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