[gdayton]

I think its more of a preference thing, some people seem to like one over the other and they have there reasons.

It's also DAC dependent. BNC is the only true 75 ohm connection. Though AES/EBU is specified at 110 ohms, there are no terminals specifically rated at this spec. AES/EBU has the benefit of CMR which is a big advantage due to rejection of noise, but it lacks the guaranteed impedance. BNC can maintain proper impedance but lacks inherent noise rejection of the balanced approach and relies instead on the shielding of the coax cable.

With the BDA-2 (in my system anyway) both sound awesome. I have an illuminati digital coax cable and a straightwire AES/EBU. Switching between them on my BDA-2 reveals subtle differences, but I have no idea which is more "right". Both sound so so good!

[BrystPlug]

Thanks for the feedback, think I'll need to investigate which AES cable I should give a try eheh =)

[Samurai7595]

Thanks for the feedback, think I'll need to investigate which AES cable I should give a try eheh =)

Have a look at the Atlas Mavros AES/EBU cable!

[jackyc]

Hi Chris,

I tried Chrome on a Windows PC and got the same result (see screenshot below).



I did however find the following within the MPD logs:

[ 2.037070] usb 1-2: New USB device found, idVendor=1db5, idProduct=0002
[ 2.037153] usb 1-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 2.037229] usb 1-2: Product: Bryston BDP Audio Device
[ 2.037297] usb 1-2: Manufacturer: Bryston BDP
[ 2.037362] usb 1-2: SerialNumber: 999999
Is this the IAD?

Hi Chris,

I have same situation. no any device shown in "Setting"
Listen is OK, but DAC shown "no lock"
Any suggestion?

[vklyushnikov]

Hi all,
I need to ask someone who already upgraded to new audio device and has BDA2 DAC to perform a little test. I shared two tiny wav files in zip archive here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwDFPltehD96R21hRk0waFlPWHM/view. Each track contains "one, two, three" spoken words and lasts only 1.5 seconds - in 96k and 44K sampling rate. Please add them to playlist in order they numbered and play together through SPDIF or AES. If new card fixed old issue with skipping on sampling rate change then both track should be reproduced without glitches. Otherwise you will hear audible skipping at the very beginning of each track. I already reported this behaviour to Chris long time ago, he confirmed an issue with SPDIF protocol, but didn't promise to fix it. I'm still curious whether Bryston fixed this issue with a new IAD. I'm tired to have this issue with lot of actual music tracks.

[jackyc]

Hi Chris,

I have same situation. no any device shown in "Setting"
Listen is OK, but DAC shown "no lock"
Any suggestion?

Hi Chris,

After I power off and on again, DAC shown lock.

And I change to IE from chrome, the setting shown the device, I can saw the" BUC" device.

when I listen the new IAD, become wide and bass become normal(previously bass is not enough)

[James Tanner]

Hi all,
I need to ask someone who already upgraded to new audio device and has BDA2 DAC to perform a little test. I shared two tiny wav files in zip archive here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwDFPltehD96R21hRk0waFlPWHM/view. Each track contains "one, two, three" spoken words and lasts only 1.5 seconds - in 96k and 44K sampling rate. Please add them to playlist in order they numbered and play together through SPDIF or AES. If new card fixed old issue with skipping on sampling rate change then both track should be reproduced without glitches. Otherwise you will hear audible skipping at the very beginning of each track. I already reported this behaviour to Chris long time ago, he confirmed an issue with SPDIF protocol, but didn't promise to fix it. I'm still curious whether Bryston fixed this issue with a new IAD. I'm tired to have this issue with lot of actual music tracks.

Hi

What DAC are you using?

james

[vklyushnikov]

Hi

What DAC are you using?

james

BDA 2, of course

[James Tanner]

BDA 2, of course

Thats strange as I have never noticed that before?

james

[vklyushnikov]

This is noticeable with hires records where first track is recorded without enough silence at beginning. So my test is an easy way to reproduce this behavior. But this issue is common with many actual music tracks. For example I just purchased new Motorhead record on HdTracks and immediately noticed skipping when started playing first track, same was with Led Zeppelin I, Black Sabbath  "Never Say Die" and many other. BDA-2 simply cannot synchronize in time when switching sampling rate from default 44k to higher. And here is explanation from Chris: http://support.bryston.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=121&p=467&hilit=Spdif+protocol#p467 . The user who provided wav files to him was me.

[BSMSPEMBA]

This is noticeable with hires records where first track is recorded without enough silence at beginning. So my test is an easy way to reproduce this behavior. But this issue is common with many actual music tracks. For example I just purchased new Motorhead record on HdTracks and immediately noticed skipping when started playing first track, same was with Led Zeppelin I, Black Sabbath  "Never Say Die" and many other. BDA-2 simply cannot synchronize in time when switching sampling rate from default 44k to higher. And here is explanation from Chris: http://support.bryston.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=121&p=467&hilit=Spdif+protocol#p467 . The user who provided wav files to him was me.

