Bricasti M1SE Stereo DAC Review

[Jimster480]

if this came out 12 years ago as some people suggest; it definitely would have been more top class at the time it was released. There weren't that many great products on the market even 8 years ago when I first got into this hobby. However for $10000... there was probably always something else competent. Atleast it delivers on what the mfg promises.

Today there are Dongles like the Fiio KA13 that literally have better performance than this and cost $80 with an integrated headphone amp (which can actually power many headphones). Just goes to show how far the world of audio has come.

 

[Fidji]

Not being US-ian, I'm not anybody's buddy.

Mate
(as per our Aussie darling Ange Postecoglu) Non-native speaker here.

 

[Jimster480]

I choose Topping D30 and could buy about 99 of those for this price. Keep 1 for myself and hand out rest of them outside of a subway entrance...You know for shits and giggles
My eternal respect to ANY company that can and does separate fools from their money. No irony, I truly mean that. Voted poor, for this price it needs to be SOTA and be able to do my laundry, run errands and replace me at my job 3 days a week so I can go fishing.

In all fairness this apparently came out 12 years ago. So it was before the era of testing and measurements. However whoever built it obviously did test it and provide the exact performance figures of it.

 

[Crosstalk]

If they sold this for $1,000, they might have a compelling case - transparent performance, great look and seemingly excellent build quality.

$10,000 is just stupid ludicrous money to ask for any DAC though.

1000$ is a lot of money for a DAC when it cannot sound better than a 80$ DAC.

 

[Rotor]

"...we can buy this level of performance for less than 5% of the cost... Only you can decide if you want to pay 95% more for that."

I calculate it being more like 1900% more!

 

[Redman43]

In all fairness this apparently came out 12 years ago. So it was before the era of testing and measurements. However whoever built it obviously did test it and provide the exact performance figures of it.

Testing and measurements were there even 12 years ago. You state so yourself in the second part of your sentence
It is TODAY selling for 10 000 bucks.....No price reduction at all. Bricasti chooses to charge their customers this money even though something that is 100X less expensive (literary!) today performs better. That fact alone tells me what kind of company they are

 

[JayGilb]

Almost certainly.

I'm waiting to hear someone argue that the old chips sound better than the new chips because of some unmeasurable je ne sais quoi.

They don't sound better, but that "old chip" has specs well below the level of human audibility.
The price is the only thing that is out of place.

 

[AdrianusG]

They don't sound better, but that "old chip" has specs well below the level of human audibility.
The price is the only thing that is out of place.

Agreed, voted fine, works and measures as advertised, just too expensive, although built quality and looks (subjective i know), and the fact that it's still serviceable and still works earns them some extra credit in my book.

 

[holdingpants01]

what is weird to me is that after all those years of testing stuff you guys still insist that the retail price reflect performance. It does not, the retail price is used to place the product in a specific market category. You can compare $10k unit to a $100 unit in the performance, but they don't compete with each other when it comes to purchase. $10k unit is sold to people looking for ~$10k unit and customers compare it to other similar priced units, like Mytek, Chord or other audiophile "high end" brand. This kind of money buys a story, heritage, prestige, premium chassis, XLR outs, (supposed) reliability, support, upgradeability etc. I don't care about most of this stuff, but I'm not interested in this market segment as a buyer. The raw performance is the last thing that a customer cares when shopping around in this segment, for better or worse. $100 dongle could perform better, but then $20 one probably is not that much worse too, but none of them compete with that thing even in the way they integrate with other elements, not even talking about the rest of the non-performance aspects

 

[AdrianusG]

what is weird to me is that after all those years of testing stuff you guys still insist that the retail price reflect performance. It does not, the retail price is used to place the product in a specific market category. You can compare $10k unit to a $100 unit in the performance, but they don't compete with each other when it comes to purchase. $10k unit is sold to people looking for ~$10k unit and customers compare it to other similar priced units, like Mytek, Chord or other audiophile "high end" brand. This kind of money buys a story, heritage, prestige, premium chassis, XLR outs, (supposed) reliability, support, upgradeability etc. I don't care about any of this stuff, but others do. The raw performance or value is the last thing that a customer cares when shopping around in this segment, for better or worse. $100 dongle could perform better, but then $20 one probably is not that much worse too, but none of them compete with that thing even in the way they integrate with other elements, not even talking about the rest of the non-performance aspects

You have a point there, it may be (too) expensive for what it does, but still performs better than other so called High-End DAC's in this price bracket.
People who can afford to spent this kind of money could do much worse, better also, but that's a different discussion.

And truth be told, if i would have had the money to spent on a device like this 12-10 years ago i might have fallen for it, i kinda like it's looks

It's always easy to talk in hindsight, now that we can have SOTA performance at 1/10 the price.

 

[Pinkynator]

DACS are like onto the toasters of the audio world. For $15 I can buy a perfectly good toaster at Walmart that does the job and looks OK in my kitchen, or I can go to the Cuisinart store and pay $1500 for a chromium plated 4 slice job with 50 settings. Both will make perfectly acceptable toast. In point of fact, no on would ever possibly be able to distinguish the toast made in the $1500 machine from the toast made in the $15 machine.

You would actually be wrong there. The art of toast making isn't quite simple as you think it is, though not to the surprise of ASR readers, the cheap stuff may do the job better than the expensive stuff -- and the differences are actually huge! Supported by objective data, science, chroma key masking, breadcrumb elimination and histograms.

