I've seen the BP-26 / MPS-2, B100SST, 2BSSTC

Allezvite · « **on:** 26 Nov 2004, 09:28 pm »

Audio One in Concord Ontario had a Bryston / PMC & Arcam day last Saturday. On static display were the new Bryston amps and preamp with power supply.

The preamp and power supply had their "hoods up" revealing the beautiful construction.

Having gone thru the Naim power supply hierarchy (many years ago) with the NAP110 > SNAPS > HI-CAP, I know that these power supply upgrades can make a significant difference in the performance of the connected component. It's a good thing then that current BP 25's and 20's can use the new power supply.

Steve from Bryston, alluded to separate phono, cross-over, and DAC all being able to integrate with the MPS-2 PS.

That was my understanding and not all of these future changes have even been announced yet (especially the DAC) and are obviously subject to change. However, why have the ability to connect 4 components to the MPS-2 unless you're going to offer that many to connect?

Nice looking stuff. In silver, the cosmetics were very understated, yet upscale looking. I think Bryston is going to sell a lot of these new components.

These were not production units so we didn't get the opportunity to listen to them. I'm looking forward to demoing the BP-26 / MPS-2 with my 3BSST to see if it's an improvement over my VTL TL2.5. The ability to have the DAC board in it is very intriguing. 2 for 1 on the upgrades.

"Anything easy becomes difficult if done reluctantly."

jethro · « **Reply #1 on:** 1 Dec 2004, 11:34 pm »

Thanks for the info. Looks like I will have to put off getting my BP-25 changed to a BP-25DA.

markus_maximus · « **Reply #2 on:** 20 Dec 2004, 04:23 pm »

Does anyone know when the B-100 will be shipping? I ordered in November.

James Tanner · « **Reply #3 on:** 20 Dec 2004, 04:32 pm »

Hi Markus,

We are hoping to get some of them out at the end of December. We are over 300 units backordered and I apologize for the delay.

james

James Tanner · « **Reply #4 on:** 22 Dec 2004, 08:31 pm »

Hi All,

Update:

I have been told - due to a delay in faceplates - the B-100 SST will not be available till 3rd week of January 05.

james

markus_maximus · « **Reply #5 on:** 21 Jan 2005, 03:11 am »

B100s shipping soon?

James Tanner · « **Reply #6 on:** 21 Jan 2005, 12:19 pm »

HI,

YES - have a unit this weekend for final listening tests at home. If all goes well we will start building next week.

james

KJ · « **Reply #7 on:** 21 Jan 2005, 02:01 pm »

Quote

YES - have a unit this weekend for final listening tests at home.

It's good to be the king!

-KJ

James Tanner · « **Reply #8 on:** 2 Feb 2005, 01:35 pm »

Hi All,

Well I have had the B100 SST - DAC version at home now for a week and I am glad to report we are ready for lift-off.

james

cosmotune · « **Reply #9 on:** 26 Mar 2005, 11:56 pm »

James

I am considering getting the B100 SST for use with my Sony XA-777ES. Regarding the DAC I am wondering if it is better than the DAC built into the Sony XA-777ES. Of course I am referring to using the EXT B100 DAC when listening to CD and not SACD.

If you feel it is superior could you please explain what difference I mite hear.

The speakers I currently have are the PSB Image 5T.

Thanks George

James Tanner · « **Reply #10 on:** 27 Mar 2005, 01:54 am »

HI George,

I have the Sony as well. The differences in our DAC has a lot to do with the discrete Class A analog stage that follows the DAC. There is much more to it so have a look at this link that was written by one of our customers.

http://www.bryston.ca/newsletters/83_files/vol8is3.html

james

thomaspf · « **Reply #11 on:** 28 Mar 2005, 04:33 am »

The description of the digital section with regards to jitter is a bit light on detail. Here is my extended version.

In order for jiter induced side bands below the audible level you need have a jitter of less than 20 pico seconds at the converter chips. This is from the Dunn 1992 AES paper. If I interpret this correctly the goal is to keep the jitter induced amplitude error below changing any bits from 20-20.000Hz. Now let's have a look at the Bryston DACs.

The S/PDIF receiver is the CS8420 which happens to be an asynchronous sample rate converter. The digital receiver part of this chip reduces jitter to a typical 200ps with an external PLL. I am not sure what Bryston is actually using here but this is the best case Cirrus claims.

Now, the sample rate converter kicks in. The upsampling is just clouding
the issue and ideally does not change the sound anyhow so I leave it our for the moment. The asynchronous sample rate converter has two clock domains. The first is the recovered clock from the incoming signal and the second clock with ideally very low jitter that is locally created in the DAC itself. The converter buffers incoming samples and at fixed intervals determined by the internal clock translates this variable number of samples (variable due to the impact of jitter) into a fixed set of output samples (not necessarily the same number) with potentially different values. This process is non deterministic and you basically get a different set of samples to pass on to the DAC chip every time you play a song. You can now add the upsampling back in but it does not change much except for that you can use a slow roll-off digital filter at 48Khz instead of a brickwall filter at 22Khz which has more impact on the sound in the audible range. James might confirm whether this is what Bryston is actually doing on the filter side.

The output of the newly computed samples from the CS8240 is now a signal with a jitter that is basically bounded by the quality of the local clock and at the conversion you can achieve very low jitter induced side bands.

While the overall quality is obviously dependent also on the CS43122 and the excellent output stage there is some quality given away at this stage for the convenience of producing a low jitter output from a potentially jittery input. The catch being that the jitter of the digital source is now reflected in the variation of the samples that will actually get converted. The other benefit is that you can auto switch between different sample rates.

While this mode of dejittering has been adopted by many other consumer electronics companies with great results I want to point out that most professional audio companies also support a word-clock or master clock mode. In this mode the DAC clock is being made available on a seperate output and can be used to slave the source to the DAC clock via second cable. The result of this approach is that you preserve the benefit of the low jitter at the conversion while avoiding the non deterministic asynchronous resampling. This ensures that when you listen to a song you will hear identical samples every time and that different sources have no impact on what you hear. The downside is that you usually have to manually select the sample rate of the local clock on the DAC.

Yet another approach is taken by DACs with a deep memory dejitter buffer where all samples get buffered and are then being played time shifted from that memory buffer from a local clock. This works with auto-switching and a single cable but in extreme cases you might experience over/under-run conditions.

If I made any mistakes describing what happens in the Bryston DACs please let me know and I will be happy to update for the benefit of the whole group.

Cheers

Thomas