[skunark]

My point about remote control was subtle but its meaniningful.

So lets say you use mediakmoney as your music manager. How do you control that remotely from an  iPod/iPad (or any other remote device)?

I have tried but found no PC based music managers that have an inbuilt webserver that I can connect say a Nokia 770 tablet to.... which leaves you with trying to install and use some kind of remote connection software like vnc.
 
The issue isnt the hardware in my hand but how that hardware can connect to my PC so I can manage my collection remotely.

So the solution is to use iTunes?.... thats the only choice I have?...

As I say, at least with the Transporter I get it all in one simple to use package that is DESIGNED to work with the Transporter (ie. I can control the configuration of the server component and the the Transporter from the one interface).

To me that is the killer app and makes or breaks the deal and in the market place it makes it a tough competitor for the Bryston music server.

I can only assume what the BDP-1 is like but if it's using NFS or just a USB thumbdrive/HDD then there's there's no need for mediamonkey or itunes to run in the background.   That fact that it supports FLAC means it won't need or perhaps support iTunes.   I can only assume (again) that the BDP-1 parses the file directories on an NFS share and the USB drive and build's it's own play list.   I can also assume it will ignore any album art.   

In a strange way I think you can consider it a 400-disc sacd-changer but the CD has been replaced with a harddrive along with the added bonus of knowing what the artist and track names for disc 299.   It will have a much more useful interface than those ghastly cd-changers but when compared to Apple TV and the Transporter, then that is debatable.   However, I do use an iPod Touch if I play music from the Apple TV and I have the TV off, so an iPod Touch as a solution can be very useful and simple to use if done right.

I do like the idea of a media server solution that doesn't require a computer to be on and would use an iPod touch as a remote along with a USB drive or NAS drive.   There's not many NAS drives that support NFS though, so I'm thinking it will be just a USB HDD and Ethernet for the WiFi connection.

Hopefully Bryston will include an RS-232 output or an IR repeater so their iPod App/Web page can control other devices as well.. (hint.. hint)

[James Tanner]

James,
The question about the digital interface on the BDP got swept away in the discussion.  Can I ask for a response to the observations by Sean Adams about the AES/EBU suitability for digital signals?



1. XLRs are horrible RF connectors. In order to send a square wave fairly faithfully the interface must support a bandwidth many times higher than the frequency of the square wave. For the signals in question that is getting well up into the RF spectrum where the XLRs are terrible. The impedance varies radically with frequency which will cause all kinds of bizarre reflections. The choice of XLR was a very poor choice.

2. Output voltage. The S/PDIF electrical spec is 0.5V into 75ohms, but the AES/EBU is 3-5V into 110 ohms. Think about that for a second, what happens when you put 5volts across 110 ohms? You get almost 50mA of current flowing. This means the driver sitting in the source box has to be able to dump between 30-50ma into the cable. That causes huge current spikes in the power and ground pins of the driver chip which is going to cause big noise spikes in the power and ground planes of the board. If you are not extremely careful that is going to cause significant jitter in the output signal.

All modern high speed interfaces use less than 0.5V signal.

As far as I can tell the XLRs were chosen because studios had lots of microphone cables and wanted to use them. Because they are such lousy RF transmission lines they had to go with high voltages to make sure there was some signal left at the end.

You're think of the word clock feature.

AES/EBU doesn't fix anything in s/pdif, it makes it worse. It uses wiring and connectors that lack the bandwidth and impedance matching for RF signaling. Just because XLRs are suitable for analog audio doesn't make them good for high frequencies. It's included on Transporter frankly because of legacy expectations, and perhaps in a pro environment you might need it for one reason or another (got the cable handy, used up all the other inputs, etc) but I don't recommend it.

TOSLINK (as observed at a receiving device) is always worse, like +100 to 200 ps regardless of how good the source is. Coax is the only way to go if you care about jitter, although optical has the advantage of being inherently isolated which could help in a system having EMI or ground loop problems. That's why you get both

Hi

1. We have found that Input receivers seem to like the higher voltage.

2. Using both listening and bench testing we have not found an increase in Jitter at the output of the DAC if AES/EBU is implemented properly.

james

[ricko01]

http://melloware.com/

Mediamonkey and J River remote apps for the iPhone, et all

But I dont own an Iphone, Ipod or Ipad.... and not everyone does................so thats a proprietary solution....   why do I need to buy a Mac product to manage my music on my PC?

Thats my point again....If I spend lots of money on a music server I shouldnt have to spend lots more and then download this and download that to make it all work.

The Transporter's software is very compelling in this respect.


