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Bryston BDP-2 Digital Player

Bryston BDP-2 Digital Player

How time flies when you’re having fun! It hardly seems like four years since my review of Bryston’s BDP-1 Digital Player in issue 215. Since its auspicious debut, the BDP-1 has remained my reference digital playback component, consistently delivering engaging music without provoking complaint. Contentment is rare in audiophile circles; the dominant sentiment seems to be an insatiable desire for the next best thing. I have continued exploring alternative music-file playback architectures, but I must confess that whenever I return to the BDP-1, I feel relief, thankful that Bryston has taken care of the tweaky details and eliminated the erratic glitches that can turn computer-based audio into a tedium.

Of course, the industrious folks at Bryston have not rested on their proverbial laurels. Not long after the introduction of the BDP-1, they released the slightly more expensive BDP-2, incorporating the same digital audio circuitry, but a more powerful system board and a correspondingly heftier power supply. Processor speed and memory capacity were both increased. Connectivity was expanded to include an internal SATA connection, an eSATA port, two gigabit Ethernet ports, and six full-current USB 2.0 ports.

 Cognizant of the increasing availability of digital-to-analog converters with USB Audio inputs, Bryston then differentiated the digital player family further, shrewdly removing the customized SPDIF and AES/EBU digital output board from the BDP-1, yielding the new BDP-1USB with only USB Audio output, but at a substantially lower price.

On the software side, the Canadian programming crew has continued to refine the BDP user interface and add features well beyond the scope of the original design. The latest “Manic Moose” (smile!) firmware includes an updated Media Player application, the enhanced configuration Dashboard, Bryston’s bRadio interface to search and play Internet radio stations, and access to the Tidal Internet music-streaming service (still in beta-test phase at the time of this writing). The Bryston digital players operate in accordance with the open-source Music Player Daemon (MPD) protocol. Users can now switch between several different MPD versions. The latest firmware (S2.18 2015-09-29) includes MPD v0.17.6, v0.18.21, and v0.19.9 for the BDP-2, but the BDP-1/USB hardware is incompatible with MPD v0.19.

Bryston BDP-2 Digital Player

While “Direct Disc” playback from connected storage drives remains the core operational mode—and a principal performance differentiator—the BDP can now also play files from Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices or shared folders on networked computers, function as a DLNA client, renderer, or server, and play music streamed from AirPlay/SharePlay and Squeezebox-format sources. Each of these new features can selectively be activated from the BDP’s browser-based interface, facilitating interoperability with other networked devices: computers, tablets, Blu-ray players, media streamers, game consoles, smartphones, toasters, etc.

Bryston’s BOT-1 Optical Disc Transport further expands the functionality of the digital players. While a traditional CD transport connects directly to a DAC via a SPDIF or AES/EBU cable, the BOT-1 operates only in conjunction with a BDP, connected via a USB cable. In CD playback mode, the BDP accesses the BOT-1 as a CD-ROM drive, effectively “ripping” CDs on-the-fly and buffering the output datastream through the BDP’s memory, in the same manner as files played from storage drives. For those of us of a certain age who recall the expensive, heavily engineered, high-end CD transports of days past, the prospect of bit-perfect real-time CD playback from a modestly sized (and modestly priced) add-on optical drive is most enticing. Additional BOT-1 functions include ripping CDs directly to attached storage drives—with metadata tag editing via the BDP’s browser interface—and burning CDRs of CD-resolution (16 bit 44.1 kHz) music files from custom playlists.

While these ongoing improvements have added functionality and enhanced the operational ease of the Bryston digital players, the primary impetus for this review came from a recent change to the BDP-2’s audio circuitry: replacing the venerable ESI Juli@ sound card and Bryston’s custom digital output board with a new Integrated Audio Device (IAD), designed entirely in-house. The IAD is powered directly from the BDP-2’s higher-capacity linear power supply, rather than from the motherboard’s PCI bus, and thus cannot be retrofitted to the BDP-1. However, owners of the original BDP-2 can upgrade to the IAD for a modest charge of $500.

 

It is completely understandable why Bryston would want to “get out from under” the need to source the Juli@ PCI Audio Interface from ESI Audiotechnik, especially in light of the Bryston’s unrivaled reputation for long-term customer support. Several years ago, Bryston ran into a dilemma faced by many high-end manufacturers, when a supplier stopped building the drive mechanism used in its BCD-1 CD player. Unfortunately, that remarkably good-sounding CD player entered the history books far too prematurely.

