[zybar]

I think one of the other issues I see these days is a lot of people collect digital files and store them on huge harddrives but never actually listen to but a few of them.

I mean when it says "you have 400,000 songs and 2.5 years of continuous music"  what's the point

James

James,

This is a very unexpected and disappointing response from you.

Because the product has challenges with larger collections, you say we shouldn't have large collections because we probably don't listen to everything?   

I happen to have a large collection that I have accumulated over the last 20 years.  While there are definitely artists and albums that I don't listen to often, I want a system that allows me to access my entire collection whenever I choose.

Whatever vendors I decide to do business with will need to support this approach or else they will lose my business.

George

[James Tanner]

Sorry you are disapointed George but I see this a lot. They rarely listen - they just collect. 

James

[alexone]

hi, all!

fwiw, as long as i can remember James always stated from the very first beginning that the BDP-1 is not made for huge collections of music and therefore it might be the wrong product for that customer.

yes of course it would be cool if the BDP-1 could handle millions and zillions of songs...i am one of these guys who has now an uncountable amount of music...
but my main concern why i purchased the BDP-1 was that i wanted the quality of playback that i love. and that's why i am a Bryston customer!

however, we can't blame James here for wrong or unfair statements regarding the initial purpose of the BDP-1.

my two cents,

al.

[Marius]

Hi,

Although I feel for both James and George's viewpoint, i believe a solution is in the make that caters for both. The Nas feature could relieve the Bdp1 of all it's file handling, copying, transferring and storing and indexing duties, that are the main source of issues at the moment. At least, according to these forumposts.

If the Bdp architecture could be transformed likewise, it would be the perfect machine for both 'sides' of the user-spectrum: standalone (max 2 hdd) for those with 'modest' collections, and sparse collection changes. On the other hand in a more complex network setup, attached to a Nas, for those with more extensive collections, and more frequent changes/updates to that collection, which could then also be universally readable/usable , thus making it unnecessary to have multiple collections for multiple machines. Which is the reality of today, let alone tomorrow.

No compromise would have to be made, hopefully no hardware (processor, memory) update to the Bdp would be necessary, and versatility would be optimized, while still upholding the main goal of ultimate soundquality. Future proof to come with that. Making the rather substantial investment in the Bdp-1/ Bda-1 combo really pay of.

I believe Chris to be fully engaged in this Nas feature aspect. Find that very nice, and hope that with our feedback,  this helps him to reach the goal above as soon as possible.

Thanks,

Marius

[zybar]

hi, all!

fwiw, as long as i can remember James always stated from the very first beginning that the BDP-1 is not made for huge collections of music and therefore it might be the wrong product for that customer.

yes of course it would be cool if the BDP-1 could handle millions and zillions of songs...i am one of these guys who has now an uncountable amount of music...
but my main concern why i purchased the BDP-1 was that i wanted the quality of playback that i love. and that's why i am a Bryston customer!

however, we can't blame James here for wrong or unfair statements regarding the initial purpose of the BDP-1.

my two cents,

al.

I don't quite remember things that way...but in most respects it doesn't really matter.

Sonically, the BDP-1 is excellent and I am incredibly happy with my purchase and the outstanding customer service that James and Chris provide.

While the user interface isn't as good as some competing products, I was more than willing to live with that given its performance.  It would be a shame if I had to move to an alternative solution because the BDP-1 couldn't handle my collection.  Hopefully the potential NAS solution will solve this challenge and as Marius stated, we all win!

George

[zybar]

Hi Marius

I guess I mean a bit of both. The BDP-1 was never intended to replace a system that had many thousands of digital files and powering the large driVes needed for such using the internal USB power buss. I would say once you get past about 60,000 files things start to slow down when it comes to managing that large a playlist.

I have a 2 TB POWERED drive and a 2TB Western Digital Passport buss powered drive which seems fine but I think that's about as big as I would recommend with the BDP-1.

