kick to restore the joy of analog ease to my work environment. This is a big step.
In my trial of the Burl DAC yesterday, I have found it guilty as charged. How was it charged? Just listen to Rich speak on his youtube vid. He talks about analog, about voicing in which the cymbals aren't bashing in your face. This is exacly what I experienced. You can trust this guy. How he describes it is how I'm experiencing it.
Because the highs have this nice smooth slope, the rest of the picture is rendered wide and beautiful. The Rhodes piano thru huge reverb on my main test-track had this aura and width that made me just want to listen and enjoy it. The lowend is huge, open but so damn tight! Switching back to the Mytek, the cymbals came a-bashing back on top and that pretty much wrecks the joy from there on down.
Checking out track 3 on Beck's 'Seachange' showed me further how analog true this dac is. The snare drum was very different between the two converters. Mytek showing a brighter/thinner element off, Burl showing it off like it was coming back off the origional 2-inch machine. I thought, this is how they mixed it in the studio. You can hear the tape compression, you can hear they printed that bitch hard. And the snappy sound of the Mytek is replaced with a gutteral pound.
I think there is a bit of confusion over the term 'reference', people thinking that means 'for monitoring duties'. Though I was using the Burl for 'referencing', my main thought right now is this; how could I not have this on my main analog insert? I use alot of outboard gear and go for the most coloration possible. I have no fear.
I'm over the argument that AD/DA should be neutral. I disagree. Although, truthfully, I'm not doing Celine Dion type music, so... But seriously, I don't think this translates the way people have built up in their heads and been sold on by the 'digital powers that be' for the last 15 years.
'Mr. Burl' has created a timeless companion of life here. It's got an attitude like my Marantz 2235b receiver. It says, 'I am going to present you with pleasure'. |