[Rod_S]

Rod_S - As you are probably aware there are many DACs designed using identical DAC chips that sound completely different than each other. If it were only so easy as to choose the proper DAC chip, but the ultimate performance level is dependent on many other design factors. There are sonic factors influenced by power supply design, jitter reduction, digital filtering, and many other design choices. So even if the DAC chips used by Esoteric and Bryston were identical or very close in specs, it is unlikely that they will sound the same. Another similar example is Accuphase, which uses the ESS Sabre DACs in some of their recent designs. They however do not sound anything like the majority of other DACs on the market using the same or similar ESS DACs.

Indeed, all very true. I was just curious about the hardware itself. When James says the AK4495S is voiced rather than linear I actually get concerned because to me voiced means rolling off frequencies, or boosting frequencies, etc. so the AK4490 was probably the better choice for maintaining sound accuracy. Not that one could ever tell an Esoteric D1 owner that considering they will shell out... well.... the MSRP for a pair of D1's is $44k MSRP 

[Rod_S]

It's slightly more, maybe $10 or so, which isn't terribly significant in the scheme of a > $2000 DAC.  Which is why when JT says they chose the AK4490 for the sound, I believe him!

Steve

Thanks, or put another way $10 is infinitesimal small when considering the $44k for a pair of Esoteric D1 mono DACs.

[James Tanner]

Indeed, all very true. I was just curious about the hardware itself. When James says the AK4495S is voiced rather than linear I actually get concerned because to me voiced means rolling off frequencies, or boosting frequencies, etc. so the AK4490 was probably the better choice for maintaining sound accuracy. Not that one could ever tell an Esoteric D1 owner that considering they will shell out... well.... the MSRP for a pair of D1's is $44k MSRP 

Yes we have both DACs and the  S version is voiced for the Japan market according to the manufacture. We are listening to both but so far prefer the 4490 given our requirements.

James

[James Tanner]

Sorry to divert (or try to) the conversation back to the BDA-2: are Windows 10 drivers available or has any compatibility testing performed with the Windows 8.1 drivers?

Thanks!

Hi

We have not Looked at Windows 10 yet.

James

[Rod_S]

Yes we have both DACs and the  S version is voiced for the Japan market according to the manufacture. We are listening to both but so far prefer the 4490 given our requirements.

James

I'm not familiar with the type of chips used in SSP's but would chips of this level be candidates for those platforms?

[Norton]

Hi Folks,

Got the HDMI input on the BDA-3 Prototype DAC playing SACD (without PCM conversion) from our OPPO player.




james

I'm absolutely amazed at this.  I had thought that the Oppo could only output SACD as PCM over HDMI, but I'm obviously wrong.   I take it this is a physical SACD playing and not a DSD file on thumb drive etc?

As a big SACD fan and OPPO owner the BDA3 has just gone to the top of my want list.  One thing that really surprises me though, bearing in mind that both HDMI and SACD have been around a while and there are lots of other DAC manufacturers competing with often spurious new features, is why hasn't thus been done  before?

I know that there are some high end dedicated SACD transport & DAC combos that use this approach , but I've never heard of a standalone DAC offering this before.

[Norton]

It's much more and better than a plain de-embedder (and when I used them I was crazy enough to put a power supply on it that was several times the price of the de-embedder).  Besides being a first rate DAC (without considering the de-embedder), you can pass DSD via an Oppo player (unless one somehow has a DAC that can handle DSD via the coax digital input) vs. having to convert it to PCM in the Oppo.  Pretty much as close to future proof a digital product of this nature can be (doing quad DSD).  Certainly will be relevant digitally for a long time.

Phil

Can I ask what your "setup" referred to above is, and also what you meant in your reference to DSD over coaxial?  I have both an Oppo 105 player and a Hugo DAC that does accept DSD over SPdif, but as far as I'm aware there is no way to play SACD on the Oppo and output  DSD to the Hugo, unless you use a Oppo 103 modded with this:

http://www.jvbdigital.nl/jvb.asp?cur=2&level=sdi&page=title&title=924

[Phil A]

Phil

Can I ask what your "setup" referred to above is, and also what you meant in your reference to DSD over coaxial?  I have both an Oppo 105 player and a Hugo DAC that does accept DSD over SPdif, but as far as I'm aware there is no way to play SACD on the Oppo and output  DSD to the Hugo, unless you use a Oppo 103 modded with this:

http://www.jvbdigital.nl/jvb.asp?cur=2&level=sdi&page=title&title=924

Was talking about DSD via HDMI to the BDA-3 DAC (as being much better) vs. having to convert DSD to PCM in an Oppo for 24/88.2 over coax.  No longer use a de-embedder (for a very long time) but have one set-up in a secondary system in case during a Space Coast Audio Society get together someone wants to hear a disc that way.  I only use an Oppo 103D in the main system for video.

[Tympani]

So given what the Oppo/BDA-3 combo can accomplish (legally), why can't the BOT-1 be modified to do the same? I see a slam dunk for Bryston if the BOT-1 could feed SACD DSD, for playback (and ripping?)

[Phil A]

So given what the Oppo/BDA-3 combo can accomplish (legally), why can't the BOT-1 be modified to do the same? I see a slam dunk for Bryston if the BOT-1 could feed SACD DSD, for playback (and ripping?)

