[malpa]

Hi,
I hope you are all well ,
Just wanted to share my happiness with the BRYSTON BDP-1 player upgrade done by my good friend Pio (jaudioresearch@instagram)
He has designed a PCB for BRYSTON players that use ESI Juli@ sound card.
the main chip on that card (ESI chip) uses 2 external crystals of cheap quality, the new PCB upgrades them to the best crystal oscillators available on the market (Crytek 957), PCB is quite large and there is a separate power transformer, ultra-low noise power supplies, and many anti-vibration tricks and as he said the shortest signal path possible!
I can find out more, I think he is planning to sell those boards for DIY.
The improvement in sound is huge! the stage, separation, and depth or width is so much bigger than it was, I'm so happy with it,
absolutely amazed with the upgrade!













 

[Rocket]

Hi,

I'm glad the modification worked for you.  I also have a Bryston BDP 1.

Cheers Rod

[R. Daneel]

Hello!

Not to be sounding negative here, but accuracy of the crystal oscillator isn't really paramount. What is however is phase noise. So a 'cheap' clock will still be excellent if it's power supply is well executed. There are always 'more accurate clocks' out there. You can use atomic clocks, typically using rubidium, to ensure zero or negligible drift within a thousand years. Yet, the quality of audio will not benefit from this because you won't be listening for a thousand years or anywhere near that.

Still, I'm interested in this project.

Is he modifying only the sound card or the main CPU board as well?

Cheers - Antun

[malpa]

hi,
He posted some explanations about it on hifiwigwam, please check it out.

https://www.hifiwigwam.com/forum/topic/150453-bryston-bdp-1-clock-upgrade/

[hawkeye99]

Interesting. Subscribing.

[malpa]

it's very interesting indeed, it's hard to describe how much those new oscillators improve the sound of bdp1

[smargo]

Hello!

Not to be sounding negative here, but accuracy of the crystal oscillator isn't really paramount. What is however is phase noise. So a 'cheap' clock will still be excellent if it's power supply is well executed.
Still, I'm interested in this project.

Is he modifying only the sound card or the main CPU board as well?

Cheers - Antun

so why are you still interested - if the crystal oscillator isnt really paramount - the whole thing is kind of a turnoff though of buying a bryston - we need to be more careful in our words to describe parts - especially since bryston has such an immense presence here - especially since malpa is saying that bryston is using cheap oscillators

[malpa]

Bryston BDP-1 uses 3th party  'Julia@ESI sound card ' that was designed for computer audio by ESI-audio and possibly adopted by many audio brands like Bryston.
I don't think that CRYSTEK 957 or 575 oscillators were existing when Julia card was designed, time goes on, parts becoming better and here the upgrade comes.
I don't know if Bryston uses parts like Crystek oscillators in their newer players? probably not, it wouldn't be cost-effective.
Hopefully, they will after this post goes on and on.

[R. Daneel]

so why are you still interested - if the crystal oscillator isnt really paramount - the whole thing is kind of a turnoff though of buying a bryston - we need to be more careful in our words to describe parts - especially since bryston has such an immense presence here - especially since malpa is saying that bryston is using cheap oscillators

Didn't I say crystal is not paramount, considering everything else? I thought it was self-explanatory that I think Bryston is a good design, even if the part in question isn't of the very highest quality. Therefore, I don't see the point of you warning anyone to be careful with the choice of words. In any case, if you don't know what 'a forum' is and aren't familiar with etymology of the word, I suggest you look it up.

The reason I am interested, not that your post warrants an explanation, is because in the past, I wrote several articles regarding the IC Ensemble chipset that's now known as VIA Envy and that, among others, is used in the ESI JUli@ soundcard.

Cheers,
Antun

[unincognito]

Before I say anything else, I just want to say this looks like a very cool mod that was very well thought out and designed.  What I'm about to say isn't to say that the party who made the mod and those that have listened to it aren't hearing an improvement and ultimately the only thing that should matter is that your enjoying what your listening to and with that said my thoughts on how something like this relates to Bryton design philosophy.