Peter

[ricko01]

  I can only assume (again) that the BDP-1 parses the file directories on an NFS share and the USB drive and build's it's own play list.

James stated this WHAT IT “DOES NOT DO”: The BDP-1 Digital Player doesn’t rip content, doesn’t clean up your data, doesn’t display its playlists on a built in screen, and doesn’t rip files. This is because it has no fancy display screen, no hard drive, and no CD drawer or Ripper, and no Wireless Streaming. It boots from flash memory with a read only file system.

So it has NO management software... so we get back to my old complaint... how can I manage my music remotely from within my listening room with the BDP-1 ?

What will it cost me in hardware, software and and time to set it up?

This is my issue when I compare the solution to the Transporter... the Transporter doesnt leave these questions unanswered...

Again I am not knocking Bryston... I am hoping they will think about the management side of this so they provide a complete solution ...both hardware and software.

If the BDP-1 contains a web server that allows me to browse the files on my PC/NAS/whatever... then thats great but it hasnt been stated anywhere that it will do this.

Peter

[ricko01]

Hi

1. We have found that Input receivers seem to like the higher voltage.

2. Using both listening and bench testing we have not found an increase in Jitter at the output of the DAC if AES/EBU is implemented properly.

james

To your point James, my own testing has shown (to my ears) that the Transporter's AES/EBU interface sounds better than SP/DIF into my BDA-1.

[James Tanner]

Hi Peter,

I guess it is a difficult thing to explain but the reason the 'Bryston Box' does 'not' do certain things is because we are trying to eliminate all possible sources of distortion and noise (EX: switching power supplies, streaming devices, noisy hard drives and fans) and provide a very high - resolution (192/24) capable digital playback system with no glitches.

I have 3 other server style ‘all in one’ type’ products in my home using Windows and MAC operating systems and they are fine for what they do but this box sonically is much better.  The LynxOS operating system allows us to ‘dedicate’ the entire computing power of the BDP-1 to do nothing but play music files as accurately as possible. No graphics – no pop up messages – no ‘am I sure I have configured the sound card correctly’ –and ‘am I sure I have bypassed the ‘kmixer’ in windows’? Am I sure I have set the ‘do not map through this device’ setting for the sound card correctly etc? 

You are also not limited to 44.1/16 bit Itunes or limited to the 44k/16bit and 96k/24bit outputs from USB all in one computer systems currently operate under.

The Itouch works perfectly with the BDA-1 and costs much less than the costs to us to develop an interface system - so I guess we see it as why re-invent the wheel when great handheld remotes already exist. The other really beneficial development is products like the ‘Ipad’ are going to become very plentiful over the next couple of years and integrating one of them into our player will be easy to do and provide a larger screen size for managing music data etc.

I realize this product is not for everyone and there is a huge educational issue ahead of us but I really think a dedicated no compromise approach to playing back high resolution digital files is a worthwhile endeavour – time will tell I guess?

James

[Napalm]

[...]
I do like the idea of a media server solution that doesn't require a computer to be on and would use an iPod touch as a remote along with a USB drive or NAS drive.   There's not many NAS drives that support NFS though, so I'm thinking it will be just a USB HDD and Ethernet for the WiFi connection.

Hopefully Bryston will include an RS-232 output or an IR repeater so their iPod App/Web page can control other devices as well.. (hint.. hint)

My guess is that many people would use it with a "pocket" USB 2.5" drive. Makes the whole thing very simple and reliable.

If I were James, I would check two things with engineering right now:

1. If the USB port can supply enough power for spinning the USB drive. Then add a generous safety margin for the future.

2. If an IR interface could be added so you could use simple commands as play/pause/fwd/rwd etc from the BR-2. I can see some cursing from people needing to switch remotes in order to control pre-amp volume / DAC / file playing.

Nap. 

[James Tanner]

My guess is that many people would use it with a "pocket" USB 2.5" drive. Makes the whole thing very simple and reliable.

If I were James, I would check two things with engineering right now:

1. If the USB port can supply enough power for spinning the USB drive. Then add a generous safety margin for the future.

2. If an IR interface could be added so you could use simple commands as play/pause/fwd/rwd etc from the BR-2. I can see some cursing from people needing to switch remotes in order to control pre-amp volume / DAC / file playing.

Nap. 

Hi Nap,

Most USB drives come with a power cable I thought - At least all of the ones I have do?

james

[Napalm]

Hi Nap,

Most USB drives come with a power cable I thought - At least all of the ones I have do?

james

Hi James,

I'd suggest you take a look at the most popular ones on the market as a reference - the Western Digital Passport (Essential and Elite models). Costco and some other chains have been very good at selling them at good prices and the drives themselves are fine stuff.

