Granted the earlier units had some software issues.
I called Bryston and I had the firmware updated and have been flawless
Since.It is so much easier to deal with just turn on my IPad
And put on any group of albums or songs in seconds,
And no more cleaning or scratching of CDs. I tried going back while
My friend borrowed my bdp ,it is like going back to the stone age.
This Also Sounds Much better.
Advise also is use the best USB, and digital aftermarket cables that you could
Afford it is well worth it. |
good for you. I've never owned a bryston. At $2K i'd like to see something that works flawlessly. Judging by the plethora of complaints on the Bryston forum, and the people in this very thread that have had issues, it ain't there yet.
I do own the Marantz NA 7004, which has been a disaster. I have heard ditto about the cambridge Audio streamer from my local Cambridge Audio dealer which now refuses to carry it and advises their customers not to buy it.
I replaced the Marantz with a squeezebox Touch, which after having been shipped with 2 non functioning power supplies, seems to be working now, although I've only started to delve into it. At least it was cheap.
Nothing I would rather do after a long day of work than hope the computer gods will let me listen to some music without some hassle. Even turntables present less hassles.
In 30 years of owning various CD players, I can remember one that malfunctioned, and that was after years of service. |
Richy baby, calm down dude.... Have you had a bad experience with the
Bryston player, or are you just sour fellow in general?
From my personal experience with the Bryston BDP-1, over several months
use, I find it to be totally reliable, great sounding - in fact, better than the
DCS Scarlatti I compared it to recently - and an incredible blast to use....
Pease
Cmo |
I think Audio reviewers ought to be taken to task for not following up on how generally unreliable these products (the Bryston, Marantz NA 7004, Cambridge Audio streamer) are in day to day use.
This technology is simply not mature enough for most of us that just want to relax listening to some music.
If your idea of fun is trying to get some half assed computer masquerading as an audio product to work, and getting to know the folks at tech support on a first name basis in the process, by all means by these things. If you just want to enjoy music, stick with a hard disc player. They may be so late 20th century, but at least they work reliably. |
THe BDP I am found is indispensable ,I use my ipad and can uild any file of rock ,jazz or what ever in seconds .I have on my 1T external drive 500 cds with all the album art just like with a erecored album ,the DB power amp program I bought for windows , and use MPAD for the Ipad is great just hit the album are icon it displays all the sonds and from there you dictate how many songs from the cd to play or albums in whatever order. The sound quality is far better than any cd playback I have owned and I have owned some of the best over $15k .This dac player combo is the future and with all the true hirez downloads coming out
or that are available it is a treat ,no more loading cds or treating them and once you have ripped the cds and backed them up it is a done deal. One thing though use the best usb cable ,and digital cable you can afford .
I find the wireworld Platinum usb, and xlr digital to be superb in this setup for under $6k with cables unbeatable
in many ways !! |
10-12-11: Dhl93449
Are you not exceeding the file format limitations for FAT32 with those drives? I thought drives of that size require NTFS file systems? Win XP, for example, cannot format a volume greater than 32 GB in FAT32. The 32 GB limit is just a limitation of XP's formatting capability, not of the FAT32 file system. Third-party partition management programs can create FAT32 partitions having much larger sizes, which XP and other OS's will then be able to read and write. Based on the conventional standard of 512 bytes per sector, a FAT32 drive can be as large as about 2.19 TB (Terabytes). FAT32 also has a limitation on the maximum size of an individual file of about 4 GB, which can often come into play in video applications. It is also much more prone to data loss and corruption than NTFS, for instance if power happens to drop out at the wrong instant. A downside of NTFS, though, is that Mac OS's can't write to it without third-party software. 10-03-11: Audioman58
One thing not mentioned was that the card reader in the bdp is only 4-GIGS it is not supposed to store your collection,it's main purpose is to read whatever cd or songs you want from either a seperate HD or thumb drive ... I have assumed that what the BDP-1 is attempting to do during the excessive amount of time Jaytea has described is to create some sort of index of what is on the drive. Regards, -- Al |
The files are not all loaded on the flash drive at the same time they load as fast as your drive will allow on my external HD it is a Seagate NTFS file if you are spending this much on electronics for under $100 you can get windows 7 home 64 which is totally NTFS. fat 32 is way outdated,for the thumb drives I have a super speed Patriot.
