Headphone listening
The next thing I did was plug in some headphones. I wanted to learn if I could hear differences with the same tunes streamed over Qobuz via Bluetooth from the phone vs the desktop Qobuz app via USB, and vs Qobuz through Roon via Wi-Fi. I tried an assortment of music from Qobuz's new releases. The Bluetooth stream sounded a bit plastic, as Bluetooth will—not the same tonal balance and not as much low end as Qobuz streamed through Roon via Wi-Fi and direct from Qobuz on my computer connected by USB.
Between USB-connected Qobuz and Roon-streamed Qobuz, the sound seemed about the same. Which Qobuz delivery method I'd choose would depend on what's more convenient.
The BBII's headphone amp had no problems driving several different pairs of cans, including the demanding 600 ohm, 88dB/mW AKG K240DF, although it nearly ran out of gas: The comfortable volume level was 90–95 out of 100. I don't have any 'phones that are more demanding than that, so I can't say if the BBII would crap out under the heaviest headphone lifting, but there is plenty of power for any mainstream headphone. With my go-to pleasure-listening cans,
Sennheiser HD 650, the comfortable listening level was 77 or lower.
The sound? I'd call it a bit laid-back. The low end was present and accounted for, but some albums sounded a little washed-out compared to, eg, my Little Labs Monotor. I don't think Mytek did any "warm voicing" or the like on its headphone amp; its sound is straightforward, the background quiet. One could use it to make music-production decisions with professional headphones like the Neumann NDH 30.
Connected to the big system
I took the BBII upstairs and connected it, unbalanced, to the living room system. Now the Wi-Fi hash was less audible. In the listening seat, at listening volume, head about 8' from the speakers, the Wi-Fi hash wasn't audible. Downstairs, at reasonable music volume, with speakers about 3' from my head, the noise/hash had been audible during very quiet passages and between tracks. Cranking the volume up far beyond comfortable listening levels, the hash was slightly audible upstairs. Again, connecting via Ethernet and disconnecting from the Wi-Fi network silenced it completely. For the remainder of my listening, I used the BBII connected via balanced cables to the
Benchmark LA4 and heard no odd noises.
The BBII's display indicates a volume range from 0–100 in 0.5 steps, calibrated in dB according to Mytek, although that isn't obvious from the readout. A reading of "80" matched my
dCS Bartók with its line output set to 2V and volume control set to unity gain. With levels matched, I set about streaming the same content from Qobuz over both devices, switching back and forth on the LA4 preamp.
The Bartók costs a whole lot more than the BBII, so I wasn't surprised that its sound was deeper and richer, with a more 3D image that drew me above and beyond the speakers. But the BBII sounds damn good. Its character was uncolored and revealing, as I would expect from a pro-grade Mytek DAC. It was not a sacrifice to listen to hours of music through the BBII; indeed, it was a joy.
I connected my Oppo universal-disc player via coaxial S/PDIF and spun a few CDs. Again, the BBII is a fine DAC, in the top tier of its price range, even ignoring all its other features. I was especially pleased that Mytek designed an analog buffer following the DAC that is capable of serious dynamics and bass extension and that digital sources run dead quiet from the balanced outputs. CDs made during the peak "
loudness wars" (footnote 8) sounded as crunched and annoying as expected, but they did not sound distorted, which means that the BBII has enough headroom to handle whatever over-level things happen in the conversion process.
One fun listening session was decidedly non-audiophile: the 4-CD soundtrack to the PBS miniseries
American Epic (footnote 9). My friend Nicholas Bergh expertly transferred the dozens of seminal 78rpm recordings included in the set, which is focused on how the advent of electrical recording enabled recordists to travel out into America to record regional musicians and musical styles on their home turf. This is how bluegrass, country, blues, Tex-Mex, Zydeco, and other regional styles came to be heard by a wider national audience and how the careers of many famous artists took off beyond the front porches, juke joints, street corners, and local auditoriums where they first got established.
These recordings are what Nick Bergh calls "wild": made with almost no engineering control beyond placing the microphone correctly and letting the musicians do their thing for 3 minutes, no stopping or overdubs. The result is wild dynamics and sounds—whatever musical eccentricities bubbled out of the performers. It's great, and Nick brought forth every bit of sound cut into those old wax grooves. Some of the recordings put the performance
right there, like a hologram of the early 1930s between the speakers.
I highly recommend the
American Epic soundtrack album, and the Blu-ray set of the miniseries. It was underpromoted on PBS and easily missed.
