Bryston BDP-1
Listed under: AV
Published: Friday, January 07, 2011
With its new BDP-1 digital music player, Bryston seems to be taking a rather different tack to the ‘high quality digital audio’ concept, compared to what we’ve seen from other Hi-Fi manufacturers over the past year. The list of things it omits may certainly raise a few eyebrows – there’s no optical drive, internal storage or onboard DAC, and there’s a complete absence of any audio streaming facilities.
With its lack of moving parts and virtually noiseless operation, the BDP-1 is instead designed to appeal to audio purists. Users will therefore need to connect their own outboard DAC (such as Bryston’s own BDA-1, the aesthetics of which the BDP-1 is designed to complement) to the unit’s AES-EBU or BNC outputs, and add one or more external storage devices to its complement of four USB ports. These comprise two on the rear for USB-powered devices, and two on the front for mains-powered hard drives and thumb sticks.
Once properly configured, the unit can then play audio files encoded in a range of different formats (FLAC, AIFF, WAV, M4A and WMA among others) at resolutions of up to 24-bit/192kHz. Cueing and selecting tracks can be performed either via the transport controls on the front panel, or else by connecting its Ethernet port to a home network and using the web browser of any networked PCs, Macs, portable media players or smartphones to access the BDP-1’s preinstalled ‘Bryston-Mini’ and ‘Bryston-Max’ web apps, both of which offer additional control parameters and ability to generate playlists.
Bryston has also made assurances that its use of an embedded Linux OS and open architecture will allow for plenty of updates and additional features further down the line. The BDP-1 is available now at a retail price of £2300.
Contact: +44 (0)1582 405 694 www.pmc-speakers.com (PMC, UK distributor)
With its lack of moving parts and virtually noiseless operation, the BDP-1 is instead designed to appeal to audio purists. Users will therefore need to connect their own outboard DAC (such as Bryston’s own BDA-1, the aesthetics of which the BDP-1 is designed to complement) to the unit’s AES-EBU or BNC outputs, and add one or more external storage devices to its complement of four USB ports. These comprise two on the rear for USB-powered devices, and two on the front for mains-powered hard drives and thumb sticks.
Once properly configured, the unit can then play audio files encoded in a range of different formats (FLAC, AIFF, WAV, M4A and WMA among others) at resolutions of up to 24-bit/192kHz. Cueing and selecting tracks can be performed either via the transport controls on the front panel, or else by connecting its Ethernet port to a home network and using the web browser of any networked PCs, Macs, portable media players or smartphones to access the BDP-1’s preinstalled ‘Bryston-Mini’ and ‘Bryston-Max’ web apps, both of which offer additional control parameters and ability to generate playlists.
Bryston has also made assurances that its use of an embedded Linux OS and open architecture will allow for plenty of updates and additional features further down the line. The BDP-1 is available now at a retail price of £2300.
Contact: +44 (0)1582 405 694 www.pmc-speakers.com (PMC, UK distributor)
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