Our philosophy is as good as it can be while maintaining some resemblance of affordability, that's why a 4B3 is $6800 and not the cost of a new BMW 3 series or more.  I can't really speak for the BDP-1 in to much detail, this is when I brought into the company as a consultant and only worked on the software end.  What I can say is a mod like this wouldn't be cheap from a labor perspective, it requires removing parts, which is something that can be labor intensive in its own.  Then you have the manual wiring from the PCB hosting the power supply and oscillators to the sound card, again labor intensive.  You have what would like increase the cost of the unit from its original retail price of $2400 to closer to $3000 in labor along.  I don't know how much we could have gotten those oscillators for ten years ago, but suffice to say they alone would have added a good chunk of change to the retail price alone.  As for the rest of the parts that make up the power supply, we would have just integrated that into our custom toroidal transformer as another secondary tap plus a few more thing that wouldn't be very expensive.  My point so far is we may have added another $1000 to the retail price doing something like this and I know the engineer that put this hardware together is a very intelligent human being and would have measure absolutely everything there would have been to measured and would have came to the conclusion that it wasn't worth the extra cost.  I can only further speculate on at least one reason for that, the product was designed to be a digital transport to go with the the BDA-1, the BDA-1 would literally undo any benefit this mod would provide because it reclocks the spdif inputs. 

Chris

[R. Daneel]

Before I say anything else, I just want to say this looks like a very cool mod that was very well thought out and designed.  What I'm about to say isn't to say that the party who made the mod and those that have listened to it aren't hearing an improvement and ultimately the only thing that should matter is that your enjoying what your listening to and with that said my thoughts on how something like this relates to Bryton design philosophy.

Our philosophy is as good as it can be while maintaining some resemblance of affordability, that's why a 4B3 is $6800 and not the cost of a new BMW 3 series or more.  I can't really speak for the BDP-1 in to much detail, this is when I brought into the company as a consultant and only worked on the software end.  What I can say is a mod like this wouldn't be cheap from a labor perspective, it requires removing parts, which is something that can be labor intensive in its own.  Then you have the manual wiring from the PCB hosting the power supply and oscillators to the sound card, again labor intensive.  You have what would like increase the cost of the unit from its original retail price of $2400 to closer to $3000 in labor along.  I don't know how much we could have gotten those oscillators for ten years ago, but suffice to say they alone would have added a good chunk of change to the retail price alone.  As for the rest of the parts that make up the power supply, we would have just integrated that into our custom toroidal transformer as another secondary tap plus a few more thing that wouldn't be very expensive.  My point so far is we may have added another $1000 to the retail price doing something like this and I know the engineer that put this hardware together is a very intelligent human being and would have measure absolutely everything there would have been to measured and would have came to the conclusion that it wasn't worth the extra cost.  I can only further speculate on at least one reason for that, the product was designed to be a digital transport to go with the the BDA-1, the BDA-1 would literally undo any benefit this mod would provide because it reclocks the spdif inputs. 

Chris

Hi Chris and thank you very much for commenting! As always, your post is very informative and interesting. It also ought to change an opinion or two around here that Bryston is closed-minded and does not see value in projects like these.

Cheers,
Antun

[gdbalp]

Hi Chris,

Could you elaborate on the audio sign transmission between the BDP-1 and BDA-1 and what happens in the sign path? 
Really interesting to hear that SPDIF input is re-clocked at the BDA-1 or DAC, what about other inputs. 
Is there a buffer utilized in then BDP/BDA products?
Would a master clock and synchronization between BDP and BDA products help audio re-production?

Luigi

[malpa]

Before I say anything else, I just want to say this looks like a very cool mod that was very well thought out and designed.  What I'm about to say isn't to say that the party who made the mod and those that have listened to it aren't hearing an improvement and ultimately the only thing that should matter is that your enjoying what your listening to and with that said my thoughts on how something like this relates to Bryton design philosophy.

Our philosophy is as good as it can be while maintaining some resemblance of affordability, that's why a 4B3 is $6800 and not the cost of a new BMW 3 series or more.  I can't really speak for the BDP-1 in to much detail, this is when I brought into the company as a consultant and only worked on the software end.  What I can say is a mod like this wouldn't be cheap from a labor perspective, it requires removing parts, which is something that can be labor intensive in its own.  Then you have the manual wiring from the PCB hosting the power supply and oscillators to the sound card, again labor intensive.  You have what would like increase the cost of the unit from its original retail price of $2400 to closer to $3000 in labor along.  I don't know how much we could have gotten those oscillators for ten years ago, but suffice to say they alone would have added a good chunk of change to the retail price alone.  As for the rest of the parts that make up the power supply, we would have just integrated that into our custom toroidal transformer as another secondary tap plus a few more thing that wouldn't be very expensive.  My point so far is we may have added another $1000 to the retail price doing something like this and I know the engineer that put this hardware together is a very intelligent human being and would have measure absolutely everything there would have been to measured and would have came to the conclusion that it wasn't worth the extra cost.  I can only further speculate on at least one reason for that, the product was designed to be a digital transport to go with the the BDA-1, the BDA-1 would literally undo any benefit this mod would provide because it reclocks the spdif inputs. 

