more evening sessions at lower volumes...
Pat Metheny "Imaginary Day"
This is disk is an electronics drenched fusion effort and one of Metheny's most aggressive sounds imo...
The recording has loads of sustain and reverb and the BDA-1 nails it perfectly!
It's cool listening to the background sound effects in the quieter passages.
Charles Mingus "Mingus AH UM"
With the BDA-1 this seldom played disk has risen to frequently played status.
The 20bit remastered recording is a blues-influenced swing fest and the BDA-1's agile dynamics and subtle tonal shading just sucks you in
(listened to it three times in the last two days!)
Thelonius Monk "Straight, No Chaser"
Another classic Columbia 20bit remaster that really shines.
Monk's off kilter tempos and Charlie Rouses dry tenor combine to produce a hynotic hard bop testimony.
Also listened to more of The Police box set and while "Wrapped around your finger", "Tea in the Sahara", "Murder by Numbers", etc...sound terrific..some of the other cuts sound somewhat strident and harsh relative to the previously mentioned so I guess the BDA-1 cannot be classified with that mythical status of making crappy recordings sound good
As I listen to more disks I have a growing impression this player is voiced dead center between cold, dry, analytic and warm, wet and musical...and maybe leaning slightly towards the analytic as with poorer recordings tend to sound a little hard and two dimensional.
The upside is when you listen to a good recording you get the impression that it would be very hard to find a player/DAC that would offer any significantly better performance.
It may not create the same sense of "air" around the peformers as a DAC like the $8000 MDA1000 but the BDA-1 comes close to equaling the resolution of inner detail and bests it ever so slightly in dynamics imo
Pretty good for $2000 imo
I want to get about 100 more hours of play on it before I cast final judgement