Throughout my time with the BDP-2, I tested a variety of permutations, as outlined in the Configuration & Optimization article available on the tas.com website. Rather than winding my way through the highways and byways of that journey, I’ll zoom directly to the finish line: The Bryston BDP-2’s new Integrated Audio Device reduces coloration and digital artifacts even further than its standard-setting predecessor.

The first order of business was obviously to compare the BDP-2’s new Integrated Audio Device against the BDP-1’s customized ESI Juli@ PCI audio interface. Bryston’s BDA-2 DAC proved an ideal platform for this comparison, as its two BNC-coaxial SPDIF inputs facilitated simultaneous connection of both digital players. As I became familiar with the BDP-2, I began to hear residual colorations and distortions from the BDP-1 that previously had escaped notice, absent an even more neutral reference. (This inviolate truism of audio evaluation persists regardless of listening experience!) Compared with the BDP-2, the BDP-1 imposes a sweet sparkle in the high treble, with a glint of excess energy just below, accompanied by marginally over-ripe, rounded weight in the bottom end. It imbues music with a slightly loose “wet” vibe, and an engaging presence that remains enticing in its own way.

In contrast, the BDP-2’s new Integrated Audio Device exhibits a more strictly linear tonal balance, with more refined upper octaves and a bass range characterized by improved pitch definition, timbral differentiation, and expressive nuance. The BDP-2 opens up the volumetric space of well-recorded acoustic music, without the slight center-weighted emphasis of the BDP-1. During complex, dynamic passages, the BDP-2 does a better job of keeping everything solidly grounded in its proper place. With tighter focus and even less time-domain smearing than its predecessor, the BDP-2 renders every instrument and voice with more distinctive character and a richer tonal palette, since harmonic relationships are preserved with greater fidelity and presented with better-defined note shape, from initial transient through resonant bloom to natural decay.

I’ve listened to Wes Montgomery’s A Dynamic New Sound hundreds of times, but the BDP-2 granted me even deeper insight into the legendary jazz guitarist’s exquisite phrasing and expressive dexterity. The BDP-2’s superior timing accuracy was made manifestly clear by the scalpel-sharp precision of Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen dissecting the rhythmic complexities of Stravinsky’s A Soldiers Tale under Paavo Järvi’s expert direction. All considered, the BDP-2 is simply more transparent to the recording, taking a relaxed, unforced approach to uncovering detail in both the musicians’ performances and the sounds of their instruments.

After extensive comparative listening confirmed my impressions of the relative merits of the BDP-1 and the BDP-2, I moved on to assess other aspects of the BDP-2’s performance. Historically, I have found that the best BNC-terminated 75-ohm coaxial SPDIF cables convey purer tonality, richer timbres, and superior three-dimensional body than AES/EBU cables fitted with their reflection-prone XLR plugs. However, after testing a recent upgrade to my AES/EBU cable design via the BDP-2’s superior IAD output board, I am finally convinced that the AES/EBU interface is capable of performance that can match, and perhaps even surpass, SPDIF.

In light of the BDP-2’s superlative performance playing files from attached USB drives, I was curious to compare playback from networked storage drives. I copied a set of test files to the internal SATA hard drive of a Dell mini-tower PC, running a bloatware-free clean installation of Windows 7. Enabling File Sharing of the “Music” folder on the PC allowed the BDP-2 to access it as a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device. I also activated the UPnP/DLNA Media Server function of the Foobar 2000 music player program running on the host PC, so that the those files could be streamed from the same storage location to the BDP-2’s DLNA client.

 

I was surprised to find that playback of DLNA streamed files sounded consistently more refined, open, and relaxed than playback of those same files accessed through the shared NAS folder. Perhaps the DLNA protocol provides additional local data handling at the source end, facilitating smoother transmission over the network. Playback via NAS file-share access imposed a crude, grainy, airless haze over the music. Using the BDP-2’s DLNA client to play the same files streamed by the source computer’s DLNA server substantially reduced those unpleasant artifacts.

However, neither networked playback mode came close to the performance of the directly connected USB hard drive. Music played over the network exhibited a disembodied, diffuse quality, lacking foundation, substance, and presence, never remotely suggestive of the real thing. The notes were there, but not the instruments that generated those notes. In stark contrast, music played from a USB hard drive connected directly to the BDP-2 engages the listener’s attention with vitality, immediacy, and dramatically superior resolution.

The BDP-2 performs at least as well as other networked audio products that I have heard, ranging from entry-level Blu-ray players to expensive high-end streaming clients. I’m glad to see that Bryston has added these convenient network functions for playing background music; however, realizing the BDP-2’s true potential as a reference-class primary music source remains contingent on its original core function—playing files from storage drives connected directly to its USB ports.