I experience the same skipping/glitch on my BDP-2/SP3 combination, when the tracks switch sample rates.

[vklyushnikov]

I experience the same skipping/glitch on my BDP-2/SP3 combination, when the tracks switch sample rates.

Have you upgraded to new audio card?

[unincognito]

I believe, unless you use a USB DAC (I mean DAC not USB converter), it will always take the dac chip a second or two to realize the pcm resolution has changed and to reconfigure its self for the new resolution.

+1 for USB DACs

[vklyushnikov]

I believe, unless you use a USB DAC (I mean DAC not USB converter), it will always take the dac chip a second or two to realize the pcm resolution has changed and to reconfigure its self for the new resolution.

+1 for USB DACs

USB DACs are great but BDP-2 simply sounds better via AES output - at least with BDA-2. And this is why so many people are curious about new IAD. So issue with skipping should be fixed - I'm not the only customer complaining about it, just check support forums. I don't know much about  possibility to implement delay on sampling rate change in sound card driver, but a lot of well known software players have a fix for the problem - they can be configured to play an extra second of silence in target resolution before starting playback or on sampling rate change. For example, Jriver has option "Play silence at startup for hardware synchronization" with following description:
"Some hardware requires a lead time from when a signal is delivered to when sound is produced. This option allows outputting leading silence so no actual sound is lost in these cases. Note that this option is only in effect in two cases - at the first playback after the program starts, and between tracks with different sample rates. This silence will not be played between tracks with the same sample rate. "
So Jriver can do it, why Bryston cannot do the same? MPD has no similar option, but it is open source. You may create a patch for it. BDP-2 is expensive device, it is simply unacceptable to have any problems with playback.

[MoPac]

 I'm not sure if all DACs have this problem when a sample rate change is made.  My DAC, in native mode, has around a 4 or 5 second delay when the sample rate is changed when using AES ( with Toslink it's almost instantaneous ). 
 What I had to do, within dedicated playlists, is create a track of silence around 6 seconds long and insert it at a sample rate change.  There would have to be one of these silence tracks for each sample rate in your library.  Of course this will not work if you are playing in "Shuffle" mode, but most of my playlists are based on types of classical music i.e. Symphonies, Violin Concertos, Ballet etc.  So a delay between one composition and the next ( with a different sample rate ) is almost the proper thing to do.
 The J River thing is probably a better way to solve this issue if it is doable, but how much silence do you insert, or do you make this silence amount adjustable?
 One thing I have noticed about the BDP-2 is playback starts with no silence at all when I know for sure most of my rips have some silence at the beginning of the first track in an album.

[vklyushnikov]

I almost never create playlists, I like to tap album in MPAD and listen it. So skipping is very annoying for me, there is quite a few albums in my collection without silence at beginning of first tracks.

[James Tanner]

I almost never create playlists, I like to tap album in MPAD and listen it. So skipping is very annoying for me, there is quite a few albums in my collection without silence at beginning of first tracks.

I just do not have this issue - not sure what is going on here.

james

[vklyushnikov]

James, did you try my test wavs? If not I'm sure that Chris may demonstrate you an issue.

[James Tanner]

James, did you try my test wavs? If not I'm sure that Chris may demonstrate you an issue.

OK thanks - will ask him tomorrow.

james

[BSMSPEMBA]

I almost never create playlists, I like to tap album in MPAD and listen it. So skipping is very annoying for me, there is quite a few albums in my collection without silence at beginning of first tracks.

I agree with you on this issue.  I would like to play any track at any sample rate without thinking about it. 

Chris mentioned that the USB connection in lieu of the AES connection would solve this issue.  However, the SP3 USB connection cannot process high resolution tracks, so that is not a solution I can implement and test.

The way you described JRiver's fix for this issue would work for me, if the feature could be toggled on/off by the user.  To do this, I assume that the player would need to look ahead at every track to check the sample rate.  If it does not, change, it would play continuously, so gapless playback would work.  However, if the sample rate does change, then it would insert a silent track of its own that matches the upcoming sample rate to force the DAC to switch over.

By the way, one other interesting thing that I noticed with the BDP-2 and SP3 combination is that when the units are first powered on, the SP3 shows the BAL-1 digital connection as PCM 5.1.  This cannot be, since the BDP-2 only sends out 2.0.  I presume that the SP3 is defaulting to 5.1, and the BDP-2 does not send a signal until the first track starts playing.  The result is that when the first track is played, there is the skip, while the DAC changes to 2.0.