Most of your questions can be answered by doing a little research in the Bryston circle section of audiocircle.com. The forum is facilitated by James Tanner and monitored by several of its employees. I will tell you that most of my equipment has/is/always will be Bryston for one very simple reason besides the fact that I like the sound, their customer service is bar none. There is no other company that I have come across in my almost 50 years on this planet that backs its products better than Bryston. They even repaired a 5 channel Lexicon amp (essentially a rebadged Bryston amp) that I purchased second hand on audiogon that showed up not working for a very fair price. My point is you can buy with confidence because even if the product you buy second hand is out of warranty and malfunctions they will still repair for a very reasonable fee and very timely turnaround. In regards to the the BDP, I have a BDP2 that I upgraded myself and installed a 1TB SSD that is over 6 years old and haven’t had any hardware problems and anything software related the unit can be put into a service mode that can be monitored remotely by Bryston. In regards to Roon I don’t think the BDP1 is powerful enough to run it effectively and overall the Bryston gear is still just an endpoint and not able to run as a rooncore yet. Good luck with your dive into digital.
rookie questions about used Bryston BDPs
I'm new to digital audio (and new out here), so be gentle with my ignorance!
I'd like to take the digital dive. I'm interested in streaming (Tidal and perhaps eventually Idagio or Primephonic); maybe Roon; definitely a hard drive with a range of music files, none of them obscure, many MP3s. That's it for now. Much of what I have is in iTunes.
For a few reasons, I'd like to go with Bryston. I can't afford a new BDP3; the Pi is doable, though as an experiment it's still pushing my budget. It doesn't look hard to find a *used* BDP1, BDP2, and BDP Pi. Almost certainly the BDP1 and BDP2 would be out of warranty; the BDP Pi would still be covered. My questions: assuming the used equipment is in excellent condition, would you rather have a BDP1 (at a modest price), a BDP2 (with or without the upgrade), or a (newer, under warranty) Pi? To tweak the question, if the BDP2 (let's say without the upgrade and out of warranty) and Pi (under warranty) were close to the same price, which would you choose? Full confession: I don't really know what the upgrade does, even after reading about it.
I understand that the BDP2 will have some features that the Pi doesn't have. I'm not sure if I would need those features; my needs seem pretty basic for now. Maybe a used BDP1 would do what I need. The subtext for my questions are obviously: is the Pi more "current" than the 1 or 2? Would the 1 do everything I need for now? And how important would you say the warranty is?
Thank you for reading!
I'd like to take the digital dive. I'm interested in streaming (Tidal and perhaps eventually Idagio or Primephonic); maybe Roon; definitely a hard drive with a range of music files, none of them obscure, many MP3s. That's it for now. Much of what I have is in iTunes.
For a few reasons, I'd like to go with Bryston. I can't afford a new BDP3; the Pi is doable, though as an experiment it's still pushing my budget. It doesn't look hard to find a *used* BDP1, BDP2, and BDP Pi. Almost certainly the BDP1 and BDP2 would be out of warranty; the BDP Pi would still be covered. My questions: assuming the used equipment is in excellent condition, would you rather have a BDP1 (at a modest price), a BDP2 (with or without the upgrade), or a (newer, under warranty) Pi? To tweak the question, if the BDP2 (let's say without the upgrade and out of warranty) and Pi (under warranty) were close to the same price, which would you choose? Full confession: I don't really know what the upgrade does, even after reading about it.
I understand that the BDP2 will have some features that the Pi doesn't have. I'm not sure if I would need those features; my needs seem pretty basic for now. Maybe a used BDP1 would do what I need. The subtext for my questions are obviously: is the Pi more "current" than the 1 or 2? Would the 1 do everything I need for now? And how important would you say the warranty is?
Thank you for reading!
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