Products of the Year

Mytek Brooklyn Bridge streaming D/A processor ($2995; reviewed by Jim Austin, September 2019, Vol.42 No.9 Review)

Brooklyn-based Mytek is no stranger to the POTY winner's circle. Indeed, this year's Digital Component of the Year, the Brooklyn Bridge streaming D/A processor, is based upon Mytek's Brooklyn DAC, which was our Joint Digital Component of the Year for 2017. As JCA pointed out, "The Brooklyn Bridge retains all the main features" of the Mytek Brooklyn, from full MQA decoding to analog line-level and phono inputs, and adds streaming and network-server capabilities, wireless and via Ethernet. Jim also praised its "rich, detailed sound" and, noting that the Brooklyn Bridge is, as far as he knew, the only streamer possessing a DAC used in studios, wrote, "For the moment, the Brooklyn Bridge appears to have the class to itself."

Notes on the Vote
Here was another decisive vote: The Mytek Brooklyn Bridge received over 30% more votes than the second-place winner, the Roon Nucleus+—which was propelled to second place by a preponderance of second-place votes! Sometimes things work out that neatly.

Third place in this category was a tie between the Chord Qutest D/A processor—which won more third-place votes than any other product in this year's competition—and another Mytek product, the very high-value Liberty D/A processor.

Finalists (in alphabetical order)
Chord Electronics Qutest D/A processor ($1895; reviewed by John Atkinson and Herb Reichert, January & March 2019, Vol.42 Nos.1 & 3 Review)
dCS Rossini Transport ($23,500; reviewed by John Atkinson, May 2019, Vol.42 No.5 Review)
Mytek Liberty D/A processor ($995; reviewed by Art Dudley, November 2018, Vol.41 No.11 Review)
Roon Nucleus+ music server ($2498; reviewed by John Atkinson and Kal Rubinson, August 2018 and March 2019, Vol.41 No.8 & Vol.42 No.3 Review and Review)
Wolf Systems Alpha 3 HFAS+ Apex server ($7195; reviewed by Kal Rubinson, January 2019, Vol.42 No.1 Review)