Mytek Brooklyn Bridge II Streamer Review

[JSmith]

If you are obsessed with numbers and charts then enjoy it. But, please stop projecting that onto other people.

I'm stating facts, not projecting. Apologies if you interpreted the post otherwise.


JSmith

 

[Mikig]

Stai assegnando un valore "valore" di qualcosa ad altre persone in base ai tuoi valori, bisogni, budget, simpatie e antipatie.

don't feel offended, maybe I didn't make myself understood... nothing personal, of course,... just a different point of view on the discussion, nothing more...

 

[GaryY]

Well, I would like to comment this again.
Even if there are lots of people who are willing to pay 5K regardless of measurement, they should not expect reasonable customer support. This presentation looks less than 1 day work and I doubt they have proper organization. Or customers of this company don't need support as they can buy once a month.
Thus, I doubt if there is trustful engineering part either.

 

[GaryY]

And..i think the beauty of good measurement is it saves our time because we don't have to do blind test and can buy it blindly. Even if poor SINAD doens't mean it's audible, I don't see the point to buy for 5K.

 

[KenA]

If you are obsessed with numbers and charts then enjoy it. But, please stop projecting that onto other people. Either it is audible or it is not, there is nothing else.

I’ve got to ask, because you’ve said it twice now, why is it that you believe people are ‘projecting’ onto others. What does that even mean? People here are expressing their personal subjective opinion on an online forum, on a product that has just been objectively tested by a professional. If you feel so strongly that you are having these opinions ‘projected’ on you so much that you need to ask people to stop doing it (as you have), then why don’t you just stopping reading here?

It’s ok to have an opinion,it’s okay to express it, it’s ok to debate.

 

[KenA]

Here’s an interesting quote from Mytek site:

‘…the sound of BB2 is roughly 20% better than the original Brooklyn Bridge’

I wonder how that was determined?

Also:

‘There are no comparable Streamers in the market with this good hi-res DAC at this price.’

Hmm…

 

[Rhamnetin]

‘There are no comparable Streamers in the market with this good hi-res DAC at this price.’

Hmm…

They should check out the Allo Boss2 which was tested here in a $209 configuration.

 

[MediumRare]

That filter is broken and has remained broken for months. Without it, I would have given it the postman mark but with that, it is literally broken with knowledge of the company.

I get that you’re outraged they’re not responsive. If I’d spent $5k I’d be mighty salty. But the fact remains 98 SINAD and 17 bits of linearity and 100+ dynamic range and a clean multitone mean 99% of people will not hear the slow roll-off filter through any possible speakers. Right? Did they build a Chevy and charge a Caddy price? Perhaps. But let’s call it "poor value" or "overpriced" or use the piggy bank Panther. But it is audibly transparent and therefore not broken.

 

[amirm]

I get that you’re outraged they’re not responsive. If I’d spent $5k I’d be mighty salty. But the fact remains 98 SINAD and 17 bits of linearity and 100+ dynamic range and a clean multitone mean 99% of people will not hear the slow roll-off filter through any possible speakers. Right?

Wrong. 99% of people would listen with bluetooth headphones and have zero use for this device. People who want it think it is an extremely high resolution and high fidelity gear. That is why they choose to spend $5K on it versus something else. My testing shows that it is not any of those. Its performance is similar to a no name $50 DAC. Once someone has this info and still choose to buy it, that is fine with me.

 

[MediumRare]

Wrong. 99% of people would listen with bluetooth headphones and have zero use for this device. People who want it think it is an extremely high resolution and high fidelity gear. That is why they choose to spend $5K on it versus something else. My testing shows that it is not any of those. Its performance is similar to a no name $50 DAC. Once someone has this info and still choose to buy it, that is fine with me.

Again, Amir, you’re reiterating why it’s not a good value and why someone shouldn’t purchase it. I agree completely. But you haven’t addressed the point that if someone streams Redbook to this, it comes out audibly transparent on the other end. It sounds the same as any other DAC. It’s not broken. It’s a rip-off. That’s different.

 

[Timmeon]

I think we can all look at a device's feature set and decide for ourselves what value, if any, it may add to compensate for a device's poor measured performance.
There are numerous reviewers who will go through the various features of a given device as well, in great detail.
I think we all appreciate Amir gives us something we simply can't get elsewhere.

I am thinking more in terms of a 'high-end' consumer interested in the Mytek who lands on this review and might be skeptical or confused by the conclusion.

I'm failing to make 2 points:

1. Context: The ability to easily compare apples to apples would only further expose high-end manufacturers that lack engineering prowess while charging absurd prices. The measurements don't lie. It's the interpretation that is tricky. The SINAD chart attempts this but is not like-for-like. SINAD in itself is also seen as incomplete or even irrelevant to many, which leads me to point 2...

2. Audibility: What's wrong with this product and will I be able to hear it? Here's what might be interpreted as a contradiction to the uninitiated (paraphrasing):

• ASR - "All modern reasonably well-engineered DACs are audibly transparent and therefore sound identical."
• Also ASR - "This audibly perfect but far below SOTA performance DAC is a failure."
• Consumer - ???

The issue is that the company sells itself and this product as high precision and high fidelity. Measurements don't back those claims.

