[vegasdave]

Thank you.

[James Tanner]

Thank you.

HI,

We use the Phillips CD Drive and the only drives available with SACD capability were DVD drives which do not use mutiples of 44.1 KHz for the clocking frequency. The CD drive always sounded better than the DVD drive.

james

[vegasdave]

Is there a concern with manufacturing a cd-only player in this era of mp3s, downloading, and constant articles proclaiming the death of the cd?

Thanks again.

[Phil A]

Is there a concern with manufacturing a cd-only player in this era of mp3s, downloading, and constant articles proclaiming the death of the cd?

Thanks again.

I think for those worried about those factors, an outboard DAC might be a better choice.  I have an older DAC now that would be fine for use with stuff like that.  For me personally I've not ever downloaded anything and I don't see myself doing a lot of that, I like the stuff (e.g. booklets) that come with CDs and to me downloading music/video files is the next super speedway for hackers to mess up your PC.  I have a fair amt. of CDs and expect to buy more so spending money on something in the price range of the Bryston is not out of line in terms of the amt. of software I have and will buy.  If I even want to play music files on a USB device I just put the Oppo 980H universal player (which has a USB input) in the bedroom system which backs to the main system and zone 2 output from the rec'r will be put into the SP 1.7 as soon as I put the system back together (just got new carpet).  When I upgrade to a new CD source, I'll stick the DAC into the bedroom which feeds (4 remote) multiple other places via a speaker switcher and I can stick stuff in the changer and hear quality music all over.  I had a much clearer decision when I got into LD late in the game.  I knew I had a ltd. amt. of software, the format was on borrowed time and I would not be buying tons more.  So that came into play when I decided on what to spend on hardware.  For someone who has ltd. CD software and does not see him or herself buying lots more it may not be a good decision.  For someone who is downloading MP3s, they're probably less likely to be audiophiles and an expensive CD player may not also be the right decision.  For those into SACD and heavy into classical I can understand their disappointment about the Bryston not doing SACD since that is the genre that seems to be released most in current times.

[James Tanner]

Is there a concern with manufacturing a cd-only player in this era of mp3s, downloading, and constant articles proclaiming the death of the cd?

Thanks again.

I guess there is a concern if your Sony but a small independent company like Bryston can easily justify a limited number of sales for a state of the art CD Player.  I think most people are tired of the 'format wars' and have hundreds of CD's they want to hear with as high a fidelity as possible.

What I can tell you is that we have been running in a backorder situation for CD Players since we started shipping them 6 weeks ago. Also the response has been amazing - you will see some increadable reviews soon.

james

[BachToRock]

Thank you.

HI,

We use the Phillips CD Drive and the only drives available with SACD capability were DVD drives which do not use mutiples of 44.1 KHz for the clocking frequency. The CD drive always sounded better than the DVD drive.

james

James, this is so interesting... how is it that players such as the Marantz SA-11S1 acheive such great sound... do they have their own exclusive drive or are they comprimising the pinnacle of fidelity for the support of SACD/DVD Audio...

[James Tanner]

Thank you.

HI,

We use the Phillips CD Drive and the only drives available with SACD capability were DVD drives which do not use mutiples of 44.1 KHz for the clocking frequency. The CD drive always sounded better than the DVD drive.

james

James, this is so interesting... how is it that players such as the Marantz SA-11S1 acheive such great sound... do they have their own exclusive drive or are they comprimising the pinnacle of fidelity for the support of SACD/DVD Audio...

Not sure I can answer that as obviously there are other players out there that sound great so no arguement there.  It is just that of the drives we tried and listen to with our designs the CD only drives sounded the best.

james

[Phil A]