James

I have (2) 2TB self powered drives connected and while initial load (or re-load) takes a long time, it isn't something I need to do often, so I live with it.  If I am adding more than an album or two, I simply batch the job and have it run overnight.  Again, not ideal, but livable.

What is more frustrating to me is how long it takes MPaD to reload or add additional music.  That wouldn't be as big a problem if the Byston interface wasn't lacking in key features/functionality.  I am anxiously awaiting the new version of MAX2 to see what magic Chris has worked.

George

[gil99]

Hi all,
We used to have our music on CD's with 10 to 15 song on it and change cd whenever we want to listen to.  What is keeping us to keep our music on 1tb harddrive and change to the hardrive with the music we want to listen to.  Instead of getting 10 to 15 song we get 1000's at each time we change the drive.  I don't see any big deal keeping all your library, it is just a matter of getting organize.  I love my BDP-1 and would not change it for nothing else available today.  Just get yourself the number of 500 or 1tb drive needed for your library and change to the drive you want to listen to.  I have a 5oo gb WD passport with over 500 cd's on it and when I add new music on it (I connect it directly to my computer) when I reconnect it to the BDP-1 it take less than 5 min. to update and after I refresh my mpod which takes about 1 min. then ready to listen to music.

[zybar]

Hi all,
We used to have our music on CD's with 10 to 15 song on it and change cd whenever we want to listen to.  What is keeping us to keep our music on 1tb harddrive and change to the hardrive with the music we want to listen to.  Instead of getting 10 to 15 song we get 1000's at each time we change the drive.  I don't see any big deal keeping all your library, it is just a matter of getting organize.  I love my BDP-1 and would not change it for nothing else available today.  Just get yourself the number of 500 or 1tb drive needed for your library and change to the drive you want to listen to.

That might be ok for you, but that won't work for me. 

One of the reasons I went to computer based audio years and years ago was to provide access to my whole collection without having to switch cd's.  While switching HD's is better than single cd swaps, it isn't a tolerable solution from my point of view.

George

I don't just sit down and listen only to a single genre.

[gil99]

Hi George,

Couldn't you organize your different drive the way your preference of listening to music is.  Don't forget that you can connect two drive with two memory stick also, that give you a lot of flexibility.  A thing that I love from the BDP-1 is that I don't need  a computer to play my music (I use the mancave option as James call it).  I like that it could be use as a stand alone player.

Gil

[Marius]

I'm with George here. One moment I feel like listening to Wagners Ring, and scroll in my Cabinet or Digital collection which version I want to listen to this time, the other moment I am in the mood for some Miles Davis, and  so on. It would be completely unsatisfying if I had to change hdd's all the time, or maybe even prepare USB for that matter.It would be like storing all my cd's in the cellar, selecting a handful and having to go up and down the stairs every time that pile of cd's won't do it at that moment. I get inspired by browsing my cabinet/Albumart, and select what fits the mood best.

(that's a firm reason btw why the Albumart is such an important feature for me)


It just doesn't work like that right now. No matter how wonderful the BDp1 sounds, it should get better on file management and user operability.

I sincerely hope, and to be honest, feel assured that the Brystonians will live up to that expectation....


Marius

Hi George,

Couldn't you organize your different drive the way your preference of listening to music is.  Don't forget that you can connect two drive with two memory stick also, that give you a lot of flexibility.  A thing that I love from the BDP-1 is that I don't need  a computer to play my music (I use the mancave option as James call it).  I like that it could be use as a stand alone player.

Gil

[zybar]

Hi George,

Couldn't you organize your different drive the way your preference of listening to music is.  Don't forget that you can connect two drive with two memory stick also, that give you a lot of flexibility.  A thing that I love from the BDP-1 is that I don't need  a computer to play my music (I use the mancave option as James call it).  I like that it could be use as a stand alone player.

Gil

Gil,

I want software to catalog and arrange my music, not how I have it stored on the physical disks or memory sticks.

In fact, a good software solution makes it easier for me to access MORE of my collection.  I can easily see what's in the collection (which is hard to do when I have 6000+ cd's) and access it. 