Spinning black circles
A few days later, it was time for some LP spins using the BBII's phono preamp in moving magnet mode. I installed an
Ortofon 2M Blue (5.5mV output at 1kHz, 5cm/s) on my Technics SL-1200MK7 turntable, figuring that this sort of midlevel, no-fuss vinyl setup would be typical for a target BBII customer.
Via Roon, I streamed from my library a needle-drop of an LP: the old Chess blues anthology
Wizards from the Southside. Simultaneously, I dropped the needle of the 2M Blue onto the same vinyl platter and switched the BBII back and forth, adjusting the phono preamp gain submenu until the listening levels were closely matched. This required turning the phono preamp gain up by 5dB. There was enough hiss and hum to be audible at the listening position, through all outputs: balanced, unbalanced, headphone. The same turntable/cartridge combo does not hum audibly at comfortable listening levels when connected, for example, to my
Pro-Ject Phono Box RS2. The hiss and hum are not so loud as to disturb rock music or lively/complex jazz, but it could invade the silences between notes and the low-level parts in classical and some jazz recordings.
Hum aside, the music sounded vivid, the tonal balance was right, there was plenty of headroom: Albums cut loud played loud but were undistorted, and the bottom end was just fine. If the noise and hum can be tamed, this will be quite a good MM phono preamp. I didn't try the MC settings (footnote 10).
While I had the turntable hooked up, I spun some bargain finds from Acoustic Sounds' big spring sale. Especially enjoyable were Big John Patton's
Oh Baby! and Reuben Wilson's
Love Bug, both soul-jazz classics with heavy doses of Hammond B3 recorded by Rudy Van Gelder. I also made what for me was a great musical discovery: The late jazz pianist Herbie Nichols was unknown to me until I bought the Blue Note Classic reissue of his
Vol. 1 and
Vol. 2 LPs. He was a unique creative spirit, and it was a pleasure to listen to and learn his music.
Finally, I hooked the turntable back up to the Pro-Ject preamp and ran its unbalanced outputs into the BBII's line-level unbalanced inputs. The hum and hiss were gone. It's not a fair comparison, I suppose: a complex component like the Brooklyn Bridge II with all its features (including a powerful computer inside) vs a high-quality (though affordable) stand-alone phono preamp.
Conclusions
For a modern audiophile comfortable in the streaming world, the Mytek Brooklyn Bridge II Roon Core can serve as the heart of a very capable music-listening system, now and for years hence. If physical media completely disappear, the BBII owner will be fine with a Roon subscription, some music-streaming subscriptions, and/or a large collection of music files.
The BBII has a fine-sounding DAC, tending transparent but perhaps a bit thin compared to the very best, including the much more expensive dCS Bartók (which may be less neutral-sounding than the BBII). The BBII is among the best I've heard in its price range, and it includes almost every digital-connection option—everything but I
2S and HDMI.
Noise leakage into the unbalanced outputs (in rather particular circumstances) and the audible hiss and hum in the phono section make the BBII a less-than-ideal option for a perfectionist vinyl system. It's probably adequate if you play vinyl casually, especially if your taste is mainly busy music, like good ole rock'n'roll. If you don't intend to play records and you can use the balanced outputs, none of that matters. Hopefully Mytek will fix the noise problems and the analog-focused parts of the BBII can live up to the standard set by the digital parts.
Footnote 8:
Stereophile published extensive coverage of the Loudness Wars at the end of the last century. For example, see this
1999 essay.—
John Atkinson.
Footnote 9: Tom's claim that this is not an audiophile experience is a matter of judgment—but that's a discussion for another day. For now, see bit.ly/3oqgDdD and bit.ly/45ztiM0.—
Jim Austin
Footnote 10: I asked TF to send me the BBII when he finished his auditions so that I could give a listen with an MC cartridge. But first I evaluated MM mode, with an MC cartridge and a K&K. step-up transformer. In my system, at a normal volume setting but with no music playing, I heard no hum at the listening position. At higher volume, above any level I'd ever listen at, I heard noise that was roughly white in character, low in level and unobjectionable.
MC mode was a different story. Playing music at typical levels then lifting the needle, the 60/120Hz hum/buzz was easy to hear, very different in character from what I had heard in MM mode—and louder. With music playing, the hum/buzz was completely masked. I was listening to complex music, though; this noise could be objectionable in the silences of quieter works.—
Jim Austin
