Hi everybody !
I received the BDA-1 yesterday, played with it for a few hours now and what I can say is WOW ! First thing I noticed immediately : the bass. They're deep but very clean, sharp. Then, the transparency. It's very detailed (not clinical) yet musical (not dry or cold). The BDA-1 is well balanced. I'm glad to have this new DAC in my setup and I'm sure now that it will become the center of my multimedia system (along with my BP26). As I'm no longer a multichannel fan, all my digital sources including blu-ray player or game system will soon be connected to it and I can't wait to hear high resolutions tracks through it.
As a side note, I'd like to precise that I owned a Benchmark DAC1 few months ago (I returned it quickly) which I found too clinical and dry (it has some qualities of course). Compared to the Bryston, as I remember it, I'd say the Benchmark is like a decoding machine (a computer) where the Bryston is a musical instrument (thanks to its excellent analog stage I believe).
Regarding upsampling, contrary to some comments I read, its (good) effect is clearly audible and I leave it engaged in most situations. I noticed its better to turn it off with some old digital recordings or bad digital reissues of analog recordings as it makes poor quality (or lack) of both bass and highs frequencies very obvious. The problem comes from the recording, not from the upsampling.
James, please give my congratulations to everyone at Bryston involved in the design of the BDA-1. It makes no doubt that these people know their job but they also love music. Thank you !
Aramys (now waiting for high res, uncrippled downloads... with a large choice...)
