151 Musiccenter and 150 Music Player

[wayneker]

Regarding your strange finding... Ok...
089+S10 = 151 > 151+089(as a DAC)
So either 151(as a DAC) > 089 or S10 > 151 (as a transport)
Try S10 + 151 (as a DAC) vs 089(as Dac)+151(as a transport)
But I read somewhere that digital out in burmester is meant for recording and driving digital amplifier?

[Solartiger]

The 151 has no "digital in"

Best,
Ecki

[bart]

Ecki, are you sure?
I see an optical and an RCA digital input when I look at the website (and reviews).

[Solartiger]

Bart, where do you see that? The unit I had tested hat no input interfaces!

This is from the German specification:

ANALOG-Ausgänge 1 x XLR Stereo, 1 x RCA Stereo
DIGITAL-Ausgänge: 1 x RCA, 1 x TOSLINK

It translates to "analog out ... digital out ...". These are the only entries in the "Connectivity" section of the specs. I couldn't find English specs.

[bart]

Ecki, I read this review:

Rutherford Audio News - German Hi-Fi Press Review of the Burmester 151

It states:

In terms of connectors I have nothing to criticise either. The 151 can be connected to the home network exclusively by Ethernet/LAN connection. What I find interesting is the possibility to create an own network, to connect to the tablet or to an NAS without having a home network. In this case, you have to do without internet radio reception though. Thanks to one optical and one electrical digital input, the Burmester can also be used as a high-end converter for other digital sources. Data can be fed to the 151 through a total of five USB ports, of which one is situated on the front. The output to the rest of the system is done by RCA, or XLR jacks.

Of course they can be mistaken.

[Solartiger]

Of course they can be mistaken.

They are. Please look at the image (from Rutherford). There is balanced- and unbalanced analog output but no digital in.

Best,
Ecki

[bart]

Ecki, I saw that too, but the pic was to unsharp to really be sure, so I believed the text.
If that's reality, you can't use this device with your cable TV nor other digital sources which makes it rather useless...
Strange move from Burmester.

[dubselect]

Originally Posted by Solartiger

This was an interesting evening. As the 151 sounded as good as the 089 with the Aurender S10 as a digital source we connected the 151 to the digital input of the 089. Our expectation was that this would sound best. We were very surprised when we listened to it. This sounded worse.

I have no explanation.

Regards,
Ecki

I would say this is an achivement that 151 ($25.000) sounds as good as 089 + Auredner S10 ($36.000).
And this only means that the DAC quality of 151 is similar to the DAC quality of 089.

As concerns the soundquality of S10 + 151 there is nothing strange. 151 has only RCA and optical digital inputs. There are tons of jitter on these inputs. And I am not surprised that 151 sounds better on it's own. Most likely the inside 151 streamer connected to the inside 151 DAC via I2S and clock synced by one low jitter clock. That is why it sounds better.

Digital inputs of 151 were made to connect any low quality sources like OPPO.

[Rocco]

The 151's has been enthusiastically reviewed now by The Absolute Sound.

Rutherford Audio News - Burmester Makes Headlines!

[bart]

^^^^^What Hifi also had a glowing review in one of the recent issues of their magazine. They were surprised that the CD playback was also so good.

Major disadvantage for me is that there are no digital inputs, so no cable TV through the 151 DACs...