The cheapo $10 drives are NG they are way to slow for $40
I spent for this 16gig I bought 2 just to play at least 10 cds per drive it actually sounds better with the external drive .I am using a AUdioquest Coffee usb cable ,Yes the accuracy of even a usb cable matter less timing errors and even the dialectric has a Voltage on it more precise sounding . They also make excellent BNC cables for around $400. The better the cable the more resolotion.I am experimenting with digital cables $1k is my limit though. |
Are you not exceeding the file format limitations for FAT32 with those drives? I thought drives of that size require NTFS file systems? Win XP, for example, cannot format a volume greater than 32 GB in FAT32. |
ONe thing not mentioned was that the card reader in the bdp is only 4-GIGS it is not supposed to store your collection,it's main purpose is to read whatever cd or songs you want from either a seperate HD or thumb drive
then once loaded it is completely in it's own and then goes to the Superb audio card and a pure class A circuit as well as excellent digital supplies down stream very well thought out. I have the dac and listened to them with and without the player the sound is better with the bdp player. No dac on it's ownis as good even at 4x the cost.I sold my Mdwright Sony 5400, which wwas very good this leaves it in the dust. for $4k this is a steal and the future. p.s if you downloaded any 24/96 or higher files it makes sacd sound broken it is that good. I am using flac files and have a 1t external drive I bring with me for demos.Once the file issue is out of the way you will have nothing to complain about and Remember it is Not A Server it does not load librarys that is what your external hard drives or thumb drives are for. |
This is a big deal for me. I'm considering the BDP 1 for two reasons - quality of sound (based on reviews and customer feedback) and ease of use (not interested in having to setup a PC). However, I'm not interested in having to convert files for the the BDP 1 to operate correctly.
I will be at RMAF and will visit Bryston. My decision is still on hold until I see what's their plan.
Thanks,
Mike |
Nglazer: I totally agree with you.
Al: Yes, They did test it with 120GB of AIFF and that took about 4 hours or so!
Manufacturers should always test their products in every possible way before release it to the market. But no product is perfect, including very expensive ones.
I used to own an Avid Acutus Reference turntable a few years back, it costed like 14K and has NO fine-tune speed adjustment, and speed error is 1% (that is a LOT), and if you want to adjust the balance of the platter, you have to put it on a post and adjust the screws under the feet , then bring it back to your rack and that all messed up! Although it sounded extremely good, I sold it and never get that brand back, because I have many other choices,( even though now they have new versions that changed all that)
Throughly engineered, tested products have better chance of having loyal customers, otherwise, they might not be go back to those brands.
With Bryston BPD-1 player, I decided to keep it because it is a very very promising design, even though at this moment it has a BIG problem loading a large library of AIFF files, but at least it works fine with FLAC as the manufacturer promised. I just find it really weird that they AND the reviewers never mentioned this short coming to buyers.
I kept updating this post because I want to share my experience with people who are interested in this products so they can make up their minds AND with hope that Bryston will try to fix this problem.
Thanks all for your suggestions . |
Thanks for the update, Jaytea. It's strange that there was no problem with your first drive, containing a considerably smaller amount of AIFF data. Perhaps that gives them a clue, and perhaps it explains why they didn't catch the problem sooner.
Best regards,
-- Al |
So remind me again why a manufacturer charges over $2000 for a product that cannot be used with a standard codec like AIFF, so one has to spend hours reconverting to accomodate this mfr., and THEN, the mfr SOMEDAY will issue firmware to deal with this. I have nothing but respect for Bryston generally, but they got in over their heads on this one. Not quite ready for prime digital time.
