I took some pics of my setup today. As I absolutely love my Bryston equipment it's only reasonable to share them here.
This setup is what I have settled for after years of different setups using what I have experienced and learned along the way.
The computer on top is passively cooled and 100% silent and has a low power i3 CPU with 8GB RAM, a S-ATA 3 500MB/s SSD, 6 USB 2.0, 2 USB 3.0 and HDMI, DVI, VGA outputs without any bloat like wifi, bluetooth etc. It is dedicated for stereo playback and runs a 64-bit Debian Wheezy Linux with real time kernel and tuned optimizations for asynchrounous USB playback. The playback software is of course MPD. Basically it is a USB-optimized version of BDP-1 that plays back everything from a NFS4 mount to a file server via gigabit network. Storing a large music library on a central network storage is the only thing that really makes sense IMHO, so I really think BDP-1 probably missed a lot of potential users focusing on locally connected storage only.
Equipment:
- Digital transport: 64-bit Debian Linux MPD PC
- DAC: Bryston BDA-1
- Preamp: Marantz SC-11S1
- Amplifier: Bryston 4B SST²
- Power regneneration: PS Audio Power Plant P5
- Speakers: Klipsch RF-7 II
This is perhaps a somewhat unusual combination of electronics and speakers, but the Klipsch RF-7 II have blown me away sound quality wise. I have had them since they came to market and they replaced B&W 805S, and before that I had B&W 802D on Electrocompaniet AW400 and Electrocompaniet EC 4.8. If you can live with the looks and bad build quality the performance is absolutely stunning for the price.
Both the Bryston DAC and the 4B SST² amplifier is exceptional IMHO. I haven't looked elsewhere once since I got them!
However, enough talk! Here is some picture food for you!