After hoping to get a hold of a Holo R2R DAC and their soon-to-be released headphone amp, I decided to follow a dealer recommendation and try the Bryston BDA 3.14 and BHA-1 to go with my Grado GS3000e and Meze Empyrean (now Elite). I had the rare chance to indulge in good headphone gear; I have a Woo WA5-LE SET headphone amp, and I still use a SChiit Gungnir MB DAC and Mjolnir2 amp.
Well, after years of hearing that Bryston was "sterile", "clinical", "boring"....and knowing, from recording studio work, that Bryston is well-respected pro gear....I now have even less tolerance for the judgments of esoteric niche audio (which I've been plenty guilty of over the years).
The Bryston DAC is leagues beyond the Schiit Gungnir - not surprising, given that it costs nearly 4x as much. But I've cycled many DACs through this system, including Chord and Mytek. The Bryston DAC was so much better defined, luminous, fast, and groovy, than the Schiit Gungnir- which many devotees prefer to the Yggy, or find to offer 90% of what their flagship DAC can do - that its a little hard to go back to the Gumby without reminding myself to just listen to the music and stop worrying about sonics. Powerwash the windows better.
The Bryston combo was, and is, utterly transparent, eerily revealing, and timbrally true. Moreover, if this is "sterile", then gimme more sterility. The MUSIC has the soul, and the music is what it delivers. The textures from the BHA-1 amp are silken - which is not to say, smoothed over, lacking definition. There is simply no electronic harshness whatsoever; nothing one would associate in a negative sense, with traditional solid state. You get slam, speed, richness and bloom where they are in the music, ACCURATELY reproduced engineering flaws too....but at no point is any harshness or glare emphasized. You could even say the Bryston gear, in this context, is forgiving, to the extent that it does not editorialize or accentuate anything. Its just friggin' accurate, to a degree you'd have to spend a lot more money to improve significantly upon.
I'm a fan of Bryston now - I don't care of theyre cool. I. might still grab a Holo May KTE if I can ever afford one again. But I wouldn't miss a thing if I lived with this Bryston gear for a lot longer.