There is no power connector on the drive. They come with just one single-wire USB cable that connects them to the PC USB port, and they draw their power from that port. There is an issue with some (older) PCs that cannot supply enough power for the newest drives (500 GB or higher). As an example, Asus motherboards are known for having issues supplying larger power amounts on USB port.

To address the issue some other drive manufacturers would supply an Y USB cable - so you could connect it to two USB ports at once and hopefully draw more power. This is a kludge IMHO.

Finally, there are a few suppliers of 2.5" enclosures that provide an additional, separate power socket so you could use a 5 volts adapter to power the thing. Not very elegant IMHO as you'll have an extra wire and wall wart.

So the most elegant thing would be to supply enough power on the USB port itself. I could also think of a user-replaceable fuse on the USB power supply path as I've seen many PC motherboards with USB controllers fried. (Intel had this funny idea that USB power should be supplied through the USB chip).

Hope this helps.

Nap. 

[James Tanner]

^^^^

Yes thanks I will look into that.

james

[brucek]

James,
The question about the digital interface on the BDP got swept away in the discussion.  Can I ask for a response to the observations by Sean Adams about the AES/EBU suitability for digital signals?



1. XLRs are horrible RF connectors. In order to send a square wave fairly faithfully the interface must support a bandwidth many times higher than the frequency of the square wave. For the signals in question that is getting well up into the RF spectrum where the XLRs are terrible. The impedance varies radically with frequency which will cause all kinds of bizarre reflections. The choice of XLR was a very poor choice.

2. Output voltage. The S/PDIF electrical spec is 0.5V into 75ohms, but the AES/EBU is 3-5V into 110 ohms. Think about that for a second, what happens when you put 5volts across 110 ohms? You get almost 50mA of current flowing. This means the driver sitting in the source box has to be able to dump between 30-50ma into the cable. That causes huge current spikes in the power and ground pins of the driver chip which is going to cause big noise spikes in the power and ground planes of the board. If you are not extremely careful that is going to cause significant jitter in the output signal.

All modern high speed interfaces use less than 0.5V signal.

As far as I can tell the XLRs were chosen because studios had lots of microphone cables and wanted to use them. Because they are such lousy RF transmission lines they had to go with high voltages to make sure there was some signal left at the end.

You're think of the word clock feature.

AES/EBU doesn't fix anything in s/pdif, it makes it worse. It uses wiring and connectors that lack the bandwidth and impedance matching for RF signaling. Just because XLRs are suitable for analog audio doesn't make them good for high frequencies. It's included on Transporter frankly because of legacy expectations, and perhaps in a pro environment you might need it for one reason or another (got the cable handy, used up all the other inputs, etc) but I don't recommend it.

TOSLINK (as observed at a receiving device) is always worse, like +100 to 200 ps regardless of how good the source is. Coax is the only way to go if you care about jitter, although optical has the advantage of being inherently isolated which could help in a system having EMI or ground loop problems. That's why you get both

I think he may be overstating his case somewhat. Both these protocols have their advantage and disadvantages. The coax physical interface (that S/PDIF generally uses) is better suited to the higher bandwidth digital signal. The shielded cable easily passes the signal and is protected from RF interference. The XLR connection and standard balanced cable isn't particularily suited to higher frequency transmittion as coax, but enjoys common mode rejection at the receiving end. Attention to a good cable would be important.

Just from a marketing perspective I think they are severely limiting the already small market for this device by not supplying an S/PDIF output. Perhaps I might feel this is a great device for my system that uses a Bryston SP2 processor and all Bryston amplifiers - nope, sorry it won't interface with that system.

brucek

[James Tanner]

^^^^^

Hi brucek,

I agree - the BDP-1's main focus is to integrate with our BDA-1 External DAC.

james

[James Tanner]

Hi James,

I'd suggest you take a look at the most popular ones on the market as a reference - the Western Digital Passport (Essential and Elite models). Costco and some other chains have been very good at selling them at good prices and the drives themselves are fine stuff.

There is no power connector on the drive. They come with just one single-wire USB cable that connects them to the PC USB port, and they draw their power from that port. There is an issue with some (older) PCs that cannot supply enough power for the newest drives (500 GB or higher). As an example, Asus motherboards are known for having issues supplying larger power amounts on USB port.

To address the issue some other drive manufacturers would supply an Y USB cable - so you could connect it to two USB ports at once and hopefully draw more power. This is a kludge IMHO.