It may be the drive selected can't read SACDs or the software.  There are various reasons why a particular drive may be selected.  I know many wished for a universal player but Bryston indicated it was not in the cards (at least a bit ago).  There are not many things that can rip SACDs.  There's a whole thread in the discless area.  There are also legalities of about doing that.  Besides a hacked PS3 (of the proper model), there is info in that thread and here - http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f11-software/direct-stream-digital-recording-msb-media-transport-16864/

Not sure about all the legalities but from memory (could be wrong) the MSB combo was something like $8k.  The BOT does a lot at its price point.

[Marius]

HI James,

I'm trying to figure out the optimal connections in my future set with the BDA3 and TV set. The 4 hdmi ins on the BDA3 are audio only? Ie, do we need 2 hdmi outs on our sources to connect both audio and video (to the TVset obviously), or is the HDMI out on the BDA3 video also.

I ask because right now, I have not enough in/outputs to redirect all tv sources via the BDA1 to my system, and have them attached to the TV, connecting the TV through an optical connection to the BDA1 again. Has the advantage of lipsync without issues btw. (  Select Opt1 as audio source on the BDA1, and select video sources through the TV set.

In the new setup i would have the option to have all these HDMI sources (which are Audio And Video) directly into the BDA3, but then the HDMI out on the BDA3 would have to send video (of the selected HDMI) to the tv-set.

If not, we'd have to connect all video sources (Blurry, Apple tv, Humax tuner, whathaveyou more) both through separate audio and video out's, which not all of them have, and/or not all of them have in the same type (most have hdmi out for TV, rca for analogue audio, and spdif or optical for digital audio). Which of course wouldn't be much of an improvement....

Hope i make myself understandable.

Taking out the amount of RCA Spdif inputs on the BDA3 (compared to the BDA1) is rather a letdown in this regard, would it be an option to somehow put these back gain? The size has been increased, maybe there is spare room in the BDA3?

Cheers 
Marius

[James Tanner]

HI James,

I'm trying to figure out the optimal connections in my future set with the BDA3 and TV set. The 4 hdmi ins on the BDA3 are audio only? Ie, do we need 2 hdmi outs on our sources to connect both audio and video (to the TVset obviously), or is the HDMI out on the BDA3 video also.

I ask because right now, I have not enough in/outputs to redirect all tv sources via the BDA1 to my system, and have them attached to the TV, connecting the TV through an optical connection to the BDA1 again. Has the advantage of lipsync without issues btw. (  Select Opt1 as audio source on the BDA1, and select video sources through the TV set.

In the new setup i would have the option to have all these HDMI sources (which are Audio And Video) directly into the BDA3, but then the HDMI out on the BDA3 would have to send video (of the selected HDMI) to the tv-set.

Hope i make myself understandable.

If not, we'd have to connect all video sources (Blurry, Apple tv, Humax tuner, whathaveyou more) both through separate audio and video out's, which not all of them have, and/or not all of them have in the same type (most have hdmi out for TV, rca for analogue audio, and spdif or optical for digital audio). Which of course wouldn't be much of an improvement....

Taking out the amount of RCA Spdif inputs on the BDA3 is rather a letdown in this regard, would it be an option to somehow put these back gain? The size has been increased, maybe there is spare room in the BDA3?

Cheers 
Marius

Hi Marius

I will ask Dan the engineer designing it as I use my BDA3 with only a few sources.

james

[Marius]

Thanks James, finger crossed...
As you always say the demo is everything. I'd like to add: so is connectivity

Marius

Hi Marius

I will ask Dan the engineer designing it as I use my BDA3 with only a few sources.

james

[James Tanner]

Thanks James, finger crossed...
As you always say the demo is everything. I'd like to add: so is connectivity

Marius

From Dan

The BDA3 has 4K video pass-thru.

[Marius]

Thanks James,
To be even more specific: the BDA3 HDMI-out passes through any of the selected inputs? We can use 4 video sources, the BDA3 de-embeds digitaal audio into the audio system and passes through video of this selected source to the TVset?
To be future proof, make it pass-thru 4k Ultra HD  please...

Cheers, Marius

 

From Dan

The BDA3 has 4K video pass-thru.

[James Tanner]

Bryston BDA-2 DAC - USB vs Windows 10


Chris Rice is putting together a video to accompany this; once that’s done, we can update these instructions.

If the computer has recently been upgraded from a previous version of Windows to Windows 10, the Bryston USB driver will need to be removed before starting this process.

Windows 10 requires some extra steps to install the Bryston USB drivers. This is because it does not allow unsigned drivers to be installed. You can circumvent this by following the steps in this tutorial:
http://www.howtogeek.com/167723/how-to-disable-driver-signature-verification-on-64-bit-windows-8.1-so-that-you-can-install-unsigned-drivers/

Please note that these instructions also apply to Windows 8.1.

Once the computer is restarted in Disable Driver Signature Enforcement" mode, you can then run the setup program on the USB key, and you should run it as an administrator, especially if not logged in on an administrator account.  This is done by right-clicking on the setup.exe file on the USB key, and selecting "Run as Administrator" in the menu.
 
It's also a good idea to make sure that the latest version of the driver is being used  The latest version can be downloaded here:
 
http://support.bryston.com:88/files/firmware/bda2/Bryston%20USB%20Drivers%201.61.zip

[espilva]

BDA-2 up and running on a Windows 10 system via USB!

[James Tanner]

BDA-2 up and running on a Windows 10 system via USB!

How do you like Windows 10?

james

[espilva]

Just a few hours with it, I kind of miss the Windows 8.1 start screen and its tiles but I guess I'm going to be pretty alone in that camp.

[Slam Dancer]

Any news on the BDA-3?