experience with Bryston BDA-1 ?


I recently bought a brand new Bryston BDA-1. It's connected to my pre-amp on one side and PC one the other side. From the PC, I have Lynx AES16 sound card connected to BDA-1 with Lynx cable snake AES. I am using mediaMonkey to play wave files riped from CD or hi-res files.
After playing for 2 weeks, I found that BDA-1 indeed outputs warm music but i) the sound is rather flatten or not as dimensional, and ii) the bass seem to be easily saturated or dull - as compared to the same music played from
my CD player (which is also connected to my preamp).
Am I missing anything , or
any suggestion to improve it to surpass CD music ?
ps: I played some Jazz and vocal (new or old recordings). Also, I turn the volume to 'mid low' level on mediaMonkey.
Thanks.
so_armonk

Showing 3 responses by davide256

the Bryston is an excellent DAC, I've auditioned it... the problem is computer technology. I have several PC's and have done the same PC vs CD player comparison over SPDIF into a DAC. The CD player always wins hands down. Where the game changes is with asynchronous USB into a DAC, when I went that route with the HRT Music Streamer II USB DAC it blew away my DAC/ CD players. Apparently jitter is a big problem for PC digital output unless you use asynchronous USB. Unfortunately most audio DAC manufacturers aren't PC savvy, the USB on their DAC is the older synchronous solution which has no jitter correction between PC and DAC. Since you have 1 of the best DAC's you may want to invest in a Hiface Evo (~$200) as an asynch USB to SPDIF converter
kernel streaming bypasses the windows kernel. Foobar 2000 supports it. Windows media player, Media monkey and most other players get stepped on by legacy Windows manipulation of the audio stream with no options to bypass using kernel streaming. iTunes and VLC are about the only players I can stand for casual listening without kernel streaming support.
unless you use kernel streaming you will get a lifeless experience playing music back. I don't find ASIO or WASAPI acceptable for audiophile level of playback.