What someone likes or does not like is a matter of personal choice.  It is a fact that the more formats a machine plays, the more it is subject to reading errors and obviously there are parts that are involved in playing each format that can go wrong.  Take for example the Linn Unidisk 1.1.  It uses a modded Sony transport (with a metal tray) and employs separate clocks for each format, CD, DVD-A, SACD.  That is one of the reasons it costs $11k.  Whether you like or don't like its sound quality is another matter.  I have a Marantz DV9600 which I use for DVD-V, SACD and DVD-A.  It does DVD-A and DVD-V great and is decent on SACD and CD.  I currently use it as a transport for CD with an outboard DAC (an old Micromega DuoPro) and get great results.  I had it in my house vs. the Bryston and preferred the Bryston CD player.  I had a Modwright XA-777ES at one point but with the trickle of SACD releases (other than classical - which I have some) I opted to go in a different path.  At some point I may mod the DV9600 when it is out-of-warranty and improve the SACD and live with it.  I have 225+ SACDs but due to the state of things new purchases are not of the same volume as they were a couple of yrs. back.  Unless I was a classical music fanatic, I don't personally see the point of spending megabucks for a small niche format that has no chance of becoming mainstream.  I probably could live with my 2000ES changer with some mods at some point or get a newer Marantz.

[BachToRock]

James... seems to make sense since many of the latest machines receiving critical acclaim are CD only such as the Primare CD31 and the Cambridge Azur units.  It would seem they would have included one or both of the hi-res formats if it didn't comprimise the Redbook performance.
I have the SA-11S1 which is absolutely fantastic, but I am a Bryston devotee and of course would like to have the opportunity to switch over to your new player as I could give up the SACD capability.

[brucek]

It is a fact that the more formats a machine plays, the more it is subject to reading errors

Yeah, this is an interesting topic. Certainly, as soon as you decide to include more than simple CD media into a player, you open another world of differing clocks and bitstream data that needs to be detected and all it's related nonsense.

I spent quite a bit of time deciding what I would do about CD, DVD music, DVD video, SACD, and MP3 formats. For my own situation and collections of the mentioned types, I decided to use a fairly high quality jukebox made by Sony that would handle all these formats. The player model DVP-CX777ES plays all these formats and stores all my media in one carousel. I feel the ES moniker is justified in this player.

I am able to use the players DAC and pass the analog signal to my SP2 and Bryston amps or I can also use the digital output from the CX777ES and let my SP2 DAC the information. This handles most of my general situations of non-critical listening and HT.

When I get a new CD though, before it gets relegated to the jukebox, for the first few weeks of critical listening, I put it in my standalone CD player and play the pristine analog stereo signal through my SP2 in analog bypass. I use an ARCAM Alpha-9 CD player for this service. Yeah, I would like a BCD-1, but the ARCAM is not too bad. Once I've listened for a while, I move the CD to the 777ES....

brucek

[Thunder]

I agree with James, the hi-rez formats are yesterday's news, they are going nowhere fast. I'm back to focussing exclusively on redbook and DVD/HD/Bluray concerts. I recently decided to step up my CD transport and bought a Nova Physics Memory Player. All of my CD's are stored on a hard drive and played from memory. I just love this player, it really brings music to life for me, I have never been so engaged in 2 channel listening.     

[vegasdave]

Ok. I see.

[Allezvite]

One day business schools will be using SACD and DVD-A as curriculum in "How Not to Launch a New Product".

I had no problem at all buying a ARCAM FMJ CD36 last fall to upgrade from my Linn Genki.  I had held off for a couple of years waiting for the dust to settle in the SACD / DVD-A maelstrom.  In the meantime, the whole Hi-rez format market has become... more dusty!

I've not regretted the purchase of a fairly pricey (for me anyway) "just Redbook CD" player in the least.  If you have a decent-sized CD collection, a new CD-only player (maybe something like the Bryston) would be an excellent way of increasing the enjoyment of your software collection.  At over 550 CD's and growing, the value of my software easily dwarfs the value of my player anyway.  This is almost a no-brainer.

[ghersh]

One day business schools will be using SACD and DVD-A as curriculum in "How Not to Launch a New Product".

It was Sony who threw the monkey wrench into DVD-A (the standard long in development) with its proprietory SACD.

[Phil A]

Neither SACD nor DVD-A were necessary.  We had the most successful format in consumer history the DVD-V disc.  Did not require special new players and they could have handled hi-rez 2-channel and also a Dolby Digital surround mix.  If they so desired they could have put a hi-rez multi-channel mix on a separate disc.  They have tons of special edition movie DVD-Vs with 2nd or 3rd discs.  It was pure corporate greed to capture the next round of licensing fees w/o thinking of the reality of the situation and the what the avg. public wanted (not audiophiles) and could easily hook-up.