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Mytek Brooklyn Bridge II Streamer Review

Rate this streamer/DAC:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 347 86.8%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 38 9.5%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 5 1.3%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 10 2.5%

  • Total voters
    400
When getting into audio a few years back I recall seeing this company's devices, but nothing in terms of serious performance measurements of note. The price was high back then, and it seems even higher now. So glad I went the RME route instead (I was mostly looking for all-in-one desktop devices, so while I don't have streaming, I get basically everything else I needed).

I always have a sneaking suspicion of literally any electronic producing company that actually works in NYC metro area. They all strike me as pretentious overhyped marketing nonsense. In audio we have Gradio's headphones (who's heads have gone on record saying "we don't listen to measurements, we listen to audio"). And now we have Mytek selling $5K audio devices that questionably clear CD quality on some fronts. It seems anyone working in this city is willing to spend every single cent on perception of their product rather than using the supposed prestige one might assume when you say your company is based in NYC and makes products there.

I get labor costs, and just cost of business here is high. But come on, have some pride and stop being a bunch of charlatans goodness.. As if NYC doesn't have an image problem enough as it is. Get your products at or above competition if you're going to vye for prestige and a higher asking price.
 
When getting into audio a few years back I recall seeing this company's devices, but nothing in terms of serious performance measurements of note. The price was high back then, and it seems even higher now. So glad I went the RME route instead (I was mostly looking for all-in-one desktop devices, so while I don't have streaming, I get basically everything else I needed).

I always have a sneaking suspicion of literally any electronic producing company that actually works in NYC metro area. They all strike me as pretentious overhyped marketing nonsense. In audio we have Gradio's headphones (who's heads have gone on record saying "we don't listen to measurements, we listen to audio"). And now we have Mytek selling $5K audio devices that questionably clear CD quality on some fronts. It seems anyone working in this city is willing to spend every single cent on perception of their product rather than using the supposed prestige one might assume when you say your company is based in NYC and makes products there.

I get labor costs, and just cost of business here is high. But come on, have some pride and stop being a bunch of charlatans goodness.. As if NYC doesn't have an image problem enough as it is. Get your products at or above competition if you're going to vye for prestige and a higher asking price.
Mytek could benefit from buying the RME ADI 2 Pro FS just to measure their products. Not as good as an AP, but good enough for designing so they could make much better gear. That is somewhat amazing about this and some other over-priced vs performance gear. For $2k they could have something to measure well enough to improve their gear or at least have a real idea of how well it does. That way they wouldn't be terribly embarrassed when it is measured. I guess if they thought this way they wouldn't spend all their effort marketing BS like analog power supplies.
 
If you have a $20,000 door in your house you now have a worthy door stop. I personally have never heard a Mytek product but from the company reputation was expecting this to have stellar measurements. Inexcusable performance for the cost. Booooooooooo.
 
I'm never dabbled with dedicated streamers or even the PC version of it, but theoretically even an Android phone plugged to a USB DAC can do everything they can.
My Asus Tinkerboard running Volumio via USB input to my old Emotiva Stealth DAC (with analog input) is looking pretty good right now, despite being 7 or 8 years old and costing a total of $600.

And it all runs just fine on my Galaxy Android tablet, iPhone or my wife's i-Pad.
 
As if NYC doesn't have an image problem enough as it is.
As any born-and-bred resident of the borough will tell you, Brooklyn is not New York City.
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Voted "poor" on price alone.
 
As any born-and-bred resident of the borough will tell you, Brooklyn is not New York City.
Meh, I guess Jersey and Staten Island getting dogged on wasn't enough? Though to be fair, Jersey isn't NYC
 
When I first started reading (it's 6 in the morning right now), I thought it's not THAT bad for a $500 device.

Then people in the comments started mentioning $5.000 - surely they misread the correct price.

I scrolled back to the top.

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Now it's time for Playback Designs MPD-8.
 
Performance is meh, but functionality is great. Price is high and value proposition is horrible. Still, I couldn’t get myself to give it a poor rating, so a ‘not terrible’ it is. The fact that as a DAC the $16 Apple USB-C headphone adapter outperforms it is telling.
 
Thanks for this review.
Another brand with strong marketing but poor engineering.
Very disappointing.

