Bryston CD Player

James Tanner · « **on:** 13 Jan 2005, 07:05 pm »

Hi All,

I would appreciate some feedback on a CD product we are thinking about.
Do you think there is still a market for a high quality Bryston stereo CD Player? The player would play STEREO only --- CD’s, CDR’s, SACD etc.

We were thinking of 2 possible options:

1.A drive only with the assumption it would be plugged into the BP26 DAC or the SP1.7 using the digital output only. SACD would be processed through a pair of analog outputs

2.A complete CD player with Bryston discrete DAC’s, analog outputs and balanced outs.

Thanks for your time on this.

james

Fife12 · « **Reply #1 on:** 13 Jan 2005, 07:22 pm »

Two channel stereo CD & SACD would be a good start.

1) I assume this would be a Transport only option. Now which type of transport mechanism would you be going with? A top-loader would be extremely nice

2) A CD player with bryston dac's would be great.

TT9 · « **Reply #2 on:** 13 Jan 2005, 09:08 pm »

If I might take a moment to offer my own opinion, I prefer the transport style of players. Only because I like the flexibility of a seperate DAC/Processor/Upsampler possibility so I could change them to my tastes. I have been toying with dCS's CD/SACD transport offering but at that price can't stomach it.

A more affordable high quality product would appeal to the like of me.

Thanks and Regards,
Steve.

pavlosn · « **Reply #3 on:** 13 Jan 2005, 10:05 pm »

A Bryston CD/SACD player would be very welcome.

My prefernce is probably for a transport only as long as a low jitter way of trasfering the digidal signal to the DACs on the SP1.7 (or more likely its successor) can be implemented.

Although 2ch audio is very importand and probably how most of us listen to most of our music, given the relative scarcity of SACD material compared to CD, it would be nice to have the option of musltichannel SACD output as well either in analogue or digidal form. By designing such multichannel capability into the product either as an original feature or as an easily implemented future upgrade (when connection issues have sorted themselves out perhaps) the product would be futureproof.

Have I read somewhere that digital transfer of SACD data is now possible through HDMI?

Regards

Pavlos

KJ · « **Reply #4 on:** 13 Jan 2005, 10:46 pm »

Quote

Do you think there is still a market for a high quality Bryston stereo CD Player?

I'll go out on a limb and state it's a risky move given the market place. Bryston is competing in a tight market to begin with which doesn't appear to be growing by all reports. DVD-A vs. SACD competition hurt both formats rather than bolster them. More and more people are downloading songs rather than purchasing them. Assuming a high-res format gains in popularity, I would think you need to address the following questions:

a) Can Bryston build a better transport than the competition?
b) Can Bryston sell a transport for less or equal money than the competition?
c) Can Bryston apply the usual 20-year warranty to a component with moving parts?
d) Can Bryston break into the market successfully this late in the game?

Don't get me wrong, it would be nice to have a transport with Bryston quality. However, I'm probably one of the few that would rather buy a mediocre transport that supports the "media of the moment" and feed the signal digitally into one of Bryston's already superior pre-amps (w/ DAC). Purchasing a high-end transport that will have a limited usable life-span given ever changing formats doesn't suit my needs. I'm more inclined to move all my media to a PC and feed it digitally to my system. My $0.02

-KJ

WEEZ · « **Reply #5 on:** 13 Jan 2005, 11:15 pm »

Here goes:

IMHO, most Bryston fans would love to have a player compatible with Bryston gear, and to match Bryston equipment- both in looks and in sonics.

That said, there are the dedicated 2-channel guys (and gals) like me; and then there's the multi-channel folks. (how many channels are there now, 5, 7, 11?).

I believe that the 2-channel folks would prefer a good all-in-one player with the option of it also being available in a transport only. Those who own Bryston B60/20/25/26 could then choose depending on whether they already own the dac-optioned versions or the standard versions.

As for Multi-channel DVD/DVD-A- I have no clue.

One of your dealers (KJ will know) thought you should buy Naim's CD players and put you name on them. I will say,that when I auditioned a Naim CD5i with a B60, there was great synergy.

WEEZ

Rich Carlson · « **Reply #6 on:** 13 Jan 2005, 11:48 pm »

I think a transport-only option with Bryston styling and build would be great - there seem to be few transports available these days without silly prices. A transport with optional plug-ins for later addition of DACs would be nice.
Rich

Levi · « **Reply #7 on:** 14 Jan 2005, 12:57 am »

1. I would suggest to start with an excellent transport.
2. Excellent powersupply.
3. 24bit/192Khz upsampling DAC board. see picture.

Internal view with Sony CDM14/BD25 transport. Note: Balanced analog output.

Swiss Made Anagram Technologies upsampling DAC. Anagram Technologies

Sonically, instruments should sound life like with details that's not etched.

Levi

KJ · « **Reply #8 on:** 14 Jan 2005, 12:57 am »

Quote

One of your dealers (KJ will know) thought you should buy Naim's CD players and put you name on them.

Ah, you're right! Almost forgot about that. I believe the desire was to have a transport "built like a tank."

Let me throw this out. For those users who connect their cd players analog to a Bryston preamp, a Bryston transport makes logical sense. However, is there a significant benefit in having a Bryston transport when connecting digitally to a pre-amp (or pre/pro) with a DAC? I imagine you might be able to improve the noise floor, but what else?

-KJ

declancd7q · « **Reply #9 on:** 14 Jan 2005, 01:39 am »

I agree with KJ's comments: Bryston is competing in a very specialized and small premium market (i.e. CD/SACD transport or CDP)....there's allot of transports out there....is there going to be any market advantage with Bryston CDP or transport?

I can understand Bryston offering a separate DAC as this would complement both Bryston and non-Bryston setups. Currently Bryston DACs are only avail bundled with preamp.

