Hi anm,
I own such a CDP (CA740c) that doubles up as a DAC also. I think for the price it is very very good. And considering that the CA products are offered at a decent price in comparison to many other brands, it is even a better buy. However, spirovious and others who want to buy a DAC wanted a less costly solution, at least that was my understanding. For the price the Bereford products sound very good and they have also very decent user reviews. The CA 740c now costs around Rs 50K. I bought it 3 months ago for a price of 42K.
Hi Cranky,
It's now my turn to say: Please 'cool down'. If yours was not, mine is also not patronizing.
One a more serious note, you seem to be a bright and knowledgeable member of the forum. You know a lot about audio electronics, speakers etc and also a musician, as you once stated in a thread here. I personally have learned quite a lot from your posts.
See, that does not mean I have to agree with you on every count. And, I do not, on many issues we have recently discussed in this particular thread. That does not mean you quit. It is not to be looked upon as a war where somebody has to win. We discuss issues related to a very dear passion of audio and video in this forum, including issues of product information, customer-seller relations etc. In this particular case, I do not think we have moved from the actual issue of the thread at all. However, I agree that we have moved from technical aspects to seller-product information and demeanor. That is also a relevant topic, however I can understand you may not have any interest in it.
Just as you stated that you are not going to buy this particular DAC because you already have other products with you, similarly I also have not shown any interest in the product, not because it is bad or something, but because I already do have alternate products that I have recently purchased and very happy with it. But I was reading along all the responses just to enrich my learning, because I feel I am very deficient in the technical aspects.
Obviously you do not agree with the way Venkat has handled the issue. Your suggested mode of handling could really have been more efficient and trouble-free, this is debateable, but for the sake of the argument let us accept it. But at the same time, I do NOT call Venkat's activity or my subsequent post as "witch-hunting" or "mud-slinging". Please take a look around this forum. You will find that the thread is filled with posts from Venkat where he is genuinely trying to help many many young enthusiasts. Nowhere in his posts or in mine, you will observe any hint of arrogance, impoliteness or similar things, let alone "mud-slinging" and "witch-hunting". It was not difficult for me to see (even before Venkat's recent post) what Venkat really wanted to do, although we may argue about the methods. In my whole life, nobody has accused me of being arrogant, impolite, a "mud-slinger" or a "witch-hunter". Do you really know how strong words you have been using? Although it hurts, I will take that in my stride.
And why these allegations from you? All because, Venkat had some questions which were partly not answered or something, and when he published the text as is, that is taken as an act of insinuation. However, not even once, I heard you stated that what SB has done (both in not answering the e-mail questions and then writing a very impolite post basically trying to ridicule a customer) is anything bad. Your "cool down" advice was not directed at him.
Do you have any idea what kind of product details and company details potential customers normally seek in the western world? For my research work I need a lot of computation (sustained spped of multi-teraflops range), actually some of the best available in the world. As a result I have been part of many purchase procedures, and very detailed discussion on everything from parts to company profiles were officially discussed. I also have not understood why you want to label the e-mail communications as strictly personal.
I would still say it is upto the company to supply as much information as they want or can. I'll give you an example. We are going to have a massively parallel supercomputer installed in our Institute. The power requirement according to the installation manual says X KWatts. Our electrical engineer maintained that it is only the total connected load, and the actual use even in peak conditions do not normally exceed 60% of that. No matter how hard we tried for a statement on this from the company, they avoided it and finally stated that for a given application (LINPACK) it can consume upto 80% of the total connected load. There are many reasons why companies cannot come completely clean on many issues. They have to just state it gracefully and professionally. I cannot accept behavior like "I will eat you up if you ask this kind of questions" , neither can I accept the support of that kind of behavior.
Before I sent out my first response after SB's reply, I actually had it and the whole sequence of the recent posts read by my wife and my son. My wife is a reasonably senior software professional with a internationally well-known company, my son is very mild natured (but brilliant in both academics and cricket). This is just to say that they are not completely worthless people, and on reading my post they fully agreed and in fact my wife was even suggesting to write a bit more on the demands of the typical western customer.
I felt, to support Venkat and to denounce SB's behavior, a strong message was needed, because somehow in the whole day unfortunately that did not come, infact quite opposite views started coming out. Since then we have been called 'mud-slingers' and 'witch-hunters' and after calling us all that you now want to quit. Why is it so hard to understand that there are still people in this world who fight for principles even risking their self-respect and without offending others as much as possible? Why is it that always I am right and the other guy is rubbish? Can we not have a bit more respect around here? After all we are all music lovers and in our culture that is connected with a spiritual upliftment.
I request you to reconsider your decision of not posting. I only hope you try to understand where I am coming from, our differences notwithstanding.