As I said earlier, I have a Berkeley as well as an Esoteric X03 SE. Interestingly, my computer where my squeezebox server resides experienced some toasted ram to go with a toasted cpu when I installed the Juli@ so I have been listening to the Esoteric and very well recorded redbook CD's for the past two weeks. The server is back up and running so I listened to the Berkeley yesterday for the first time since. While I had always felt that the Berkeley and Esoteric sounded different (giving the edge to the esoteric on dynamics),I noticed yesterday that the Berkeley sounds very unike digital. It takes you into this deep, tall, wide, full of music soundstage with absolutely no glare, harshness, coldness. There is an incredible attachment to the music. It becomes a presentation. Obviously sources and the rest of the system matters and it is not cheap but you all need to listen to one to see what the fuss is about. And then there's hi res music...
I have heard the DCS Puccinni, though in a much better system than mine so I cannot make a compariosn. It was (and still is) the best system I have ever heard. The Puccinni chiseled out a detailed, refined 3d (3D!) soundstage that had to be heard to be believed.