Hi guys!
I have some thoughts on the BDP-3 I would like to share with you.
There are some among you who believe BDP-3 will bring new features to the table. I don't think that's the case at all. File-format support as well as audio quality will surely be the same as on the BDP-2 because nothing in the hardware department will change. What will change is the motherboard which will be of a newer design. But it has nothing to do with the actual audio processing. Rather, it takes care of the management side of things so load times will be shorter.
Also, this 64bit architecture is interesting. It is interesting because if you might remember that first 64bit CPUs came out three years before Microsoft released a 64bit OS and even then there was very little software that supported the specification so ultimately, the CPUs were not put to good use. Some of the potential had gone to waste. In fact, it was even worse than that because by the time there was something that would use these CPUs to their full potential, the CPUs were three years obsolete.
In the context of BDP-3, I wouldn't rush out and upgrade my own BDP-1 or -2 based on the promise of more features. Roon Core functionality sounds nice but I'd rather wait and see whether that becomes a reality or not. By the time it does, there might be a BDP-4.
In any case, there are features I'd like to see added a lot more. For example:
1. BDP could easily serve as a recording device. You could connect an external A/D converter to one of it's USB ports and record in high-resolution. Now that Bryston has a turntable and a selection of phono stages is available, this would seem like a useful facility to anyone wishing to preserve their precious and rare LPs.
2. Parametric EQ would be very useful.
3. Digital crossover via USB would be essential to anyone wishing to build an active system with no unneccessary A/D-D/A conversion. For example, BDP-2 is far, far superior in terms of hardware to some standalone digital crossovers that do precisely that, albeit via S/PDIF. There are companies who could help Bryston with this, just like Aurality helped with the BDP-1.
4. And I still don't see any reason why the actual display cannot show elapsed time within a specific track like an ordinary CD player does. Must we always be reminded we're dealing with a computer?
Right, well, I hope this answered some questions and poses some other ones!
Cheers!
Antun
