BORDER-PATROL SE-i DAC - REVIEW

BORDERPATROL SE-i DAC - REVIEW/UPDATE

I asked a question in a review a couple of years back:“Do good products receive bad reviews?” The question was in response to a Stereophile review—well, several Stereophile reviews evaluating/debating the merits of the BorderPatrol SE-i DAC.

The reviewers, by and large, and even several assembled audiophiles, if I remember correctly, were in favor of the BorderPatrol SE-i DAC. They believed that it rendered the music in a manner that made voices more “delicate and intelligible…and natural” or an acoustic guitar more timbrally “woody and solid.” Certain members of the audio group collective also found the BorderPatrol more timbrally correct: “I could hear more of the wood around the strings or the body of the instrument,” and “with the BorderPatrol, it felt like I had a good seat and was there. I could hear the bowing better on the wood instruments.” There were other statements from both the reviewers and the audio group that spoke to the BorderPatrol SE-i as musically, timbrally engaging, and with an “air and breathiness you get in a live performance.” One imagines these few testimonial bona fides were enough to cement the little DAC’s standing, or at least a higher rating than it received in Stereophile. 

With a review and a couple of follow-ups, I now wholeheartedly concur that the BorderPatrol SE-i DAC is truly exceptional for the engaging music it renders, its timbral accuracy and beauty, and the atmosphere  it renders relative to a given album. I work with highly resolving DACs day in day out, as their purpose is discernment. They help me to discern differences between the various components under review. Often they are considered “neutral,”whatever that means in terms of a live event, as I’ve never been to a “neutral” live event. Perhaps in this respect I’ve simply been lucky to have attended nothing but musical or even unmusical events that broached no aspect of neutrality. In this respect the Border Patrol SE-i is a musical event, as it banishes the “neutral ghost” from any and all stereo systems and recreates or earnestly attempts to recreate the experience.

One last point concerned a reviewer, editor, and tester who took great issue with the BorderPatrol SE-i DAC's build and its impertinence for using a DAC chip, which the reviewer-editor-tester believed was an “underperforming” chip.”  This despite the reviews from others and me on how much we value (and continue to value) the Border Patrol SE-i DAC. And in truth, shouldn’t a reviewer actually be reviewing the sound and functionality of a component instead of its parts,  rather than making parts recommendations?

This follow-up is an homage to the least expensive DAC in either the AudioKeyReviews Reference Stereo system or its Reference Headphone system—the BorderPatrol SE-i DAC. More often than not, I listen to this DAC each night before I go to bed, if I’m not reading or watching a movie, as it provides that feeling I have long encountered at live musical events.

REFRAIN: Unlike most reviews, this review will be non-sequential, as it will start with how the component actually sounds and not the process of physically “undressing” it and/or laying out its various parts, specifications, etc. Think of this review, then, as a  non-linear movie—Memento, Kill Bill, Arrival, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, etc.—that likewise starts at the end and winds its way to the beginning.

The System - Headphone Reference

• Grimm Audio MU1 Streamer

• Grimm Audio MU2 Streamer

• Silent Angel Rhein Z1 Streamer

• Silent Angel Forester F2 Power Supply

• Silent Angel Bonn NX Network Switch

• Silent Angel Genesis GX Clock

• Bricasti Design M1 Special Edition DAC

• BorderPatrol SE-1 DAC

• Aurorasound HEADA Headphone Amplifier

• HeadAmp CFA3 Headphone Amplifier

• Pass Labs HPA-1 Headphone Amplifier

• ABYSS AB1266 Phi TC Headphones

• Dan Clark Expanse Headphones

• HIFIMAN Susvara Headphones

• HIFIMAN Susvara Unveiled Headphones

• Meze Empyrean Headphones

• Audience FrontRow Interconnects (XLR, RCA), USB, Ethernet

• Kubala-Sosna Interconnects (XLR, RCA), Power cords

• Grimm Audio SQM Interconnects (XLR, RCA)

• RSX BEYOND, MAX Power Cords

• AntiCable Level 3 Power Cords

• TORUS AUDIO RM20 Power Conditioner

The Sound & things

I have had the pleasure of pairing the BorderPatrol SE-i USB+SPDIF DAC ($2,125), its highest-priced version, with nearly every manner of streamer, amplification type—preamps, power amps, headphone amps—and cables, with some components/cables costing up to 20 times its price. It has never let me down and has served me incredibly well, always. 

The BorderPatrol SE-i DAC is a small, lightweight metal/aluminum box. As I mentioned in an earlier review, “Two red bricks side by side would give some measure to its volume, though the bricks would weigh far more.” And it will fit just about anywhere on your desk, and certainly on an equipment rack. It’s quite cute and comes in either black or silver with a little glowing tube at its top front. 

Now for the tasty bits: the sound. There is a natural musicality and an organic quality to the music that issues from the SE-i DAC that comforts one as if bundling up with a warm comforter in front of a roaring fire, perhaps with a libation, preparing to be entertained. In this particular case, the entertainment will come from the system with which the BorderPatrol SE-i DAC finds itself partnered, whether it be a trio, quartet, or even a quintet of audio components. And as the music begins…

Olafur Arnalds’ Árbakkinn (Island Songs, Mercury (Universal France)) plays and the Icelandic poet—Einar Georg Einarsson—recites his poem, which has become most familiar to me and whose English translation I know. The timbre of his voice is deep, rich, natural and conveys a calm and ease that so few DACs, regardless of cost, can render properly—it is lifelike and engaging. A good turntable would no doubt provide further insight into what the SE-i DAC is capable of portraying. 