Finally, there are a few suppliers of 2.5" enclosures that provide an additional, separate power socket so you could use a 5 volts adapter to power the thing. Not very elegant IMHO as you'll have an extra wire and wall wart.

So the most elegant thing would be to supply enough power on the USB port itself. I could also think of a user-replaceable fuse on the USB power supply path as I've seen many PC motherboards with USB controllers fried. (Intel had this funny idea that USB power should be supplied through the USB chip).

Hope this helps.

Nap. 

Hi Nap,

Bought the Seagate 500G USB drive today and the USB connection on the prototype provides more than enough power - excellent - thanks for the tip.

james

[Napalm]

Hi Nap,

Bought the Seagate 500G USB drive today and the USB connection on the prototype provides more than enough power - excellent - thanks for the tip.

james

Hi James,

That's another popular model. You'll definitely enjoy not having many cables around 

Please give a thought to having a user-replaceable fuse on the USB power output. There is a surge in current when you connect the drive as it draws more power during plate spin up. You don't want too many media players coming in for service just because of a small thing like this.

Nap. 

[James Tanner]

Hi James,

That's another popular model. You'll definitely enjoy not having many cables around 

Please give a thought to having a user-replaceable fuse on the USB power output. There is a surge in current when you connect the drive as it draws more power during plate spin up. You don't want too many media players coming in for service just because of a small thing like this.

Nap. 

Hi,

I was just informed by our engineering guy that... the USB 2 connections on the BPD-1 have enough power for USB 2 devices. It also has electronic protection that automatically resets. No need for external fuses. It’s all part of the USB spec.

james

[Napalm]

Hi,

I was just informed by our engineering guy that... the USB 2 connections on the BPD-1 have enough power for USB 2 devices. It also has electronic protection that automatically resets. No need for external fuses. It’s all part of the USB spec.

james

Cool. Some older chips had non-resetting fuses inside. I.e. they would just get toast forever.

Glad to hear that engineering has selected a good chip.

Nap. 

[c_note]

I've been following this thread with interest, and I congratulate Bryston for its innovative approach.  James, the obvious question: how does the sound of the music server and DAC compare to the standalone BCD-1?  Is it better than, at parity with, or not quite as good as the standalone player? 

From a technical perspective, I would expect the combination to be better than the standalone player, as you've eliminated the transport mechanism and it's associated error correction, and you've added a second Crystal 4398 chip in the DAC.  Would you agree?

As always, James, thank you for your active participation in these forums. 

[brucek]

............ I would expect the combination to be better than the standalone player, as you've eliminated the transport mechanism and it's associated error correction, and you've added a second Crystal 4398 chip in the DAC.  Would you agree?

The comparison would depend a lot on the source of the digital comparison.

Where does the digital file come from to make the comparison? Is it a rip from the same CD and player (with its  transport mechanism and it's associated error correction) that you're comparing the resultant created digital file against? or is the digital file a downloaded 24/96 version?, etc, etc. How could you do an apples to apples compare?
 
brucek

[James Tanner]

I've been following this thread with interest, and I congratulate Bryston for its innovative approach.  James, the obvious question: how does the sound of the music server and DAC compare to the standalone BCD-1?  Is it better than, at parity with, or not quite as good as the standalone player? 

From a technical perspective, I would expect the combination to be better than the standalone player, as you've eliminated the transport mechanism and it's associated error correction, and you've added a second Crystal 4398 chip in the DAC.  Would you agree?

As always, James, thank you for your active participation in these forums.

Hi c_note,

So far I have been comparing the three other ‘all in one’ computer systems I have (MAC Pro  Laptop, Windows XP with MAudio Card and Maya 44 Sound Cards, and Windows 7 with Lynx sound card. directly into the DAC vs loading the same digital files on a USB hard drive and then into the DAC using the Bryston prototype BDP-1 box.

If I had to say it in a few words the difference I am hearing it would be “hardness gone – clarity remains” with the BDP-1 inserted into the system. 

I have not tried the CD Player comparison yet – next round and I am open to suggestions as to how to make the comparison as accurate as possible.  Remember though that the idea behind the BDP-1 is to move beyond the resolution restriction of CD’s (44.1k/16bit) and on to the new higher resolution files (48,88,96,176,192K/24bit) that are becoming more and more prevalent.

james

[Napalm]

[...]
I have not tried the CD Player comparison yet – next round and I am open to suggestions as to how to make the comparison as accurate as possible.
[...]

Use vinyl as the reference 

Nap.