[dleblanc343]

Great review, I wish I had an SR009/KGSSHV to further critique what I hear! I may have to join the stax mafia someday to take advantage of all the gear in my chain!

 

[longbowbbs]

Very helpful review! I am also a W4S dac2 owner. After my recent purchase of the stax O2 suit, I am considering a source upgrade. BDA2 should definitely be on my list of consideration!

Remember that the upgrade to the DAC-2 is huge and 1/2 the cost of a new BDA-2.

 

[preproman]

Great review as always Peter.  
 
I agree 100% of what you said about the PWD2 - my thoughts exactly.  
 
Sounds like the BDA-2 and the Master 7 have some of the same things in common.  
 

 

[Solude]

Remember that the upgrade to the DAC-2 is huge and 1/2 the cost of a new BDA-2.

 
Schiit Gungnir is a third the price and better than the DAC2 so um ya

 

[MacedonianHero]

  Great review, I wish I had an SR009/KGSSHV to further critique what I hear! I may have to join the stax mafia someday to take advantage of all the gear in my chain!

 
 

  Great review as always Peter.  
 
I agree 100% of what you said about the PWD2 - my thoughts exactly.  
 
Sounds like the BDA-2 and the Master 7 have some of the same things in common.  
 

 
Thanks fellas. 

 

[longbowbbs]

 

Remember that the upgrade to the DAC-2 is huge and 1/2 the cost of a new BDA-2.

 
Schiit Gungnir is a third the price and better than the DAC2 so um ya

 
So, you have heard the new upgraded version?

 

[Solude]

Nope.  But more to the point, why would I consider the $2500 version of a DAC I think is easily bested by DACs in the $750 range?  It's not 2010 any more.  W4S opted to refresh the design in a minimal way so they can't expect our excitement over the new model to be terribly high.  
 
Let's look at Schiit and PS Audio in comparison.  The Asgard gets a whole new circuit and feature set... no price increase.  Bifrost got a usb chip, power and filtering change... no increase.  Also got the trickle down love from the Gungnir for those that want to pay a little to get a lot back.  PS took the PWD and threw the entire digital board out.  Price jumped as far as MSRP but if you paid more than $2500 you got screwed.

 

[seb7]

Very much interested in this dac. Seems to have the sound traits I'm interested in: holographic soundstage, imaging, detail without being etched or glaring, good bass..
One question to any owners: How are the dynamics?
 
Edit: NVM found this from SoundStage review: "Another strength of the BDA-2 was its ability to easily handle a wide dynamic range."

 

[wuzi]

Do you have a link to the review - thank you!

 

[music_man]

just got this. I was wondering why it has a 32 bit dac chip but states it is capable of 24 bit audio?

 

[Jd007]

  just got this. I was wondering why it has a 32 bit dac chip but states it is capable of 24 bit audio?

almost all digital audio sources cannot output higher than 24-bit, and almost no content is recorded/mastered at higher than 24-bit, so almost all DACs will accept at most 24-bit digital input. however, the DAC chip can be 32-bit, and that is the internal operating mode of the DAC. 24-bit (or the lower 16-bit) data is padded with zeros to become 32-bit and the DAC does all computation/conversion in 32-bits.
 
one of the main benefits of using 32-bit internal computation is a much better digital volume attenuation. since the DAC uses 32-bit internally, the bit truncation (i.e. decrease of dynamic range) from turning down the volume is much less detrimental to the signal (technically as good as analog until you reach the noise floor of the DAC, according this ESS PDF http://www.esstech.com/PDF/digital-vs-analog-volume-control.pdf).

 

[music_man]

you mean the dynamic range,right? not an actual attenuator in this case. anyways there are 24 bit devices with better snr and thd. that obviously does not tell the whole story. this already sounds better than the bm dac1 which I traded.

 

[sonance]

Hi there Bryston BDA-2 owners - I'm in the market for a DAC and I'm still trying to evaluate the BDA-2 versus a couple of other options like the M51, PWD MkII, etc. and the impressions in this thread should be very useful - trying to sort out my priorities.
 
I would also really like to know what people are paying for a BDA-2 - please PM if you're not comfortable sharing the latter in the thread.

 

[MacedonianHero]

  Hi there Bryston BDA-2 owners - I'm in the market for a DAC and I'm still trying to evaluate the BDA-2 versus a couple of other options like the M51, PWD MkII, etc. and the impressions in this thread should be very useful - trying to sort out my priorities.
 
I would also really like to know what people are paying for a BDA-2 - please PM if you're not comfortable sharing the latter in the thread.

If you go back a few pages I wrote my review of the BDA-2 and compared it to both the M51 and PWD2 as well.

 

[NZtechfreak]

MH, I don't suppose you've heard the Auralic Vega? Upgrading DAC soon, and the Bryston is very high on the shortlist right now with the Vega and a couple of others. If you (or anyone) else has ears-on experience with both I'd love to hear of it. It looks to me like I'd be paying a premium for some features I won't use (DXD/DSD), and while I like the reassurance of some more future proofing, if the sound improvement simply isn't there I'd rather pocket the price difference to possibly put toward a Chord Hugo for portable use.

I'll be running the DAC off USB into an Auralic Taurus MKII.