October 15, 200817 yr Got the Audio Advisor catalog in the mail today and the big push is on the recently-released $1,995 Bryston BDA-1 DAC, which looks quite interesting on paper. Any thoughts from the resident DAC gurus on the basic design? The manual is here.
October 27, 200817 yr While I generally dislike the term "giant killer" if this is like other Bryston gear I have heard, then I just might believe it in this case. There gear has that no-nosense, solid, Canadian look, feel and sound. I do think that an I2S input would have been nice, but I also understand why they did not feel the need to put one in.
October 28, 200817 yr While I generally dislike the term "giant killer" if this is like other Bryston gear I have heard, then I just might believe it in this case. There gear has that no-nosense, solid, Canadian look, feel and sound. ..... Canadian sound?
October 28, 200817 yr No, he's saying that the quebec variant sucks harder than the ontario variant. Not that quebec sound isn't sucky canadian sound
October 28, 200817 yr Oh my god, separatist! Hydro-electric power = cleaner power = better sound Simple equation (at least for Patrick82 it would be)
October 28, 200817 yr My only question is how can a $2000 dac be a giant killer? It's certainly not a cheap product.
October 28, 200817 yr What's wrong with CS4398? Nothing "wrong" per se with CS4398, but they could've gone with better DACs. CS4398 is so...mid-fi. It's also in a bunch of other mid-fi gear including some <$5K Esoteric and Marantz CDPs.
October 28, 200817 yr The market for "giants" over 2k is pretty negligible. I'm assuming all the giant killers now just square off against each other throwing stones far too high in the air.
March 13, 200917 yr Nope. I've heard reviews from others though that are very complimentary. They keep going on Audiogon for reasonably high prices too. I would be seriously considering one if I wasn't considering just going to a reference professional DAC (Lavry Gold/Weiss DAC1/Prism Dream AD-2) and being done with it.
March 13, 200917 yr Dreadhead, you should add the Berkeley Audio Design Alpha DAC to your list. It's designed by the team who designed the Pacific Microsonics Model Two, which was certainly up there as one of the finest professional DACs in the world.
March 13, 200917 yr It's designed by the team who designed the Pacific Microsonics Model Two...Interest just went up a notch.
March 13, 200917 yr I just checked out the Alpha Dac at a shop yesterday, although I didn't get to hear it in action due to short time and their preamp not cooperating. I am trying to figure out if there is a way to use their preferred Lynx AES16e PCI-Express digital I/O card with any Mac laptop (current or recent past) or if the big box Macs are the only option for that beast.
March 13, 200917 yr That Alpha is one of the very few DACs currently made which raises my interest. If you ever manage to listen to it...
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now