If you're into tech and science - and since you're on ASR, you most definitely are - keep an eye on rtings. They do great stuff.

Their tasty toaster treatise: https://www.rtings.com/toaster/learn/research/launch-article

They even tested the effect of power cables!!! (well, okay, cable length) on the taste of toast. Terrific!

Toaster tables & tools: https://www.rtings.com/toaster

 

[Cbdb2]

In all fairness this apparently came out 12 years ago. So it was before the era of testing and measurements. However whoever built it obviously did test it and provide the exact performance figures of it.

It was not before the era of proper engineering. That power supply is extreme over kill. So either bad engineering or for marketing purposes.

 

[Blockader]

if this came out 12 years ago as some people suggest; it definitely would have been more top class at the time it was released. There weren't that many great products on the market even 8 years ago when I first got into this hobby. However for $10000... there was probably always something else competent. Atleast it delivers on what the mfg promises.

Today there are Dongles like the Fiio KA13 that literally have better performance than this and cost $80 with an integrated headphone amp (which can actually power many headphones). Just goes to show how far the world of audio has come.

I don't think so. Around 1999, dacs with similar performance used to cost 10k$ with todays dollars.

Mark Levinson No 360S DAC Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of my Mark Levinson No. 360S DAC. I purchased it sometime around 1999 when the new high resolution formats had come out (DVD-A and SACD). It has been a solid foundation of countless audio evaluations I have performed near two decades now. The 360S...

www.audiosciencereview.com

~1999
~R-2R
~-110db highest distortion spike / 20 bits linearity, 105db DR.

 

[Velocipede_Acoustics]

This has little to do with price as such, it's about the general commitment of the company.

It's definitely not according to what a proper filter should look like in ASR standards.
And make no mistake about what you think is audible and what is not, and to whom and under which circumstances. I might guess you've never made any competent experiments on the topic and thus you're simply a back-seat driver with no real experience or knowledge, like so many here which really is a pity and harming the site. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

It's real simple. Either it's audible, or it's not. Your ignorant judgement on my character is entirely meaningless. So how about you tell me if it's audible, how you know if it is, and this "harm" you so claim. Otherwise, what exactly are you contributing here?

 

[DLS79]

Regardless I don't see why someone who doesn't need to consider those things would be shallow, or what ever term you used to insinuate how vapid they are.

Because they don't need or want them, they ignore that fact that others might.

 

[Velocipede_Acoustics]

Because they don't need or want them, they ignore that fact that others might.

That doesn't make them shallow. Why would they care about the needs of someone they don't know? They're not buying this DAC for someone else. If you see the pretty looking volume knob and think it's worth $5000, and I don't, it doesn't make me shallow. It means we have different priorities. It doesn't matter what the "thing" is. The problem is not the individuals value system. The problem is the obvious narcissism of those self important types. Calling someone shallow because they don't believe exactly the same thing as them is asinine.

 

[prerich]

I voted fine as it works as advertised and it's not fundamentally broken. The price is way up there, so I think the piggy bank - panther is more in line with this product. Even for one that likes the look of gear, this price is just too much!!!

 

[Rhamnetin]

I read first two pages of comments and then skipped eight just to see if there are still comments about the high price, and to my surprise, there is.

When will you all, who comment about the price and say you can get a better DAC for a fraction of the money, get that this DAC is not made to be value?
This kind of equipment is made with industrial design and luxury as a priority and then performance.

Nobody, and I mean nobody here is telling you that you should buy it, so quit these kinds of rants, because they are boring and take up a lot of space, and it makes reading meaningfull comments hard to read.

By the way, this DAC performs well and it is not broken and even though I am not a fan of their ID, I do admit it looks good, so they can set their price as much as they want. Whoever likes it can buy it and that's their business.

Now, I do apologize to you, Jsmith, for using your comment to make a point and this is not personally directed to you.

I apologize to others who find themselves offended, but I really hope you stop being bores with the same comments over and over...

The marketing for these products markets performance heavily.

if this came out 12 years ago as some people suggest; it definitely would have been more top class at the time it was released. There weren't that many great products on the market even 8 years ago when I first got into this hobby. However for $10000... there was probably always something else competent. Atleast it delivers on what the mfg promises.

Today there are Dongles like the Fiio KA13 that literally have better performance than this and cost $80 with an integrated headphone amp (which can actually power many headphones). Just goes to show how far the world of audio has come.

8 years ago we had the ODAC, and I think superb Gustard DACs and Benchmark too. We have a lot more now but there were good options then. The Bricasti M1 does predate all of what I just said though.

 

[DLS79]

That doesn't make them shallow. Why would they care about the needs of someone they don't know? They're not buying this DAC for someone else. If you see the pretty looking volume knob and think it's worth $5000, and I don't, it doesn't make me shallow. It means we have different priorities. It doesn't matter what the "thing" is. The problem is not the individuals value system. The problem is the obvious narcissism of those self important types. Calling someone shallow because they don't believe exactly the same thing as them is asinine.

More like the narcissism of the self important types who imply because I don't need/want this no one else should either!

 

[Velocipede_Acoustics]

More like the narcissism of the self important types who imply because I don't need/want this no one else should either!

I don't think concern for others is a narcissistic trait.

I don't think that's what they're doing anyway. I think everyone here has a different value system. They may be saying it's wildly overpriced, but I don't see anyone telling you or anyone else to not buy it.