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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 5 responses by so_armonk

so_armonk OP
12 posts
 
o I have 'up sampling on', I can try to have it off tonite
o it's my 'music only' PC running Window XP.
What's Media Center player software' - MediaMonkey ?
What do I need to adjust or watch ?
o As I said, I riped CD to wave files (either using media
Monkey or iTune). Isn't ripping CD to wave files is
lossless resolution format? I also checked the bitrate
(1411)and filesizes.
o OK. I will go to computeraudiophile to see if I've missed
any.
Thanks.
so_armonk OP
12 posts
 
Thanks for the suggestions; I will try to re-install mediaMonkey and look up audiophile over the weekend.

I don't think I am alone with this kind of setupm and I
thought this is getting popular.
Will be nice to hear story from similar setup (PC-LYNX-Brystone).
so_armonk OP
12 posts
 
May I know which software bypasses window kernel and how?
What's wrong if without ?
Thanks,
so_armonk OP
12 posts
 
MediaMonkey told me that their version 4.0 has this probem resolved.
so_armonk OP
12 posts
 
After a few months of playing my system, I have to conclude that this kind of computer music/sound card/DAC
is a low quality (as described earlier) but very convenient approach. For those who have been using iPod/iTune, they should see quality improveemnt. Viewed from an audiophile, the approach still needs a lot of improvement - long way.
Summary:
1) if a ripped a CD and play thru computer/DAC, it sounds less full body & less resolution than I play the CD on my old Sony xa9000es.
2) If I play hi-res 96khz/24 bit file, the quality is closer (but not very close) to playing SACD.
3) I listened to my friend's another known-brand DAC which reads wave files from network drive (no sound card), the quality is about the same.

Note that I listen to LP most of the time, so the approach
is ever poorer when compared to play vinyl.

Thanks for everyone's input.
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