Completely understood. And thank you for your service

 

[amirm]

Again, Amir, you’re reiterating why it’s not a good value and why someone shouldn’t purchase it. I agree completely. But you haven’t addressed the point that if someone streams Redbook to this, it comes out audibly transparent on the other end. It sounds the same as any other DAC. It’s not broken. It’s a rip-off. That’s different.

That's not the market for this product. Few would buy it if told that it barely clears the bar for CD. And they sure as heck wouldn't buy it if told "sounds the same as any other DAC."

People here may be OK with that level of fidelity but they are not willing to pay so much for it. So this market is closed to them.

 

[KSTR]

Actually, one could say that polish is exactly what this product is lacking. Rotate the power transformer, twist the wiring, hunt down the ground loops and fix the software bug that keeps the filter choice from working, and we'd have a lot less to grumble about. As-is, it's a complete half-ass job for 5 grand.

The marketing decision to use a bulky linear power supply was very wrong from the start. Besides the mains interference problem, a lot of valuable space got occupied by the large transformer, lots of reservoir caps, subsequent voltage regulators, the 115/230V switching.

They simply could have used an on-board or out-board 19Vdc SMPS with universal mains input which is a bog-standard item, and then generate additional voltages for the analog stuff, ADC/DAC etc with DC/DC converter modules locally.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

I think the feature set is impressive. And ability to stuff it in this little box, doubly so. That is not in dispute. The issue is that the company sells itself and this product as high precision and high fidelity. Measurements don't back those claims. If the box did perform, I would have given it very high rating.

Apart from the filter being tailored towards audiophiles, which audible flaws does it have?
-Why is it broken?

It's poor product considering the price. But that's it. Lots of those esoteric products in the world. Poor value isn't the same as "broken".

 

[Triliza]

If there was an assignment in a university / college on electronic design to make a product like this and a group of student came up with this, I would like to think the professor would not grade them with an A+, especially with an available budget like the price of this one. It's about the principle of the thing.

 

[Axo1989]

And I thought the Apple dongle was $16. Either way, a massive value proposition.

The Mac (or iPhone, even) you attach to it—to enable streaming—costs a bit more though. But in most cases still less than the Mytek device, which is a big reason why I'm not in the market for this product (or equivalents). I don't understand streamer as product when I already have computers that benefit from industrial design and production resources well beyond the reach of boutique manufacturers (or almost anyone but Apple). People that don't like using computing devices as sources will approach this differently, and that's fine.

It's odd that some technical issues that would be straightforward to address haven't been, but there are unlikely to be audible consequences. The point @Holdt and others make about the technical deficiencies (most likely) being inaudible would hold, I think. If you like the look and feel of it, along with the feature set and UI/UX, and are insufficiently price sensitive, then you could buy it and be happy.

 

[amirm]

Apart from the filter being tailored towards audiophiles, which audible flaws does it have?
-Why is it broken?

I will quote you stereophile review: https://www.stereophile.com/content/mytek-digital-brooklyn-bridge-ii-roon-core-preamplifier-page-2

"Downstairs, with my desktop system, I noticed some low-level noise and hash, the kind that can sometimes leak through a computer soundcard, and also some hum. The hash was not audible from the balanced or headphone outputs—only the unbalanced.

I took the BBII upstairs and connected it, unbalanced, to the living room system. Now the Wi-Fi hash was less audible. In the listening seat, at listening volume, head about 8' from the speakers, the Wi-Fi hash wasn't audible. Downstairs, at reasonable music volume, with speakers about 3' from my head, the noise/hash had been audible during very quiet passages and between tracks."

These are the kind of issues you get when the design has not been verified to be free of noise and interference which my review showed plenty of.

 

[amirm]

It's poor product considering the price. But that's it. Lots of those esoteric products in the world. Poor value isn't the same as "broken".

Price is fine with me actually given the functionality and market positioning. What is wrong is that the design was not verified to be performant and optimized to be so. The box was put together, likely some rudimentary measurements were made and was shipped to customers. Even when stereophile review found issues with it, they still didn't do anything about it.

Remember, issues showed up across every measurement I performed. You make it sound like it is nothing but is everything when you are selling high-end gear. The first thing high-end gear needs to be is to have impeccable measurements.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

I will quote you stereophile review: https://www.stereophile.com/content/mytek-digital-brooklyn-bridge-ii-roon-core-preamplifier-page-2

"Downstairs, with my desktop system, I noticed some low-level noise and hash, the kind that can sometimes leak through a computer soundcard, and also some hum. The hash was not audible from the balanced or headphone outputs—only the unbalanced.

I took the BBII upstairs and connected it, unbalanced, to the living room system. Now the Wi-Fi hash was less audible. In the listening seat, at listening volume, head about 8' from the speakers, the Wi-Fi hash wasn't audible. Downstairs, at reasonable music volume, with speakers about 3' from my head, the noise/hash had been audible during very quiet passages and between tracks."

These are the kind of issues you get when the design has not been verified to be free of noise and interference which my review showed plenty of.

That didn't show up in your measurements which you base your conclusions from.

Considering your measurements, which audible flaws does it have?

 

[amirm]

That didn't show up in your measurements which you base your conclusions from.

I explain that. My measurements show all kinds of interference in the analog output of the system:

You see numerous sources of interference. Such systems will change behavior depending on how you are using them, causing noise to manifest itself here, but not there.

When you have a super clean measurement, then you have confidence that such variability is not going to exist. And this, gives me confidence to recommend a system knowing that the design itself is super robust.