George

[ronman]

Hi Marius

The distortion you are hearing could be break down of the packet data being sent from your hard drives. Try changing your hard drive usb cables and even run all your hard drives to a powered usb hub, then connect the hub to one of the usb sockets on the bdp-1. Your ipad will still "see" all the connected flash / hard drives. I was mucking about once and I had a combination of seven hard drives and flash drives connected to a usb hub which was plugged in at the rear of the bdp-1. I use a samsung tablet running mpdroid, it saw all the drives connected to the usb hub and played my playlists without issues.  Flash drives were 8 & 16 gig verbatum and kingston....hard drives were seagate 1.5 & 2 terrabytes.   

Hope some of that helps
Ronald

[Marius]

HI Ronald,

Thanks! The option of a Usb hub is still on my todo list, I certainly want to check that out soon. Do you have a recommendation for the Hub? There seem to be a lot of them, and I wouldn't know how to select/decide which one to buy.

I did already try an AudioQuest cable, but couldn't notice any difference whatsoever. Not in preventing the issues mention earlier, and I couldn't hear any improvement sound quality either, so I returned it.

Marius

[ronman]

Hi Marius

Good brand of cable that. Use Audioquest myself. No. Changing the usb cable to the bdp-1 wont make a difference in sound quality, tried it already in the search of little tweaks that make a difference (more likely from a pc to the bdp-1 though), just thought you could have a cable fault. As for the usb hub its a cheapie "esquire" brand (its from one the pc distributors here).

Have you tried plugging in one hard drive at a time until the issue returns. That way you can identify the problem causer and swap it out for another. 

Ronald

[alexone]

Marius,

i have two different usb hubs...one is the D-Link Dub H4 and the other one is Skymaster 4 USB Hub (both have 4 USB inputs). the difference is that the D-Link's power supply provides 5V/2.5A and the Skymaster's "only" has 5V/2.0A. i guess that it's better to have the D-Link connected to the BDP-1 as it has a bit more power and therefore makes it more stable (especially if you have two or more tb-drives)...?!?

al.

[Sasha]

It should be understood what BDP-1 is and what product niche it belongs to.
There is plenty of the information available on HW and design choices made during BDP-1 inception.
Once you consider this you will realize it is not only an issue of power but the demand you place with large file systems and indexing on limited processing and memory resources what will inevitably result in increased jitter. Playing with USB cables and hubs is futile as it does nothing to address the root cause of the problem.
You need to scale down your expectations.

[Marius]

Hi Sasha,

Don't judge too fast. The issues mentioned here might certainly have to do with the lack of power from the usb ports at the back of the BDP1. If so, and the USB hubs could counter this problem/design-choice that would be wonderful of course. We'll see.

If not, and the distortion-issue (no jitter issue was mentioned) might be caused by the design-choices of memory and processing power, the Bryston team would/could/should take advantage of our quest in trying to determine the real cause and aiding in solving it.

I tend to disagree with you the BDP1 is a niche product, and James himself has stated that the way the BDP1 plays our music is the future of the music-industry. No mentioning the BDP1 as an experiment, niche or what have you, costing 2500 Euro. Make that 5000 if you want to play (and actually hear..) some music and need to add the BDA1....

And indeed, following an email from Naim about their new releases this week, today I did receive an email from the ClassicalShop this time to corroborate that it's not: http://www.theclassicalshop.net/24bit.aspx . The offering of 24bit hi resolution files slowly is getting better, the industry seems to understand their customers won't take less for granted?

We all want the BDP to be as successful as it can be, we all want our collections to be played as wonderfully as the BDP1 can, and it could still do it better. File handling and user-friendliness/interface could, among others, be improved greatly.

I certainly do hope the bdp1's firmware updates or its successor take these issues into account: Power on the USB ports, processing power, memory-handling, file transfer-speed to name a few that would be on the top of my list.

I'm not scaling down my expectations, seems rather a strange solution in solving product-issues....