I was balancing between "Not terrible" (you still cover 16 bits audio) and "Poor".
But this filter justifies the "Poor" rating, IMO.
Especially when added to the price and to the disappointment.
 
Looks like any analog/instrumentation design experts have left the company long ago.
That power supply design was doomed to fail right from the start unless you have real experts at work but it's good for marketing (they even proudly printed "linear supply" on the case).
 
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Mytek Brooklyn Bridge II Roon Core, streamer, phono stage and analog preamplifier. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $4999.
View attachment 351805
I really like the industrial design of the Mytek. It elevates the standard form factor of desktop DACs with that tasteful texturing on front and top. The box is quite heavy for its size. It houses an Intel i5 CPU based single board computer running Roon Core image. I think I read it uses linear power supply which would explain its weight. There are no fans which is very nice when so much functionality is stuffed in this little box. Back panel shows surprisingly complete functionality which even includes a phono preamplifier:
View attachment 351807
The labels are a bit hard to read but not a big deal. Connectors as you see are very good quality.

Back to the front, the touchscreen is reasonably responsible as to not be annoying but don't mistake it for your smartphone. The navigation is a bit hard given the narrow display but doable.

I was very disappointed to see that the controlling app is only available for iphone/ipad and not Android. I also didn't see a remote included which adds to the annoyance to someone in Android ecosystem.

Let's measure it and see how it peforms.

Mytek Brooklyn Bridge II Measurements
I connected the Bridge II using USB and adjusted the volume control to get nominal 4 volts output from XLR outputs:
View attachment 351808
Wow, that is one messy FFT spectrum. So much power supply and other spurious tones. Nothing other than the main 1 kHz spike should be there ideally and we are far from it. Combined energy of all those spikes shrinks the SINAD down to just "fair" category:
View attachment 351810
View attachment 351811

I disconnected the USB cable and tested just with Ethernet, hoping to see the noise and distortion go away but it did not (assuming it had leaked from my host PC):
View attachment 351812
Strangely, the gain is different from network interface to USB. They are both bit exact digital streams so why is the level varying?

Setting the volume control to max, we see that performance is what we measured up to max level:
View attachment 351813
In other words, we barely clear the bar for 16 bit content as far as distortion and noise.

Dynamic range is not great for class:
View attachment 351820

IMD test shows the impact of noise being too high:
View attachment 351814

There is a hint of ESS IMD hump in there which would have been more visible if noise were lower.

Jitter test shows same spurious tones and then some:
View attachment 351815

Multitone test performance is better if we ignore the constant spikes:
View attachment 351816

For compatibility with sterephile measurements, I ran their 50 Hz test:
View attachment 351817
Results are almost identical to what they measured which in our book, is poor. See for comparison our top of the line (near $1000) DAC:
index.php

That is whopping 40 dB of difference!!!

Linearity was poor due to interfering power supply noise at 180 Hz (test frequency is 200 Hz):
View attachment 351818
Back to stereophile review, their measurements noted that the filter setting would NOT change no matter what you did in the menu. The same thing was true in my sample:
View attachment 351819
That review was in September of last year. I checked my sample and firmware was up to date yet this bug remains. :(

Predictably, the poor filter impacts the high frequency wideband measurements of the DAC:
View attachment 351821

But notice how the performance is still not great (green) when I run at 192 kHz which removes the effect of the DAC.

At this point, I didn't feel motivated to run more tests.

Conclusions
I love the functionality of the Brooklyn Bridge II. It also comes in a compact and attractive packages. Sadly objective performance is not remotely where it needs to be with considerable number of $100 DACs beating its measurements. Seeing how they are not responsive enough to fix the filtering bug which they have known about for some 5 months, I would be super concerned about putting my trust in them to keep this product up to date (a requirement for a streamer). They seem to have gone after a marketing story of "high-end" audio than delivering on the promise.

I can't recommend the Mytek Brooklyn Bridge II.

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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

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Seems like using a linear power supply with a big transformer inside the cabinet generates bad SINAD , no matter how good the supply is . Magnetic pollution.

It also seems clear that the use of a very slow digital filter makes the test results bad with high distortion - probably deliberately for ” high end sound ” - more analog sounding ? . This raises the question if many enthusiasts actually prefer the sound of a bad digital filter ? Or is it just the ”different” sound , that suppose to be better because of the high price tag that fools people to buy this ?

IMG_4598.png
 
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