I bought Mytek's Brooklyn Bridge a few years ago. It was one of the first "all in one" DACS to also offer networked compatibility with Tidal's higher sampling rates and MQA for around $3000. It was a game changer, with a unique integrated bundle with good headphone amplification, capable preamp, comprehensive connectivity options, all neatly packaged inside a small uniquely upmarket styled unit and complimented with a showy colour display. Reviews, from publications such as Stereophile, gave it the thumbs up and the brand soared in to great heights in the market.
Unfortunately, things went pear shaped I think, when a big dispute inside the company blew up and all of a sudden there was a Mytek Poland and HEM ( ex Mytek ). It all got very messy as I got confused about where to go for firmware updates and who was what.
I remember being pretty impressed by the BB because I knew the unit was unpacking much higher resolution than I'd ever had at 24 bit 192 Khz. With MQA downloads, the sound resolution was different. I believed the hype that playing at higher sampling resolutions must obviously be better!
However, these measurements of their latest iteration, are somewhat disappointing because, in a way, I think Mytek kick started Chifi, or at least Chifi seem to have adopted a lot of Mytek's original design philosophy and have now established a commercial model based on a race to perfection or is it just a case of "one upmanship"? The result is, of course, a massive range of DACS that max out at about $4000.
There seems to be a cost increase of $1000 from the BB which I cannot account for or attribute to price inflation (Chifi stable pricing) alone or innovation ( Chifi TOTL) or added features - that appear to have moved little from the BB.
Sadly, my S.M.S.L SU10 blows the Mytek out of the water for reproduction excellence for approx 22% of the cost of this device. The new breed of dual ES9039 chipped units at 25% of the price, leave Mytek's latest offering well behind the Chifi pack. It would be easy configure a system with the latest dual chipped DAC, TOTL preamp and TOTL headphone amp and, theoretically still pay 50% less than this unit! (or less even).
For those that need streaming, then do you really need an Intel I5 chip (quite old architecture) to power Roon when there are excellent streamer units offering staggering levels of reproduction quality at lower cost? for example the Mytek spec is a near spec. match of the Matrix Element 2 ( that's been out in the field for at least a year) and the Matrix Element X has the superior ES9038 chip with bells and whistles. We know the Matrix units are high quality with excellent performance criteria. Something Mytek cannot match from these measurements.
I really don't know why Mytek thought this product would be competitive and the measurements just seem to confirm that perhaps the company were relying on brand image and their value incentive with the I5 chip for Roon. Then again, perhaps Mytek don't believe in the power of measurements!
I think they might need to rethink. Consumers are aware of sites like ASR that provide independent measurements that they can use to benchmark products. Hopefully a lesson learnt for their product development team, then again maybe not because I'm pretty sure they must have heard about ASR and others who test products.