Wake me up when computer audio is as easy to use and reliable as my transport and DAC.
Neal |
For those who are interested in this, a little update for you:
I have converted all of the 150G of AIFFs i had to FLAC (became about 60-70GB of them) and I have added another 30-40 GB of FLAC files (ripped from CD to AIFF with all the album artworks and then using AudioGate (from KORG) to convert to FLAC), put them on the same drive, and the PBD-1 takes less than 2 min for the initial update, and less than 30sec for subsequence turn-ons. Then I can use my laptop/iphone to access the BPD-1, create playlists, play and display all information and artwork from the album. I 'm happy with that result!
Yet, I would love to see Bryston somehow fix the problem with AIFF loading time, because as you know, many of us already have had a huge library of music saved under WAV, AIFF..etc.
Through email exchanges with Bryston's software engineer, solving the AIFF loading time is on top of their list now, hopefully they will solve this issue in the next firmwares. |
So please remind me again how computer audio actually makes it EASIER to listen to music with HQ reproduction? I would very much like to get involved but I do not like to spend my free time gnashing my teeth, so I'll stick to my primitive transport and DAC, or my iPod in a Wadia i170.
Why are we not lambasting audio mfrs for marketing expensive components that do not have the bugs ironed out? Would we tolerate this from, e.g., auto mfrs?
Neal |
I think that it might be worth investing a few dollars to try a usb y-cable such as this one, connecting the two larger connectors to both of the BDP-1's rear ports. If the two rear ports are independently powered (you might want to ask James to confirm that), doing so would double the amount of power that can be provided to your hard drive. I'm still suspicious about the possibility that the drive may be marginally powered, even though it supposedly should work when connected to a rear port. Alternatively, if you have one readily available you might try connecting the drive via a powered usb hub. I notice that the descriptions of the Iomega SSD drive Cmo is using indicate that it uses significantly less power than comparable mechanical drives. Regards, -- Al |
Jaytea,
A little more to your point.... I have had my Bryston for a couple of weeks now and after I figured out how to set-up the Mpad app I have had no problems of any kind. I am using an Iomega SSD 250 gig hard drive with a lot of AIFF files and, while it's not as much file space as you have, it loads really quick - like two minutes. It seems like something else might be wrong. |
Interesting. It seems as though all the streamers that have mid or hi fi pretensions are buggy. I have the Marantz NA 7004 and I have to cross my fingers every time I use it. A local shop deals with all Cambridge Audio Products but they refuse to carry the streamer any more due to customer complaints.
The NAD has gotten blasted in the press and forums as well.
I think I'll stick to polycarbonate discs or laptop hard drives for a while before I start embracing this technology and give it about 5 years to mature. |
Al: Yes, I connected it to the bottom rear USB port.
I posted on that forum, no response yet. James did email me back, saying it might be the choice of file (AIFF vs FLAC). I might take a shot to convert those 150GB from AIFF to FLAC just to see how that goes (feel tiring just thinking about it !!)
If it's true that the BDP-1 takes less than an hour to load 150GB FLAC vs more than 12 hours (still havent finished loading) to load the same amount of AIFF, i STRONGLY think Bryston should really do something about this since not all of us have access to FLAC |
Another recommendation to post over at the Bryston Circle in Audio Circle. James Tanner (Bryston part owner/VP) is the moderator and answers a lot of questions. If he can't answer it, he brings it to engineering.
James is truly a great guy to deal with. A real class act. |
Second timrhu.... Lots of good info on the Audio Circle forms. |
Recommend you check the Bryston users circle at AudioCircle. |
Would like to follow this myself.
Chazz |
If you are saying that the drives with which you had the problem are bus-powered (as opposed to having their own ac power supply), did you have them connected to the BDP-1's REAR USB connectors, as indicated on page 5 (pdf page 8) of the manual? Regards, -- Al |
