[gimmeheadroom]

Honestly though, I am wondering what something else would sound like. I've had my Brooklyn for a while now and it sounds great to me but upgraditus and general curiosity has me wondering if I should try out the Topping A90/D90 combo or something like a Pass HPA-1 + DAC combo to see if there is a world of difference.

Personally I wouldn't touch the former with a 100 meter pole and it could not be considered an upgrade. You can look at @project86 review where he compared the Pass Labs against Violectric and some other heavy hitters.

My Brooklyn runs into a V280 balanced and that amp is outstanding. Violectric has some new gear out and coming out. Definitely worth looking into.

 

[freesole]

Personally I wouldn't touch the former with a 100 meter pole and it could not be considered an upgrade. You can look at @project86 review where he compared the Pass Labs against Violectric and some other heavy hitters.

My Brooklyn runs into a V280 balanced and that amp is outstanding. Violectric has some new gear out and coming out. Definitely worth looking into.

Did you get a chance to hear the Topping stack before? I haven't so I'm just curious.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

No, I made a conscious decision to go with European and American gear whenever possible.

 

[freesole]

Decided to go with the Chord Hugo TT2 and M Scaler. It will double for my hifi speaker setup but I'm very curious how it will sound in comparison to the Mytek alone.

 

[boxster233]

Decided to go with the Chord Hugo TT2 and M Scaler. It will double for my hifi speaker setup but I'm very curious how it will sound in comparison to the Mytek alone.

Would love to hear the comparison. Aren’t they double the price? Also you can do upscaling with Roon as well and push that to Mytek.

 

[alekc]

Would love to hear the comparison. Aren’t they double the price? Also you can do upscaling with Roon as well and push that to Mytek.

I've been comparing Hugo TT2 (without M Scaler) with Mytek Brooklyn Bridge few months ago and looking at the prices I was heavily disappointed by TT2 (while I love Mojo). TT2 has been more musical than Mytek and I think it provided more detail retrieval in some cases but the overall difference in SQ has not been night and day. Considering that Mytek is based on off-the-shelf chip and TT2 is FPGA based I had been suspecting a rather larger difference hence my disappointment. I've tested both with upsampling using Audirvana, and as far as upsampling goes it does not work miracles for every track you can throw at it. I am about to test Hugo TT2 + M Scaler vs Dave (probably in January) but if you want to go with M Scaler I would experiment with HQP and Audirvana first to find out if the technique really works for you. I have upsampling CD transport and I must say I like what I hear, but if we are talking about FLAC quality YMMV I suppose.

Coming back to price: TT2 is almost double the price of Mytek Brooklyn Bridge and it does not offer streaming capabilities onboard. Add M Scaler to the picture and you almost can get 4 Mytek dacs. So I went with Mytek due to convince and price performance deciding that difference in SQ is not worth it however this is very personal decision so don't listen to me but rather listen to those dacs yourself. BTW the most musical and warm dac at the TT2 price range I've found is MHA150 and this would be my choice in TT2 price range, not TT2 (again keep in mind this comes from a guy who loves Mojo). MHA150 on paper has worst specs than TT2 and like TT2 has very specific design but the sound signature is brilliant if you prefer a bit warmer sound.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

The RME is incredibly musical. Having both probably saved me a lot of money

 

[alekc]

The RME is incredibly musical. Having both probably saved me a lot of money

It is truly a pity that I haven't heard it yet. It is definitively on my todo list. On the other hand I try not to own every great dac there is on the planet Earth

 

[keithc]

Hi:

So glad to find this forum. I'm thinking about the DAC+ as a replacement for my Red Wine Audio Bellina tubed DAC/headphone amp to drive LCD-2s, with the option to also feed a turntable into this one-box solution for mostly large orchestral and female vocal music. Anyone who has used the DAC+ (or DAC) as a frequent phono stage who can comment on its performance?

Thanks much!

