The people speak out (or at least I hope they will - a bit)

Adz523 · « **Reply #60 on:** 8 Mar 2005, 02:01 am »

It's very good to see that Bryston is focusing all their efforts on the audio side of things. Again, I think they should stick to what they do best and continue to develop this niche along with a larger following. I've said it before, but I really think they have a golden opportunity now more than ever to produce a new generation 1.7 with both new software and hardware upgrades that would enable Bryston to gain a lot more market share. At this price point, the "1.7+ " could really differentiate itself against the more popular pre/pros that people generally first consider such as Anthem, Halo, Krell, Arcam, EAD, etc and even attract those looking to more expensive processors such as Meridian or Lexicon. Further, the SST line would almost certainly benefit from this. I'm excited about what the not too distant future will bring.

BeeBop · « **Reply #61 on:** 8 Mar 2005, 11:13 am »

Quote from: dan_lo

Why would people buy a transport, when it is almost a concensus that one can build a DAC almost totally independent from the transport....

I'm no expert in audio equipment marketing but there are an awful lot of stand alone DACs out there that are being used with DVD players, highly modded or not, cheap CD players, etc.. I would have thought that a solid transport putting out a low jitter, nicely formed signal would find a market. Since the transport is the most frail part of an audio system, then a stand alone transport could be replaced if need be without having to replace the DAC in the box as well.

I like the idea of the DAC in the BP pre-amp - you are only paying for the DAC since you already have the power supply and case.

Just my 2¢.

dan_lo · « **Reply #62 on:** 8 Mar 2005, 06:44 pm »

Hi BeeBop.
James Tanner corrected my assumption so our debate is irrelevant, but just for the sake of arguement:

Quote

.. I would have thought that a solid transport putting out a low jitter, nicely formed signal would find a market. Since the transport is the most frail part of an audio system, then a stand alone transport could be replaced if need be without having to replace the DAC in the box as well.

It is that not hard to find a reliable CD-transport. I have an old cheap Yamaha CDP that never showed any sign of age, eventhough the build quality seems poor. Even if the transport needs to be replaced - you can always buy another cheap Rotel.

Why don't you try something- if you can find a Chord DAC64,a Bryston B-something-DAC or a Benchmark DAC1 - try them with something like a Rotel 971, and then with something like Levinson 32, or Wadia 861. I'd be surprised if there is much of a difference.

BeeBop · « **Reply #63 on:** 9 Mar 2005, 10:54 am »

A lot of people rave about the modded Sony S7700 dvd player as a transport. Mods alone for this are ~$1300! According to Steve at Empirical Audio, and the people who buy this modded transport, things like waveform and jitter do make a noticeable difference and are not found in every CD player.

nicolasb · « **Reply #64 on:** 9 Mar 2005, 11:26 am »

I don't know why everyone is making such heavy weather of this. There are two different types of DAC devices: one that uses the input pulses to determine timing, and one that uses its own separate clock-circuit for timing.

The first type is strongly dependent on the quality of the transport. The second type isn't.

It really is that simple.

thomaspf · « **Reply #65 on:** 9 Mar 2005, 07:17 pm »

Well, almost that easy.

The factors that are being left out here are quality and cost.

A design with an asynchronous sample rate converter like the Bryston, Benchmark Media, Bel Canto, ... DACs will still be impacted in sound by quality of the digital link by the source. These DACs will basically play a different song every time you play a track and with a better source this will sound more similar from one playback to the next. What these design will take care of is the jitter induced sidebands that you will find if you directly slave your clock from the input signal.

In order to actually play the same bits every time and still get rid of the jitter you have a couple of options which vary greatly in price. Starting from the most expensive.

1. Multi-stage synchronous dejitter circuit like what Weiss is doing in their DAC1. They even removed the master clock I/O on their latest model.

2. Deep memory dejitter buffer and time shifting like the Chord DAC64

These two options still have the clock of the sender as the master clock of the playback chain which is probably the wrong choice.

3. Master clock output combined with S/PDIF on the DAC and slaving your source from that. Universal Audio, DCS, or Meitner make DACs that follow this design pattern. The source will have no impact on the sound as long as you transmit the same set of bit samples. A $150 sound card will sound as good as an esoteric DCS player. However building a reasonable priced player in this category looks like an interesting niche! The Philips chip sets for car CD players have all the logic necessary logic to do this.

4. USB or Ethernet asynchronous mode with the master clock in the DAC
This is probably the cheapest and most robust method of all. The USB audio spec has an asynchronous mode where the clock in the DAC is the master and the DAC fetches the data from the source on demand. There is a $5 chip from TI that enables this mode. Again if you want to build a standalone CD player rather than using a computer source (which seems to be the future anyway) you could use the car stereo chipsets that allow you to slave all the mechanics to an external clock.

Cheers

Thomas

Adz523 · « **Reply #66 on:** 25 Mar 2005, 02:22 am »

Quote from: Mike Pickett

Quote
Nicolasb wrote:
Is there any chance you could clarify what you mean by "soon"?