A power board conditioner/filter may be worth exploring since this compliments Brystons direction and may benefit other components as well like SACD player, tuner, record player etc.

John Casler · « **Reply #10 on:** 14 Jan 2005, 01:47 am »

Why not just do the BP26 route

1) Transport
2) DAC
3) MPS 2 Power Supply

$2999 for the trio or $1899 for the DAC and Transport if you already have the BP25 and MPS 2. (pricing is just for illustration purposes)

I bet we end up there eventually

Jabroni · « **Reply #11 on:** 14 Jan 2005, 02:03 am »

Hi James

Ideally the ultimate source component for listening to music would offer both maximum sound quality as well as maximum and instant accessability to ones entire music collection. Given those criteria I believe you simply cannot beat using dedicated computer hard drives to store all of your CDs in uncompressed form (hard drives are so cheap these days) using the digital outputs of a world class sound card into a world class outboard DAC so personally I would not buy either of the options you are considering. As more and more audiophiles realize the aforementioned benefits of such an approach (and the relative cost effectiveness) I think the market for audiophile CD players and transports will diminish even further.

As a dedicated 2 channel guy however, there is a product that for some inexplicable reason is being blatantly ignored by hi end audio manufacturers. I'll explain it this way:

Just because my system only has 2 channels doesn't mean that I don't watch TV and movies. I just am unwilling to shell out the bucks it requires to do multi channel right. So here's the problem:

my 2 bell express vu satellite receivers only have optical outs
my panasonic dvd recorder only has an optical out
my DVD player has both coax and optical outputs
I use the optical out of my soundcard because it sounds better (John Atkinson of Stereopile found the same thing in his review of the RME soundcard in Novemeber 2000 - think it has something to do with refractions and long cable lengths)

Aside from the extra satellite receiver this is not an unreasonable system in terms of digital input requirements. Surely I must not be the only one with this problem. Even if I had the SP1.7 I would still have a problem with having sufficient appropriate inputs.

So James, what I would really like to buy is not a Bryston CD player or even a stand alone DAC but rather a hi quality, remote controlled Bryston digital input / output box with minimum 4 optical, 4 coax and 2 XLR inputs and 2 optical, 2 coax and 2 XLR outputs. Users would be able to output to the DAC portion of their BP25/26 or B60 as well as a soundcard or TACT / Z systems type equalizer using whatever output they found sounded best.
Also it would be imperative that there be no clicks or pops whatsoever on input switching or when you change the channels off the satellite or the song changes off the hard drive as happens with an older but highly regarded processor I bought second hand to use soley to accomodate all of my digital inputs (not to mention the signal bleeding that occurs from one input to the other - I eventually wound up solving the pops and clicks by first routing the satellite and soundcard outputs through the inputs of a MD recorder before sending it on to the processor - not a very elegant solution).

I would be willing to pay $1200 if it had the Bryston name on it. Surely I can't be the only 2 channel guy who needs a hi quality consumer switcher for all his digital sources.

Make it and we will buy

Any thoughts or discussions on bringing such a product to market James?
How do the rest of you 2 channel guys handle all your digital input needs?

Jabroni

Crimson · « **Reply #12 on:** 14 Jan 2005, 02:04 am »

My vote would be to skip the moving parts and go with a prosumer multiple input DAC configurable with filters, a no filter option, and selectable/defeatable up/oversampling.

Eric · « **Reply #13 on:** 14 Jan 2005, 04:04 am »

I think the more product that Bryston can offer that have synergy with one another, the better!!!!

antt · « **Reply #14 on:** 14 Jan 2005, 06:54 am »

Hi James, I'm multichannel oriented, so a stereo only CD player wouldn't interest me. It might if it was upgradable to the DVD formats. Then it would DEFINITELY interest me.
Is there still a market for this? I don't know, I haven't looked at that market in some time.

nicolasb · « **Reply #15 on:** 14 Jan 2005, 09:53 am »

I'd be quite interested in a digital-only CD transport - but only if it's incredibly low jitter and really cheap. There simply aren't any cheap, low-jitter, pure transports, so it might be a useful niche product.

As far as a with-DACs player is concerned, I think the existing level of competition in the market-place may simply be too great for a new product from a smaller company to be able to compete. I suppose you could go for the high end - put yourself up against the Linn CD12, etc.

I think Bryston might be better advised to come up with a multi-channel transport - something that can decode (but not necessarily convert) DVD-Audio, and send it to an SP1.7 via Firewire or HDMI, and then have the SP1.7 do jitter removal, conversion and bass-management.

You would (I think) need to have DACs in the player to do SACD. As far as I know you have to have the DACs in the player for SACD, otherwise you have to convert the signal to PCM and you lose all of the advantages the format offers. But, even there, I still can't see the point of having a stereo-only product if there are multi-channel SACDs available.

rosconey · « **Reply #16 on:** 14 Jan 2005, 11:50 am »

to me its a market that is saturated at this time-
blue ray is about to start,dvda and sacd are teetering on the edge.
mass market pc based sytsems are just around the corner.

unless you are just going to rebadge a existing unit you might be better of holding till the next new format is solid.

BeeBop · « **Reply #17 on:** 14 Jan 2005, 08:37 pm »

Rosconey has a point. I think that going the DAC route was a smart move.

brj · « **Reply #18 on:** 14 Jan 2005, 08:44 pm »

I liked the power conditioner and power supply ideas myself.

smweber2 · « **Reply #19 on:** 15 Jan 2005, 02:12 am »

I am sure that you would put together a great product, but I think it is a risky business venture. Almost all of the quality audio shops in my area have morphed into fancy TV stores as pure "hi fi" continues to lose its base of devotees. They all still carry some decent audio gear, but it seems to be a minority share of their current trade.