[Uncle00Jesse]

just curious, has anyone around here heard the bda-2 dac yet? i know its relatively new. i wonder how it competes with the stable of dacs in that range.

 

[Maxvla]

Haven't heard it, but it seems overpriced, by about 2x.

 

[James Tanner]

Hi Jesse

There is a review in Absolute Sound Magazine in the April issue on the BDA2 DAC which should be out next week. Also Secrets of Home Theater Magazine is doing a review which should be out in about 2 weeks. He emailed me and said the BDA2 was the first piece of gear he has tested that measured better than his sophisticated test gear!

James

 

[[H]ardwareNick]

If the BDA-2 is better than the BDA-1, it must be stunning.
 
Have heard the BDA-1 in person and am very strongly contemplating the BDA-2 given how great I found the BDA-1. An audible step up from the Violectric V800 (which itself is a fantastic DAC which punches well above it's weight).

 

[BRAC]

Quote:

If the BDA-2 is better than the BDA-1, it must be stunning.
 
Have heard the BDA-1 in person and am very strongly contemplating the BDA-2 given how great I found the BDA-1. An audible step up from the Violectric V800 (which itself is a fantastic DAC which punches well above it's weight).

I compared a BDA-1 with an M51 side by side in my rig and preferred the M51. Both very good DAC's though. The M51 is cheaper too, so there is that...
 
The dealer that I borrowed the BDA-1 from also has the BDA-2 and swears that they sound indistinguishable through every intput, except USB. I guess the big update with the BDA-2 mostly involved getting the USB input up to snuff, so to speak.   

 

[James Tanner]

Quote:

I compared a BDA-1 with an M51 side by side in my rig and preferred the M51. Both very good DAC's.though. The M51 is cheaper too, so there is that...
 
The dealer that I borrowed the BDA-1 from also has the BDA-2 and swears that they sound indistinguishable through every intput, except USB. I guess the big update with the BDA-2 mostly involved getting the USB input up to snuff, so to speak.   

 
The BDA-2 uses different DAC's than the BDA-1.  The BDA-1 uses the Crystal 4398 192/24Bit Dac and the BDA-2 uses the AKM 4399 192/32Bit Dac.
 
james

 

[BRAC]

Quote:

 
The BDA-2 uses different DAC's than the BDA-1.  The BDA-1 uses the Crystal 4398 192/24Bit Dac and the BDA-2 uses the AKM 4399 192/32Bit Dac.
 
james

I realize that...
 
I'm talking more about how they sound in comparison to each other.

 

[James Tanner]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 
Hi
 
Then I think the dealer will be in for a difference of opinion on this one.
 
james

 

[BRAC]

Quote:

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 
Hi
 
Then I think the dealer will be in for a difference of opinion on this one.
 
james

Huh? Come again?

 
 
Are you trying to say that they sound very different from each other?

 

[James Tanner]

Quote:

Huh? Come again?

 
Hi
 
I think you will find that most of the people who have heard the two will have a different opinion on the sound differences from the dealer you quoted.
 
james

 

[BRAC]

Quote:

 
Hi
 
I think you will find that most of the people who have heard the two will have a different opinion on the sound differences from the dealer you quoted.
 
james

That's fair.
 
Like I said, I have not heard the BDA-2 myself.

 

[[H]ardwareNick]

If you google about the BDA-2, you'll find another forum which has opinions/impressions from multiple people who have personally heard both the BDA-1 and BDA-2 and have expressed an audible difference in favour of the BDA-2.
 
I also thought I read somewhere that the BDA-2 wasn't going to replace the BDA-1 as Bryston saw enough of a difference to maintain both models to serve different purposes/markets/preferences with the BDA-2 having amongst other things such as the change to DAC, a supposedly better USB implementation (24/192 Async with all the re-clocking features etc). Oh and something about the BDA-2 being capable of DSD in future via software.
 
James, correct me if I'm wrong about any of the above of course.

 

[James Tanner]

Hi

That's correct Nick. Also i think when you get to this level of gear differences become much more subtle of course so I am not surprised that there are different opinions on the differences or sameness of the BDA's.

James

 

[Chris J]

Hi all Bryston BHA-1 owners, just thought I'd share an experience and a question with you all.

Taken from my post in another audio forum on the internet,


"Further to my previous post regarding my issue surrounding uneven gain in the volume knob, does anyone else have the same issue or has anyone else even tried to test the scaling of their volume?


Quite simply, if we express two factors, one being total volume output (V) and the other being total physical rotation of volume knob (P), normalised from 1 to 10 with 10 representing the maximum, what has been observed is that:

 

• Where P is between 1 to 4, V scales from 1 to 6
• Where P is between 5 to 7, V scales from 6 to 7 (if at all it changes...)
• Where P is between 7 to 10, V scales from 7 to 10 (audible but not as strong as the first scenario)

It has taken 11 days and myself following up twice, as opposed to their usual 1-2 day response time(to his absolute credit, James used to respond extremely quickly - within hours, even during non-business hours), for them (James was unresponsive before I copied the same email to Brian Russell who eventually chased this up with his engineers and responded to me) to tell me in literally one sentence that uneven gain across the volume knob is normal.


I'm not entirely sure why this design is as such and would love to see if anybody else with a BHA-1 has the same experience as it just sounds rather peculiar to me."

Personally, I think the most important criteria for a volume control is excellent L-R tracking throughout it's range.
A secondary consideration is getting reasonably fine adjustment throughout it's range, i.e. can you set it to the volume you want in any part of the range?

I have a Bryston SP-1.7 Pre-amp, the volume control tracks differently in the analog mode than it does in the digital mode.
But L-R tracking is quite good and I can get reasonable fine adjustment at any level so I'm fine with it.

 

[R Giskard]

I read some comments regarding the volume control on the BHA-1. It is very strange as I'll try to explain.
 
When the volume is turned from 7 o'clock (minumum) to around 9 o'clock, the volume raise is significant. Turning the potentiometer to 12 o'clock doesn't bring that much of a difference. Turning the potentiometer to 15 o'clock doesn't make it much louder either. In essence, the level at 15 o'clock is approximately twice as lound as when the pot is at 9 o'clock. However, passing 15 o'clock increases the level literally exponentially and it becomes too loud very soon.
 
It is strange behavior. Is this normal?