How's about 'Spring'? If I try to be any more precise I'll wind up apologizing later.

Mike

Well Spring doesn't feel like its in the air yet in the Northeast, but technically the Vernal Equinox has passed. Yeah, yeah, I know. Just overly excited, I guess!

James Tanner · « **Reply #67 on:** 25 Mar 2005, 02:34 pm »

I do not believe Mike said 'which spring'.

james

nicolasb · « **Reply #68 on:** 25 Mar 2005, 03:02 pm »

Yeah, he might have meant "Spring, 2007".

Adz523 · « **Reply #69 on:** 25 Mar 2005, 10:30 pm »

Quote from: Adz523

Quote from: Mike Pickett
Quote
Nicolasb wrote:
Is there any chance you could clarify what you mean by "soon"?

How's about 'Spring'? If I try to be any more precise I'll wind up apologizing later.

Mike

Well Spring doesn't feel like its in the air yet in the Northeast, but technically the Vernal Equinox has passed. Yeah, yeah, I know. Just overly excited, I guess!

Now that's cold (no pun intended).

James, is Mike willing to reply or did he see his shadow?

James Tanner · « **Reply #70 on:** 26 Mar 2005, 02:14 am »

Mike reads the posts daily so we should see a response soon.

james

Mike Pickett · « **Reply #71 on:** 4 Apr 2005, 06:37 pm »

Oops. Sorry about that. Guess I've been a little lax in checking the posts.

Anyway, still lots of software work to be done before this update is a reality. Sorry I can't say anything more useful than that.

Mike

P.S. Judging by the past weekend, spring may still be a ways off...

Adz523 · « **Reply #72 on:** 7 Apr 2005, 12:26 am »

Mike,

Can we assume that the software upgrades being implemented (i.e., more powerful DSP chip) will be able to support DTS-HD and Dolby Digital Plus? Blu-Ray & HD-DVD have announced (months ago) that these formats will be supported. But then I assume to support the increased bandwidth of either format that something like HDMI would need to be implemented into the processor which would mean a hardware upgrade next?

Mike Pickett · « **Reply #73 on:** 8 Apr 2005, 07:14 pm »

The TI DSP we are going to use has the speed and the capability to decode any new formats from Dolby or DTS. As formats become reality, the firmware on the DSP can be updated to support them.

It looks like Dolby Digital Plus actually exists (I think), and can be transmitted via S/PDIF, so no problem regarding hardware compatibility, although it sounds like it would be capable of better perfomance with a faster digital connection.

Obviously, DTS-HD would need some form of high bandwith digital connection, but I coudn't find any record of it's existence other than a single press release from DTS that's been cut and pasted to 100's of other sites, so I'm not going to get too worried.

Thus far, the only digital connection that can be (or has been, anyway) used for high bandwidth digital is Firewire, and only in proprietary applications. Apparently HDMI 1.2 will allow both DVD-A and SACD audio bitstreams, but will it be used? Maybe 'Super HDMI' or 'HDCP Ultra' will work.

This is just based on a few minutes of internet research, which is dodgy to begin with, so I might be talking through my hat, but it's Friday, so I welcome the opportunity to surf and call it work...

Mike

Adz523 · « **Reply #74 on:** 10 May 2005, 02:17 am »

Hey MIKE,
Any update (fav or unfav) on the Spring Upgrade?

James Tanner · « **Reply #75 on:** 11 May 2005, 03:00 pm »

Hi All,

We have been delayed on the software side - hopefully it will be sorted out by the end of May.

james

nicolasb · « **Reply #76 on:** 11 May 2005, 03:29 pm »

James, are you at the point yet where the feature-set is nailed down and you're just debugging, or are you still deciding what to include and what not to include?

Either way, there must presumably be some things that are definitely going to be included in the post-upgrade software, so how about giving us a list of them?

James Tanner · « **Reply #77 on:** 11 May 2005, 03:32 pm »

Nothing nailed down.
We may release the new digital boards with the current software and as we go allow software upgrades to be downloaded as we develop them.

james

nicolasb · « **Reply #78 on:** 12 May 2005, 08:48 am »

Quote from: James Tanner

and as we go allow software upgrades to be downloaded as we develop them.

Downloadable software upgrades (as opposed to the current system of opening up the case and physically replacing an EPROM chip) sound like a very good idea to me, regardless of the content.

gravy · « **Reply #79 on:** 12 May 2005, 01:51 pm »

Quote from: nicolasb

Quote from: James Tanner
and as we go allow software upgrades to be downloaded as we develop them.

Downloadable software upgrades (as opposed to the current system of opening up the case and physically replacing an EPROM chip) sound like a very good idea to me, regardless of the content.

Hear, hear! This is a great idea.

Poll

What new product or upgrade do you think Bryston should produce next?

The people speak out (or at least I hope they will - a bit)