Bricasti Design Ltd. DAC

From what I remember it has a positive review also in Hifi News.

Cheers
Orb

devert said:

Another interesting new DAC:

http://www.stereophile.com/category/fifth-element/

Amirm, please note the players on this one.

Click to expand...

I think "LaserCD" recently bought one and was eventually going to fill us in on the details

Myles:

You are right. My problem is when I write about audio gear I have a tendency to lapse into hyperbole. I don't want it to sound like I'm pushing a particular manufacturer.

In a nutshell: one of the aspects of my business is that I have 3 (soon to be 4) CD labels. I've assembled what I consider to be a fairly evolved reference system in a dedicated listening room. I went out to CES this past January with the intention of checking out a new DAC for the system. I heard the Playback Designs, DCS, Soulution, and a bunch of other high end DACS - some sounded better than others but until I install a piece in my system I couldn't really judge. I was particularly intrigued by the new Playback Designs unit MPD-3. Jonathan Tinn put on a very impressive demo. Unfortunately the unit wasn't in production yet. The only DCS units that were of interest were the ones out of my budget. Essentially I was waiting for the PD unit to become available.

While I was "on hold" I stumbled across the Bricasti M1. It turned out that a contact of mine had just become a distributor for it and was able to get me a loaner. I spent about month with it after which I refused to give it back.

John Marks review is right on the money and to go into a lot of detail of the M1 would read like a rehash of his observations. Dynamics are phenomenal. There is a "rightness" to how it sounds. Best bass response I've ever heard. With the various filter settings you can find one that will lock in with your system. Once I found it the mids and upper frequencies were just spot on. It wasn't "tube-like". It just has a pure, natural sound. For the first time ever (and I'm a little embarrassed to write this) I literally found myself tapping my foot during a listening session. I never paid much attention to PRAT but I guess this has it. I've been using a Bryston BDP-1 for hi-rez playback. Feeding the M1 24/96 and 24/192 material is really something to be heard. Jaw dropping stuff. I did find that I had to adjust the filter setting for 24 bit files vs. Redbook. It would be nice if the M1 came with a remote control to do this on the fly but damn if I can't use the exercise.

I've heard second hand stories of the M1 going head to head in comparisons to other units often mentioned on this forum. Unless I have direct experience its meaningless to spin tales. The state of digital has advanced to the point that there is no one answer but the M1 is mine.

My understanding is that there is now (or about to be) a USB enabled unit available. The Bricasti guys are a bit laid back in updating their website. Perhaps because they are selling as many M1 units as they can make. By the way - the background info on Bricasti is correct. The two main players were ex-Harman guys who made a name for themselves in the proaudio world with their M7 reverb unit. The M1 is a collaboration with other former Harman employees who have set up their own shop. These are engineers who worked on the Mark Levinson gear. If you look at the stylings of the M1 you can see some of the Levinson DNA and I strongly suspect that carries over into the sonics as well. Its entirely built locally in Mass. - including the CNC routed chassis. At $8k its not an inexpensive proposition but you will feel pride in ownership from the construction quality.

The only downside to the M1 is that in my system, digital has surpassed my analog playback. Reality hit home immediately - the M1 has forced me to consider a new phono preamp. The search is already under way.

Ken Golden

Just to add for those that are new to the name.
Bricasti has been around for awhile and started by developing products for the pro world.
They do have excellent experience and from what I remember it measures as SOTA when Paul Miller tested it.

Cheers
Orb

I have the Bricasti M7 and recently tried the M1. I feel the M7 is the best reverb available today. I've tried it up against the Lexicons, TC Electronic, and numerous software convolution reverbs. From that experience I had high hopes for the M1. I put it up against the Playback Designs, Digital Audio Denmark, EMM Labs, Lavry Gold and Lynx Aurora. While I feel the Bricasti bested the Aurora, EMM Labs and was dead even with the Lavry, in my system, I feel the Playback Designs MPS-5 and DAD AX24 was better from about 120Hz and up. What I felt the others were lacking in bass, the Bricasti was actually adding in the bass. Somewhat the same feeling when I was using the Pacific Microsonics 2. The HDCD added bass that I felt was not in the original content. It was slightly exaggerated. I feel if someone wanted that sound, it would be added in the mastering process. The Bricasti was no match for the PD and DAD in the mid/upper registers.