Thanks,
Marius

 

It should be understood what BDP-1 is and what product niche it belongs to.
There is plenty of the information available on HW and design choices made during BDP-1 inception.
Once you consider this you will realize it is not only an issue of power but the demand you place with large file systems and indexing on limited processing and memory resources what will inevitably result in increased jitter. Playing with USB cables and hubs is futile as it does nothing to address the root cause of the problem.
You need to scale down your expectations.

[Sasha]

Hi Sasha,

Don't judge too fast. The issues mentioned here might certainly have to do with the lack of power from the usb ports at the back of the BDP1. If so, and the USB hubs could counter this problem/design-choice that would be wonderful of course. We'll see.

If not, and the distortion-issue (no jitter issue was mentioned) might be caused by the design-choices of memory and processing power, the Bryston team would/could/should take advantage of our quest in trying to determine the real cause and aiding in solving it.

I tend to disagree with you the BDP1 is a niche product, and James himself has stated that the way the BDP1 plays our music is the future of the music-industry. No mentioning the BDP1 as an experiment, niche or what have you, costing 2500 Euro. Make that 5000 if you want to play (and actually hear..) some music and need to add the BDA1....

And indeed, following an email from Naim about their new releases this week, today I did receive an email from the ClassicalShop this time to corroborate that it's not: http://www.theclassicalshop.net/24bit.aspx . The offering of 24bit hi resolution files slowly is getting better, the industry seems to understand their customers won't take less for granted?

We all want the BDP to be as successful as it can be, we all want our collections to be played as wonderfully as the BDP1 can, and it could still do it better. File handling and user-friendliness/interface could, among others, be improved greatly.

I certainly do hope the bdp1's firmware updates or its successor take these issues into account: Power on the USB ports, processing power, memory-handling, file transfer-speed to name a few that would be on the top of my list.

I'm not scaling down my expectations, seems rather a strange solution in solving product-issues....

Thanks,
Marius

Marius,

The way BDP-1 plays music is certainly the future of the music-industry and James did not say anything incorrect but it does not deny the facts about BDP-1 design and the segment of the market it was aimed at. You can achieve the playback of high resolution files in more than one way, and PC based transports (what BDP-1 actually is) is indeed a niche product in that sense.

The cost of BDP-1, while it may look excessive to you, cannot be used as an argument against implications of design choices made and justification for unfounded expectations.
And frankly it is not that expensive when you take an honest look at it. Try to build your own PC based transport that is capable of handling much larger files systems and indexes but without making compromises in other areas. Just to mention a couple of challenges, you will need to address heat generation problems using passive cooling and much higher demand for power by scaling up PSUs, and that will drive the cost up enormously.
I have firsthand experience with that.

The lack of processing power, memory and bus issues indeed cause jitter or even complete failure to deliver data what results in dropouts, this is not something that can be argued, it is a well known fact that has been experienced with countless variations of PC based transports.
When you talk distortion in digital domain you can only talk about data drop-outs or jitter when you reach DA conversion stage. Causes can be many but the end result is the same. So when you talk about BDP-1 and distortion, you can only talk about jitter and data drop-outs, what else is there?

There are no product issues here at all IMO, rather an incorrect understanding of the product that led to false expectations and unjustified demands placed on the system.
It is the same story like the one about music servers from other manufacturers vs. BDP-1 all over again.
BDP-1 is not music server. It is PC based transport that shines in its performance when used correctly and within its limitations, the measurements as well as subjective assessments of the product show that.

[James Tanner]

Boy you got that right Sasha ---

"Try to build your own PC based transport that is capable of handling much larger files systems and indexes but without making compromises in other areas. Just to mention a couple of challenges, you will need to address heat generation problems using passive cooling and much higher demand for power by scaling up PSUs, and that will drive the cost up enormously". 

james

[NMG]

I am no techie, but considering what the BDP-1 does, how well it does it and how solidly it is put together, I think the price actually is pretty moderate, especially in view of the inflated prices of digital stereo equipment these days. Why on earth, for example, should a DAC cost $5K - $10K, even taking into account cost of engineering talent?

Neal