THERE’s a new CD player in town and it’s from Canadian outfit Bryston, better known for its amps, DACs and (non-CD) digital players.
But why a CD player in times when the industry is moving away from the genre? It seems initial orders were encouraging when the prototype was exhibited at recent audio events.
“We are aware that the music industry has written off the CD format. However, we have a significant number of customers who have substantial CD collections they’d like to enjoy,” says Bryston VP James Tanner.
“We had the ability to leverage our BDA-3 DAC platform – one of the most popular digital products from Bryston — combined with a very good quality transport and deliver an audiophile CD player with astonishing levels of clarity and detail.”
According to the press statement, the BCD-3 has been engineered to play back Redbook CD and CDR disc formats using a premium transport/laser pickup assembly mated to two AKM 4490 384/32Bit DAC’s.
Bryston designed the player to utilise a single master clock that syncs the transport to the DAC, eliminating one of the primary sources of jitter. The DAC in the BCD-3 is based on the BDA-3 platform and includes a fully discrete Bryston class A analogue output stage and independent analogue and digital power supplies.
Users will have the choice of balanced XLR or unbalanced RCA stereo outputs as well as transformer-coupled SPDIF/AES digital outputs.
The BCD-3 is also network connectable, enabling software upgrades via an Ethernet jack and there is a remote 12-volt trigger input as well. The front panel, available in black or silver aluminium, has been designed to aesthetically match Bryston’s Cubed Series amplifiers.
The BCD-3 should be shipping now, and has a retail price tag of US$3495.
As with other Bryston digital products, there’s a five-year warranty on this one.
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