Bryston BR-20 Preamp/DAC $6000
Bryston announced in the spring of 2020 that it would be coming out with a new, state of the art Preamp/DAC. Well… that was when C19 was ramping up and, to make a long story short, it has taken over a year, instead of a couple months, to deliver on the promise. But it’s been worth the wait!
BR-20 is a stunningly immediate and transparent sounding preamp- that just happens to have a state of the art DAC on board too! The Bryston BDA-3 DAC sells alone for $3800. It has been revered throughout the audio world as being in the top tier of DAC performers REGARDLESS of price. For just $2200 more you get an unsurpassed, balanced, line stage preamp on board as well!
Let’s think about this for a moment. What would it cost to buy a fully balanced, state of the art line stage preamp? If it comes from Switzerland it will run $72k. What would it cost to get a state of the art DAC? Bryston’s is $3800. It runs about $9k for a Weiss DAC 502. I’m happy to proclaim, pulling no punches, that BR-20 performs right there at the same level, for only $6k, instead of $81k.
There are some unique features to BR-20. Most notably, it is a fully balanced design that supports two balanced outputs. Bryston is serious about quality. BR-20 doesn’t have RCA outputs.
Nope. They’re not good enough for Bryston’s state of the art effort. BR-20 is as quiet as anything you can measure- but will reveal vibrant musical colors.
I’ve been outspoken about the fact that Bryston preamps never seem to get their due in the audiophile press. I suspect that’s because Bryston power amps have always been MASSIVELY raved. It’s as though the mags don’t want to give Bryston tooooo much love. I’m promising that’s about to change. BR-20 is so good, and so affordable, that even the rags that love to write about preamps that are as expensive as sports cars, will finally recognize a Bryston preamp, BR-20, as belonging in the top echelon or preamps, regardless of price.
Marantz SACD-30n $2600
It’s time to reassess your relationship with silver discs and DACs! Marantz’s SACD-30n is so good that it will allow you to fall in love with the silver discs you may have forgotten.
Some of us have been on board with silver discs forever. But some of you started to believe that foolishness about silver discs being obsolete. Did you believe that LPs were obsolete too? My contention is that you have not even heard how good your CDs (& SACDs) can sound.
Now, you can stream till the cows come home if you want to. I have no problem with that. But for A LOT OF US, streaming can’t do it all.
There is a fair amount of music I want to hear that isn’t available via streaming. I have it on CD. I am happy to get off my fanny and play those discs. How tough is that? I like to choose a CD and play the whole thing. Listen to the PROGRAM as was intended. People that stream, typically bounce from song to song, if not sound to sound. It’s a different experience.
I recommend you not waste countless hours of your life saving discs to a server. The metadata won’t align so you’ll have to type it in. And every server is going to crash and burn some day. When customers tell me, I have no place to put my CDs, I shudder. Seriously? Look at all the crapola around your house. You used to have hundreds of LPs and tapes. You can find a place to store the majority of your CDs, and then a place near your system where you might keep the top dozen or so that are on your short list right now.
Recently a customer came in with a dozen CDs that wouldn’t play on his mucho expensive, one year old, Naim CD player. We challenged the SACD-30n. It played each and every one of these discs without hesitating. Why? Marantz makes its own drive mechanism in its plant in Japan. It isn’t a generic, purchased from a vendor like China.com.
The DAC in SACD-30n is Marantz’s own creation, MMM (Marantz Music Mastering). It sounds tremendously open and transparent. It is more airy and alive than a player using a chip. You get the sound of this MMM technology through your discs, as well as a streamer or server you can run through it.
I’m saying there’s a lot more to your discs than you knew. Give them a chance with the best disc player going. You’ll be happy to pull them out of storage!
Skunk Is A Missile Defense Engineer
Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, guitarist of Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers, became a consultant to various government agencies on, among other things, the topic of missile defense systems. He wrote a research paper in 1994 that was so well received that he has been asked to consult on various technical issues.