Chris

hi Chris,
That's a great and open-minded comment, I have never had BDA-1 DAC, so I can't comment on that, the upgrade works very well with my tube DAC

[James Tanner]

HI Folks,

Low phase noise oscillators definitely improve the sound but more likely as the source for an actual internal DAC chip because as Chris says most external DAC's resample the incoming signal.

One potential problem I see is that high frequency signals need to be carefully routed, and is very difficult using point-to-point wiring.

In our new products the The Juli@ sound card is no longer being used, USB is the preferred connection, it supports higher sample rates and DSD.

Ultimately if it sounds better in a given system that is the only concern that matters.

james

[malpa]

HI Folks,

Low phase noise oscillators definitely improve the sound but more likely as the source for an actual internal DAC chip because as Chris says most external DAC's resample the incoming signal.

One potential problem I see is that high frequency signals need to be carefully routed, and is very difficult using point-to-point wiring.

In our new products the The Juli@ sound card is no longer being used, USB is the preferred connection, it supports higher sample rates and DSD.

Ultimately if it sounds better in a given system that is the only concern that matters.

james

Hi James, Thank you for your comment, I spoke to Pio who designed that mod and he said that the original traces connecting crystals on Julia@ card are extremely long and use multiple vias to reach the ESI chip's input pins, so his short angle free, point to point wiring that connects right to the input pins through one via only does not do any more harm than the original design. He did also say that this mod should improve the sound of any system, a better sounding SOURCE should be heard at the end of the chain! Otherwise, any upgrades or changes in the system would be totally pointless.

[unincognito]

Ultimately if it sounds better in a given system that is the only concern that matters.

Really that should be all that really matters

[James Tanner]

Hi James, Thank you for your comment, I spoke to Pio who designed that mod and he said that the original traces connecting crystals on Julia@ card are extremely long and use multiple vias to reach the ESI chip's input pins, so his short angle free, point to point wiring that connects right to the input pins through one via only does not do any more harm than the original design. He did also say that this mod should improve the sound of any system, a better sounding SOURCE should be heard at the end of the chain! Otherwise, any upgrades or changes in the system would be totally pointless.

Hi malpa

Here is a shot of the BDP-1 circuit board and only one of the four traces actually goes to another board layer and all four are very short. 



james

[malpa]

Hi malpa

Here is a shot of the BDP-1 circuit board and only one of the four traces actually goes to another board layer and all four are very short. 



james

Hello James,
Just spoke to Pio about it and he said the other clock is not shown for obvious reason, the trace connecting the input pin with 22.5792 goes through 2 vias and the other side of the board,  and ground currents are flowing underneath both crystals from other electronics as well, the ground planes underneath should be left out to keep currents flow to a minimum, preferably zero.
He said as well that you did an excellent job with removing those crystals off the board! now there are few other parts to be removed on the other side and you are ready to connect his upgrade board to be a very happy bunny .

[luk@s]

Hi,
I hope you are all well ,
Just wanted to share my happiness with the BRYSTON BDP-1 player upgrade done by my good friend Pio (jaudioresearch@instagram)
He has designed a PCB for BRYSTON players that use ESI Juli@ sound card.
the main chip on that card (ESI chip) uses 2 external crystals of cheap quality, the new PCB upgrades them to the best crystal oscillators available on the market (Crytek 957), PCB is quite large and there is a separate power transformer, ultra-low noise power supplies, and many anti-vibration tricks and as he said the shortest signal path possible!
I can find out more, I think he is planning to sell those boards for DIY.
The improvement in sound is huge! the stage, separation, and depth or width is so much bigger than it was, I'm so happy with it,
absolutely amazed with the upgrade!

Hello
I'm new here, and I have been following Bryston circles for a while now and i found this post, got in touch with jAudio and i decided to send my BDP-1 for an upgrade, not sure if my decision was right , hoping for a good outcome. I've been wondering if anyone here got their Bryston modded?
Luka

[R. Daneel]

Hello
I'm new here, and I have been following Bryston circles for a while now and i found this post, got in touch with jAudio and i decided to send my BDP-1 for an upgrade, not sure if my decision was right , hoping for a good outcome. I've been wondering if anyone here got their Bryston modded?
Luka

Hi Luka!

Be sure to post your comments when your BDP-1 arrives. Keep in mind that ESI Juli@ is a PC soundcard so the mod could be implement in PCs. It would be a fun experiment.

Cheers - Antun