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Mytek Brooklyn DAC

Dealer was also quite blown away by my Adams. He couldn't believe the bass depth, tautness and response. Neither could I. Clearly the MDAC had been slowly degrading for longer than I had realised, thrown into sharp relief with the arrival of a fully-working, better DAC....

I'll still buy MDAC2, as I'm all-in on the Lakewest project, but not expecting it to better the Brooklyn. Still, it's possible :)
 
JTC said:
I don't know the brand, but it's a rather unassuming box a little taller and not as wide as the Brooklyn.

Anyway, the dealer has just left. And I have bought a Brooklyn. It's a very good DAC and the internal MC stage easily outclasses my Dynavector. The LPSU is a useful improvement - I could easily hear differences, but for the moment I will stick with the vanilla Brooklyn until I know it better. It's a really superb DAC, although its UI is a bit sucky. Sonically, it's the best DAC I've tried in my system, being a bit better than the Vega which in turn was better than my (now deceased) MDAC L2 Toy.

All told, it's a steal at the price, although I suspect there's more to come as the unit I have is new and therefore may have some run-in to do. I went for a black one. The dealer left the remote, box and manual at home/shop so I can't confirm any of the fancy stuff such as different filters, etc., but in 'out of the box' form it's a keeper.
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If it's new it wil sound completely different after 3-4 days, mine did. The manuals on the Mytek website. I think I prefer the analogue volume control over digital.
 
Ian M said:
If it's new it wil sound completely different after 3-4 days, mine did.
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It's new with only the five or so hours we put on it, plus maybe the same again at another potential customer last week.

One thing occurs to me: I bought my Stax L700s during/after the period in which my MDAC started going downhill, so I am probably going to hear what they can *really* do :) Though maybe the improvement will be less marked due to the fact that they have their own amp...
 
radamel said:
Better to hear than to see. :)
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It could be the magnetic interference from your linear PSU you're hearing ;)

FWIW, the likes of Chord way back and more recently Linn, Putzey, et all, switched to SMPS's for the reasons outlined in the Benchmark article.

I don't think we can blame Mytek for launching a DAC with linear PSU's when they can sell it to ductile audiophiles for a €5k premium over the Brooklyn DAC. I see they've jumped on the foo cable bandwagon too. It'd be rude not to!
 
DNM said:
It could be the magnetic interference from your linear PSU you're hearing ;)
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Maybe. But whatever it is, it definitely improved the sound based on my audition here this very day. That's not to say I would want to pay the asking price to add a LPSU, especially as I'm all for simplicity in my system these days.

In fact, I'm at a loss to find anything negative to say about the Brooklyn. Other than maybe the fact that the UI is fiddly.
 
DNM said:
It could be the magnetic interference from your linear PSU you're hearing ;)

FWIW, the likes of Chord way back and more recently Linn, Putzey, et all, switched to SMPS's for the reasons outlined in the Benchmark article.

I don't think we can blame Mytek for launching a DAC with linear PSU's when they can sell it to ductile audiophiles for a €5k premium over the Brooklyn DAC. I see they've jumped on the foo cable bandwagon too. It'd be rude not to!
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You're quick to come to conclusions.

What are ductile audiophiles?
 
JTC said:
I don't know the brand, but it's a rather unassuming box a little taller and not as wide as the Brooklyn.

Anyway, the dealer has just left. And I have bought a Brooklyn. It's a very good DAC and the internal MC stage easily outclasses my Dynavector. The LPSU is a useful improvement - I could easily hear differences, but for the moment I will stick with the vanilla Brooklyn until I know it better. It's a really superb DAC, although its UI is a bit sucky. Sonically, it's the best DAC I've tried in my system, being a bit better than the Vega which in turn was better than my (now deceased) MDAC L2 Toy.

All told, it's a steal at the price, although I suspect there's more to come as the unit I have is new and therefore may have some run-in to do. I went for a black one. The dealer left the remote, box and manual at home/shop so I can't confirm any of the fancy stuff such as different filters, etc., but in 'out of the box' form it's a keeper.
Click to expand...

Congrats on your purchase!

Hope you'll enjoy it.
 
It's certainly enjoyable right now. Some Shpongle, sounding fine and bizarre in the way only Shpongle can. Very, very good sound. I forgot how much I missed my speakers*!!!


(* having been unavailable since the MDAC died)
 
did you get to try out the headphone section at all? I plugged in my HD600's very briefly but had a bad experience; i had to turn the dial up the majority of the way to get the volume I wanted. It's supposed to be a very powerful headphone amp, so that doesn't sound right to me.

(going to check the manual right now)
 
jamesd said:
did you get to try out the headphone section at all?
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No - my headphones only work with special amps. I don't currently have a pair of normal headphones here. Other than in-ears, which aren't what you'd call difficult to drive :p

Haven't connected my head amp up to the Brooklyn yet; just enjoying some exquisite sounds. Annoyingly, I have to go out in a bit, otherwise I'd crack open a bottle of red and park up for the evening in front of some old favourites....

Most exciting is how it makes my vinyl sound. I couldn't believe it. Probably, I'd kidded myself that my turntable was somehow inferior to digital. It's not the last word in detail, but it sounded soooooo good into the Brooklyn (Rega P25 with an Audio Technica AT33 PTG Anniversary MC cartridge). I still have several hundred LPs left since the 'great cull of 2010/1' and I may end up getting back into the vinyl game again.....
 
Don't buy anything unless you've compared the products double blind and have run enough trials that a statistical analysis of the results is possible. Then send your findings to a qualified committee for peer review. Then, after peer review, decide what to buy.

Or just buy whatever shit makes you happy.

I've gone with option B.

Joe
 
Joe P said:
Don't buy anything unless you've compared the products double blind and have run enough trials that a statistical analysis of the results is possible. Then send your findings to a qualified committee for peer review. Then, after peer review, decide what to buy.

Or just buy whatever shit makes you happy.

I've gone with option B.

Joe
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Hear, hear.
 
JTC said:
I don't know the brand, but it's a rather unassuming box a little taller and not as wide as the Brooklyn.

Anyway, the dealer has just left. And I have bought a Brooklyn. It's a very good DAC and the internal MC stage easily outclasses my Dynavector.
Click to expand...

Again, I've only lived with entry level phono stages and those built into integrated amps, but the MC section with my RP6/Denon 103 is easily beating any of those old setups. So much detail without being strident or shrill (the Vienna Acoustics never are). The space between instruments, left and right, as well as front to back, is awesome. Kind of startling when something jumps into the foreground. Listening to some tablas right now and they're very quick and in focus.

Backgrounds are dead silent and surface noise is somehow taken out of the spectrum of musical attention (I have no clue, electronically, how that's possible). It does make inner groove distortion more obvious, though...at least in my setup.
 
Joe P said:
Or just buy whatever shit makes you happy.
Click to expand...

It is definitely the easiest method to satisfy your personal preferences. Unfortunately it has nothing to do with determining if there really are audible differences between two pieces of kit.
 
Joe P said:
Don't buy anything unless you've compared the products double blind and have run enough trials that a statistical analysis of the results is possible. Then send your findings to a qualified committee for peer review. Then, after peer review, decide what to buy.

Or just buy whatever shit makes you happy.

I've gone with option B.

Joe
Click to expand...

Oops you missed the final check. Is item you've decided on sold by Pigeon Audio? If not, repeat whole process until it is.
 
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