And as I wrote of the BorderPatrol SE-i DAC’s bass in my earlier review, which remains true to this very day: 

Emerald Tears (Emerald Tears, ECM), from one of my favorite Dave Holland albums, plays and the deft movement of Dave’s fingers along the bass is easily captured and superbly resolved. The transient-quick pluck of strings and their reverberation across waves of air and ambient space bring a tactile reality. And the resolution and tonality from the Border Patrol SE-i DAC is topflight and would not be embarrassed in nearly any pricey DAC neighborhood.

Shirley Horn, Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue (Blue Note), Sophie Hunger, Patricia Barber, Andy Bey, Hilary Hahn’s Rest (UME Global Clearing House), Dave Brubeck’s Take Five (Columbia), and others all receive such treatment, and their respective timbres and tonalities are likewise realized in a very natural and organic manner via the SE-i. I cannot tell you how rare this trait of the SE-i is, especially for those who are mired beneath literally hundred of pounds of digital gear and are, in a like manner, hundreds of miles away from a natural and organic rendering of their music. I have heard these systems often, too often, and have always diplomatically excused myself from their “listening rooms.” But as I have learned over long years as an audiophile, there are those for whom music, natural and organic music, could be staring them in the face, mere inches away, and they would not be able to hear it. 

The BorderPatrol generates a rather large and well constructed soundstage that is deep (deeper still with the right speakers), wide, often beyond the speakers, of good height, with excellent separation, spacing, and layering. Though some reviewers-editors-testers might argue with its “measurements,” its ability to make music is without question. 

Functionality

Simple. The BorderPatrol SE-i DAC is available with asynchronous USB input, SPDIF(COAX) input or both, and is then switchable.

There is no oversampling, no digital filtering, no output buffering, but there is an R2R DAC chip. There are also “high quality signal capacitors that couple the chip to the output of the DAC.”

It is a “tube/solid state hybrid choke input filter power supply featuring over-sized power transformers, high speed low noise diodes with resistor-capacitor snubbing, a high inductance choke and a EZ80 tube rectifier.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

And both the USB and the SPDIF inputs and the DAC have “independent voltage regulation.”  The AudioKey Reviews version is the latest updated SE-i.

As Gary Dews notes of the change in functionality of the latest version:

New BorderPatrol SE-i DACs have Jupiter Beeswax cryo film and foil output capacitors in place of the polypropylene film and foils or Jensen paper in oils that were in the original SE and SE-i DACs. They now feature a (massively) oversized custom-made R-core power transformer and a new DAC circuit board that uses through hole components in place of the surface mount types in the older models. These changes make the DAC sound richer, cleaner, more colourful and even more musical.

Okay. It will play up to 24/96kHz and Tidal Masters to the same 24/96kHz, but no more. For those who mainly stream and have rather large CD collections, with the occasional high resolution CD, you and your music will be very well served. For those who understand the relative paucity of music sampled at greater than 24/96kHz compared to that which is not, you and your music will be very well served.

Conclusions

Some audio components change over time, in general not always for the best. I could easily point out a good number of components, regardless of price, whose better days are far behind them, and even the memory of their greatness now fades.

The BorderPatrol SE-i is not one of those products. It is a product that has held onto the best of yesteryear, incorporated it into its design schema, and dispatched DACs at twice its price easily, without a sideways glance. The BorderPatrol SE-i is  a true gem of a product whose trademark is natural and organic music that brings incredible engagement. As I wrote some time ago:

The BorderPatrol SE-i DAC is a true gem that hides its wondrous capabilities beneath a simple, clean, unadorned facade. To look past it though is to look past the tattered, dirt-crusted Van Gogh at a garage sale, posing as nothing more than an amateur's well-intentioned, paint-by-numbers, work. Don’t do that. [Really!]

This is a rare thing for us: in fact, it has never happened before. But given years now with the BorderPatrol SE-i DAC and its ability to strip away the detritus from the world, its dauntless natural and organic musicality, its continual engagement, we believe it is merited. We upgrade the BorderPatrol SE-i DAC to our next-highest honor, the GOLD KEYNOTE AWARD, for flawless service over these long years. If you have any doubts, now’s the time to chase them away. 

And for any cynics and skeptics who might just possibly read this, we are not affiliated in any manner with BorderPatrol. 

The Company

BORDER-PATROL AUDIO ELECTRONICS LLC

Makers of non-oversampling DACs and 300B tube power amplifiers in 
single-ended, parallel single-ended and push-pull formats.

DACs 

• BorderPatrol DAC SE-i USB ($1650)

• BorderPatrol DAC SE-i SPDIF ($1650)

• Border Patrol DAC SE-i SPDIF X2 ($1750)

• Border Patrol DAC SE-i USB+SPDIF ($2125)

Bristow, VA
Tel./fax 301 705 7460
borderpatrolaudio@gmail.com
http://borderpatrol.net