BDA2 and BDP2 Reviews

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Apr 10, 2013
Messages
1,874
NO MORE JITTER BUG

MEMO: To All Bryston Customers
SUBJECT: Bryston BDA-2 DAC /BDP-2 Player Review


Hi Folks,

Please see below a link to a superb review on the Bryston BDA-2 DAC and BDP-2 Digital Player combination. Special “HIGHLY RECOMMENDED AWARD”.

Please note the Jitter numbers measured by Paul Miller in the technical section of the review - would you believe 10 psec ! ***


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ftp://ftp.bryston.com/pub/reviews/HFN_Bryston BDP-2_BDA-2.pdf


*** What’s a Picosecond?

A Picosecond [ps] is a measure of time interval in accordance with SI standard. An interval of one second is equal to:

1.000 millisecond [ms]
1.000.000 microsecond [ms]
1.000.000.000 nanosecond [ns]
1.000.000.000.000 picosecond [ps]
 
MEMO: TO ALL BRYSTON CUSTOMERS
SUBJECT: BEST HIGH END DAC – Bryston BDA-2 DAC

December 2013

Hi Folks,

Happy to report the Bryston BDA-2 DAC has received a BEST HIGH END DAC 2013 award from The Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity Magazine.
 
James speaking of getting started, hows the internal talks on adding DSD capability to the BDP2 and the BDA2, if it does occur will it be a firmware upgrade or a changeout of some internals

Hi

The BDP-2 can play DSD with the new Manic Moose software and we are looking at DSD on the DAC but it looks like a hardware change would be required because of the issues I have mentioned earlier regarding DSD decoding circuits and the variety of DSD types of files available.

james
 
From: "john.springer
Subject: *** The Bryston BDA-2 DAC ***
Date: June 6, 2014 at 8:48:08 PM EDT
To: [email protected]

Hi James:

I recently came across Karl Schuster's level-headed and articulate Review of the BDA-2 DAC, so I ordered it from William Hordyk, Owner of Atlas Audio Video Unlimited, as a replacement for my beloved BDA-1.

The BDA-2 is a revelation! I'm not as articulate as Karl Schuster, but his mention of dramatically reduced Harshness & Grain is spot on! Other things he mentioned, such as the Sound Stage extending further back, are also amazing to my ears, and even non-audiophile Friends commented, before it was burned in, that the Audio seemed "Smoother" and "Richer" to them.

Speaking of "Long-Term Burn-In", the BDA-2 has only about 90 Hours on it, and my System keeps sounding better and better! Where will this end?

If you're trying to place me, I am still using a pair of Quad ESL 2905 Speakers, with all-Bryston Amplification, including a pair of 28BSST (Squared) Monoblocks.

Congratulations to everyone at Bryston, and Keep Up The Good Work!

Best Wishes,
John Springer

p.s. The Accepted Wisdom is that one should drive Quad Electrostatics with Tube Amps of no more than 200 Watts, but last Wednesday an Audience of 65 at Oak Bay Lodge were enjoying Canizares playing The Rodrigo Guitar Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic in the Teatro Real in Madrid, and I had the Volume at 3pm (600 Watts?) during his Solo.

Admittedly, I had the 28Bs set to the lower Gain, but I honestly think the BDA-2 made the difference between UNCOMFORTABLY LOUD, and True Front Row Sound Pressure Level with Negligible Distortion. Of course, the Bryston BIT-20 also contributed by feeding Pure Power to everything except the Amps, which each have their own Toroidal Isolation Transformer.
 
Here is another review on the BDP-2


Notes from The Old Audio GuyThoughts on the Bryston BDP-2
My initiation into the digitized music world has not been an easy one. Growing up with vinyl LPs and cassettes ifyou can believe it – digital for me was really just the skill set required to put a record on the turntable or push theplay button on the Akai 760D.
After a disastrous and costly fling with a batch of pricey British streamers that just never sounded “right” to me, Idecided to “think globally but shop locally” and was introduced to the Canadian engineered and manufacturedBryston BDP-2.
I will save you the trouble of looking at the end of this review by telling you now that the Bryston does sound rightto me. In fact it sounds “more right” than any of my vinyl (we will leave cassettes for another time) and better thanmy CD oriented front end of $15k components.
The BDP-2 hits all the notes. It is eminently affordable (by audiophile standards it is a bargain) but nowhere canone see any evidence of cost cutting. The casework and controls are beautifully made and everything works at thelevel of an Omega watch. The BDP-2 does not flaunt itself and is not really “audio Jewellery” but is quietly elegantand totally reliable in operation. Bryston’s record of reliability is unmatched in the audio world.
Music played through the Bryston sounds natural and encompassing. It sounds like music and not like Hi-Fi eventhough all of the Hi-Fi triggers are there. It images better than anything I have had in my system. Tonality isaccurate and unforced – the control over the bottom end of things is especially tight and tuneful. There isabsolutely no indication that this piece is “digital” in any way. The sound is organic and is easily as good andholistic as anything I have heard from a class A turntable.
The BDP-2 reminds me of another smartly engineered, self –effacing item that is likely better than it needs to beand seems built to work forever – the Swiss Army Knife.
The Bryston has outputs (SPDIF, AES/EBU, Optical) that will accommodate themselves to pretty well any DAC onechooses to use it with- though the matching Bryston BDA-2 is a natural choice. The front mounted USB inputsmake playing music from a USB stick easy. In the rear more USB inputs allow connection of USB sticks or portablehard drive devices. It has 2 Ethernet inputs rather than one (I still have not figured out if using both of themimproves anything – I will have to ask Mr. Tanner from Bryston) – and in keeping with its timely updating from theBDP-1 the Ethernet is now Gigabit rather than 10 Base 100. This is a huge improvement as the BDP-2 not only playsmusic from an attached hard drive but will stream from a NAS across your network. With Gigabit bandwidth thestreaming is as good as the playback from attached drive – there are no latency issues - and uploading operationsare much faster than anything I have tried before.
Accessing it on your Apple device – either iPad or Pod is convenient and elegant using an inexpensive app calledMPad. If you are PC centric Bryston has their own PC based access to the BDP2 which while not as mature andswooshy as the Apple based software is functional and reliable. It also works with the stand alone Bryston remoteor from the front panel controls on the BDP-2 itself.
I love this piece and I have purchased my demo sample, replacing the pricey British streamers and the tuneful butinput restricted Moon 180 Mind in my system. It has changed the way I interface with my music and makes theplayback process transparent and easy leaving one’s mind open to appreciate the music. Which is the whole pointof Hi-Fi in the first place.
FIVE STARS!
 
Ned F. Kuehn

By the way, Manic Moose is awesome. I can tell a lot of hard work went into its implementation and development. Great job and congratulations to the Manic Moose team!
 
Good news. I see from reading the firmware doc that the BDP-1 now supports NAS drives. I might have to look into that.

Does anyone know if a NAS drive can simultaneously support multiple BDP-1 players? I have two and having a single source would be nice.
 
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