Mytek Brooklyn Bridge II Streamer Review

[Michal]

Fortunately, the price is quite high because you don't feel sorry for the rich. Mytek is up to his eyeballs in greed shit.
Greedy, hypocritical and corrupt clique of reviewers and marketingers is very strong, that's why we need more people like Amir.

 

[Tangband]

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:

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.

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

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

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 ?

 

[KSTR]

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.

One can mitigate this by strategic part placing and routing techniques for the PCB layout, minimizing inductive pickup loops. But of course physical distance is key.

 

[Mnyb]

Why the hell did they try to cram all of that in such a small box? I wonder how much better this would have performed in standard rack-size box? Well, and with competent engineering.

They could have saved half the space and problems with a small outboard switch mode power supply just saying

 

[KSTR]

The designer of this is probably up to his eyeballs in greed shit

Well, the actual electronic design engineer may have been aware and would know what would be required to do but the product managers and bean counters said "no, your 1st production prototype is good enough and we need to get this product out of the door asap!"

 

[Sokel]

Mains noise is somewhat of a badge of honor in highend circles,as it means tubes or oversized PS caps,a little vintage,etc.
However this one is a whole different story as the pattern is not the inclined one starting from 50 or 60Hz and falling but is getting stronger as the freqs go up.

Someone probably got cheap or greed there trying to pack everything in such a small (Mytec's aesthetics was never my cap of tea) case.
With that choice of filter is broken in my book.

Thanks Amir!

 

[Svet Angelov]

Just pathetic.

 

[Ageve]

Another DAC with a slow filter…

This is what a recording of the speaker output looks like (48 kHz REW sweep, 0-20000 Hz, recorded at 192 kHz).

Marantz SR-7013:

A proper filter as a comparison (Denon AVR-4306):

 

[voodooless]

So, analog audio has to go from the bottom right to top left, along the way are high speed computer parts and power supply madness. No wonder it’s full of noise

 

[Jimster480]

For $5k? You can just buy a mini PC and then the audio hardware you want and setup a streaming device.
I can't believe it has such inherent issues for this $5k price tag.

 

[Sokel]

View attachment 351887
So, analog audio has to go from the bottom right to top left, along the way are high speed computer parts and power supply madness. No wonder it’s full of noise

That's not an analog audio path,that's analog's Green Mile

 

[Lero]

it is needed some courage to sell a 5k piece of this when you have 200 bucks better products...

 

[firedog]

Wow, my Matrix streamer basically has the same functionality and cost around $1k - and has good measurements
It doesn't have a touch screen, though. I guess that's worth $4k.

A RPi with a nice touchscreen, an "audiophile" case and a good inexpensive pre and DAC would not total more than $$550 and would be better than this. If you really wanted to splurge on the pre you could get up to $900. Yes, more boxes, but better performance and a much more usable touchscreen.

 

[natna]

Thanx @amirm

You made my weekend happy.
A 5000 USD joke!
LOL!

 

[JeremyFife]

Ouch.
For that money it should at least measure well before you start looking at the features. Adequacy, given that the performance issues might not be that audible, is not good enough. Hard fail.

 

[antcollinet]

Ooof. Give me a Wiim+Topping DAC over this any day

Wiim pro plus stomps all over this even without the external DAC.

 

[DSJR]

I think it's another product designed with a 'just good enough performance' mentality. I suspect it's transparent enough in practice but way off beam now technically when all these super-dacs are around for a ton or two these days. That slow filter may appeal to ignorant audiophools, but surely that could be fixed to work properly? Would a simple shield around the transformer be enough to properly reduce its interference?

Will that internal computer go so out of date it can't be used in a few years time? Maybe I'm confusing the functionality with the early now ten or so years old Naim streamers which I gather glitched themselves almost into non-use - they offered a not very generous trade in on new products (a measly ten percent or so off a new one) late last year.

 

[Matias]

One can mitigate this by strategic part placing and routing techniques for the PCB layout, minimizing inductive pickup loops. But of course physical distance is key.

Let alone sealing the transformer with a steel shield cover, even better yet with mu-metal for that price. But apparently who cares, right?

 

[DanielT]

Thanks for the test, measurements Amir.

How many DACs in the + $ 3k price range have you tested that you consider worth that price?

___

Ooof. Give me a Wiim+Topping DAC over this any day

VS the US $4999 Mytek Brooklyn Bridge II solution, there will be a lot of money left over then. Why not take them and visit the real deal for example:

It will be a nice travel memory, plus when you get back home you STILL have a solution that is better than the Mytek Brooklyn Bridge II Streamer.

 

[Jimbob54]

Its been up half a day and 4 pages in- yet no fan boi as yet chiming in with the "must be defective" defence. Must be having a lie in.