Bryston has been rather coy in describing the technology of the BDP-2’s new Integrated Audio Device. Consulting the Audio Devices page of the player’s web interface provides the missing clue, describing the IAD as “Bryston BDP Audio Device—BUC Board.” The “BUC” acronym is recognizable as a reference to the company’s BUC-1 external Bryston USB Converter. Yes, the new IAD is not a PCI audio interface in the traditional sense, as was the original customized ESI Juli@ card, but rather a dedicated USB-to-SPDIF-and-AES/EBU converter, connected by a short jumper to an internal USB port on the BPD-2’s motherboard. Inspection of the IAD itself reveals the same essential configuration as both the BUC-1 and its progenitor, the asynchronous USB input of Bryston’s BDA-2 DAC. Amortizing the development costs of this robust state-of-the-art asynchronous USB input stage across multiple platforms is a well-considered, forward-looking design decision—provided that the technology proves its mettle in the listening room, which it most assuredly does from both the BDA-2’s USB input and the BDP-2’s Integrated Audio Device.

As someone who has been generally disappointed with USB Audio—not due to dogmatic bias, but because most such products that I’ve auditioned have failed to deliver the performance that I routinely achieve with SPDIF sources—I was thrilled (and, frankly, relieved) to hear the USB-derived SPDIF and AES/EBU outputs of the BDP-2’s Integrated Audio Device deliver across-the-board improvements above and beyond the performance of its predecessor’s customized ESI Juli@ PCI audio interface. At last, here was “proof of principle” evidence that the USB interface could function as an audio conduit of the highest caliber.

In truth, I’d already come to this conclusion several months before, also courtesy of Bryston’s USB Audio technology. As detailed in the accompanying review, the Oyaide Neo d+ Class A USB 2.0 cable has enabled the BDA-2 DAC to achieve an unprecedented level of performance from its USB input, when driven from the USB output of a BDP-1 or BDP-2. This exciting development raises a logical question for the potential buyer of a Bryston Digital Player to consider: Which BDP model is the best choice?

The prudent answer for most listeners will be: the BDP-2. The BDP-2 enables any high-resolution DAC to perform to the best of its abilities, whether connected by SPDIF, AES/EBU, or USB. In contrast, the ultimate performance of the BDP-1USB is contingent on the quality of the USB input of the partnering DAC. Hopefully, additional listening will confirm my initial positive impressions of the eminently affordable Oyaide d+ Class A USB cable, but the issue of the quality of a DAC’s USB input remains a significant variable. In order to assess the real-world implications of this potential constraint, I tested both the BDP-2 and BDP-1 with two alternate DACs, in addition to the Bryston BDA-2.

The $4500 Esoteric D-07X, enthusiastically reviewed by Alan Taffel in Issue 230, requires a proprietary USB driver to operate in its “optimal” high-speed mode. Nevertheless, it sounded quite respectable when operating in its “compatible” high-speed mode driven by the USB output of either Bryston digital player. However, the D-07X never sounded better via any USB cable than it did via SPDIF from the BDP-2.

At an entirely different price point, the value-leading Schiit Audio Bifrost Uber DAC (not the latest “new and improved and even less expensive” $400 model, but the previous fully-loaded $519 version) sounded outrageously, spectacularly, shout-it-from-the-rooftops good when connected to the BDP-2 via SPDIF, but only achieved a pale shadow of its potential via USB. This observation should not be construed as a criticism of Schiit; those irreverent guys are a bastion of rationality, candor, and intellectual honesty in this over-bloated industry, and have frankly acknowledged that if you want USB to perform as well as SPDIF, you’d better be prepared to pour a significant amount of money into the USB input circuitry. And therein lies the rub.

Unless you already know that your current DAC’s USB input is capable of performing at the same level as its SPDIF and AES/EBU inputs, or unless you know that the USB input of a future DAC that you plan to buy is capable of performing at the same level as its SPDIF and AES/EBU inputs, you will be best served by the Bryston BDP-2 Digital Player, which is capable of class-leading performance from any of its digital outputs.

It has been both reassuring and rewarding to follow Bryston’s evolutionary development of its Digital Player product family. With the latest iteration of the BDP-2, it has progressively built upon the revolutionary foundation of its predecessor, adding features, expanding connectivity, refining the user interface, and pushing the boundaries of music-file playback performance even further.

Tags: BRYSTON

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