On the A-D side, we are testing the Grimm AD-1 now and it really sounds great.

I am not a pro audio guy but our chief designer is and he raves about the Bricasti reverb unit as Bruce does. The design language here is definitely that of Mark Levinson of the old. Very nice looking.

I am bummed though with lack of volume control. Requiring a pre-amp in an all digital system doubles the cost of ownership here. Ditto for remote control. I don't buy that either would degrade the sound. They already have a DSP so the noisy digital beast is running around there no matter what. If they have manged to tame its noise, then implementing volume control inside it would have had no ill effect. And IR control has no adverse effects when it is doing nothing.

Bruce:

Out of curiosity, what filter settings did you use with the M1? Settling on the right filter made all the difference in the world. I did have to adjust it for 24 bit files but once I found the one that worked in my system it was spectacular. The level of detail I'm hearing is really quite astonishing but its not overbearing at all. Extremely musical piece of gear.

Ken Golden

lasercd said:

Bruce:

Out of curiosity, what filter settings did you use with the M1?
Ken Golden

Click to expand...

I felt that Filter #2 sounded best and #4 and #6 sounded worse.

Looks like John Atkinson fell in love with the M1. It made the cover of the February issue of Stereophile.

Bruce, I find it noteworthy that in the pro audio market there appears to be the same large diversity of opinions on what DAC sounds best as there are in the audiophile market. Do you use any measurements to assist in your assessments? Or, is it truly just a subjective judgement?

The only measurements I use are for setting levels. I use a Fluke 115 for that. My reference DAC is the Playback Designs MPS-5. Coming out of my workstation, I can test 3 DAC's at a time into the EMM Labs Switchman 3. I can even set up a blind study where my wife will set the output configuration in the software and I just have 3 switches. I tell her to sometimes set one DAC to the same 2 outputs in the workstation. This is how I evaluate DAC's.

The Pro side is driven more by money since we have to make good business decisions. A lot of pro guys have never heard DAC's above $5k. The law of diminishing returns is of a big concern to them. Plus, if you're well known, the manufacturers give you HUGE discounts, as long as they can say that "______" uses our equipment.

Havnet seen a post here in awhile but after reading the stereophile stuff i felt compelled to at least demo the bricasti with my new Marten Djangos, and also ran it up against some other highly regarded pieces, Ayon Skylaa2 , the New Calyx Femto , Empirical Audio OD SE, PBD MPD3 and some lesser priced stuff like Simaudio 300d and Hegel 1100 hd, and found the M! to best all of these other Dacs hands down, the only dac which sonically compared was the mpd3 but i kept experiecing a bad hissing coming from its xlr connection along with electronic himm so that went back ( btw was nt unti specific either as i went to a dealer near by who carries the unit and had him hook it up with his system and his unit did the same ). In any event The M1 harmonics were precise and antural and the bass resposnse just growled on the Djangso even set to the speakers lowest bass setting...I encourage anyone in need of a dac to hear this product as I think Atkinson was spot on A+

I found the new minimum phase filters to raise its performance to an even higher level.

Laser that is awesome as I have not heard those yet. The unit I used was the original with out usb or the new filters..What setting do you like the best?

In my system, minimum phase 2 works best with Redbook. Oddly for some hi-res files I prefer minimum phase 4. It seems to depend if it is a 24/96 or 24/192 source. Before I did the software update I used (linear) filter 2.

thanks for the input cant wat to try those out when i get mine next week

HAs anyone spent what looks liek a minimal amount of money to upgrade the power supply bruce is offering on the m1 ? and if so what did you think?

Its not Bruce. Its Brian.

I replaced the power supply and I thought it made a profound and easily discernable difference. There used to be the slightest bit of edge on the top and it was completely gone. One other change I made that brought improvement was to replace the fuses with Hi-Fi Tuning Supreme. These two changes made such a signficant difference that I ultimately changed my preferred filter setting from Minimum Phase 2 to Minimum Phase 0.

Bricasti is in the process of upgrading the M1 to accept native DSD. I believe they are in the final stages of testing and should be available shortly.

A review of the latest version:

http://www.audiostream.com/content/bricasti-design-m1-dac