 

[freesole]

I've been comparing Hugo TT2 (without M Scaler) with Mytek Brooklyn Bridge few months ago and looking at the prices I was heavily disappointed by TT2 (while I love Mojo). TT2 has been more musical than Mytek and I think it provided more detail retrieval in some cases but the overall difference in SQ has not been night and day. Considering that Mytek is based on off-the-shelf chip and TT2 is FPGA based I had been suspecting a rather larger difference hence my disappointment. I've tested both with upsampling using Audirvana, and as far as upsampling goes it does not work miracles for every track you can throw at it. I am about to test Hugo TT2 + M Scaler vs Dave (probably in January) but if you want to go with M Scaler I would experiment with HQP and Audirvana first to find out if the technique really works for you. I have upsampling CD transport and I must say I like what I hear, but if we are talking about FLAC quality YMMV I suppose.

Coming back to price: TT2 is almost double the price of Mytek Brooklyn Bridge and it does not offer streaming capabilities onboard. Add M Scaler to the picture and you almost can get 4 Mytek dacs. So I went with Mytek due to convince and price performance deciding that difference in SQ is not worth it however this is very personal decision so don't listen to me but rather listen to those dacs yourself. BTW the most musical and warm dac at the TT2 price range I've found is MHA150 and this would be my choice in TT2 price range, not TT2 (again keep in mind this comes from a guy who loves Mojo). MHA150 on paper has worst specs than TT2 and like TT2 has very specific design but the sound signature is brilliant if you prefer a bit warmer sound.

I guess you never know until you try. I haven't heard the TT2 yet and the reviews are pretty fantastic for the most part. Musicality and enjoyment are so subjective anyway. If I don't like it, it's easy enough to flip and go for something else.

 

[alekc]

I guess you never know until you try. I haven't heard the TT2 yet and the reviews are pretty fantastic for the most part. Musicality and enjoyment are so subjective anyway. If I don't like it, it's easy enough to flip and go for something else.

Indeed. I now realized I've missed one important part in my quick comparison with TT2. Depending on the cans you have you may want to add an amp. I found out that even simple amp like iCAN SE can improve Mytek sound. Now this is not necessary case with TT2, so if you add up Mytek Brooklyn Bridge and an amp price (in range of iFi iCan Pro, Violectric VA280 or HeadAmp GS-X mini for example) it is very close (if not higher) to Chord product. I am not saying that Mytek requires external amp for cans for daily use but in long search for better sound I guess you will be standing in front of such choice eventually. On the other hand you can use separate amp with different dacs so again YMMV.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

Hi:

So glad to find this forum. I'm thinking about the DAC+ as a replacement for my Red Wine Audio Bellina tubed DAC/headphone amp to drive LCD-2s, with the option to also feed a turntable into this one-box solution for mostly large orchestral and female vocal music. Anyone who has used the DAC+ (or DAC) as a frequent phono stage who can comment on its performance?

Thanks much!

I saw some comments regarding the phono section upthread.

Indeed. I now realized I've missed one important part in my quick comparison with TT2. Depending on the cans you have you may want to add an amp. I found out that even simple amp like iCAN SE can improve Mytek sound. Now this is not necessary case with TT2, so if you add up Mytek Brooklyn Bridge and an amp price (in range of iFi iCan Pro, Violectric VA280 or HeadAmp GS-X mini for example) it is very close (if not higher) to Chord product. I am not saying that Mytek requires external amp for cans for daily use but in long search for better sound I guess you will be standing in front of such choice eventually. On the other hand you can use separate amp with different dacs so again YMMV.

There are very few dacamps with enough amp for Sennheisers. The V280 puts an end to any issues for most headphones. I don't know about Susvara, Abyss, HE-6 though.

 

[raykkho]

Hi all, I just had a custom balanced headphone cable adapter for my Mytek made using the schematic below, but connecting to my headphone I don't know why the signal turns into mono.

It sounds foolish but is there anything I need to do setting wise before I connect balanced headphones to the Mytek HP output? I already switched the output on the Mytek to HP, the volume was very low and signal was mono.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

No, recheck the wiring. I have the factory cable and it works as expected.

 

[alekc]

There is an interesting discussion regarding Mytek Brooklyn DAC+ and Bridge USB input in iSilencer thread: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/ifi-audio-isilencer-and-idefender.927715/page-9#post-16035966

I wonder what other Mytek Brooklyn users can report regarding quality of USB input and USB vs optical?