Mytek

Brooklyn Bridge

£2,395

Does the world need yet another streaming DAC like this? If you believe the sales figures, then yes. There’s no denying that having one box that functions as a preamplifier, digital convertor, and network music player is hugely handy – and some such as this even offer line inputs and headphone amplifiers built-in, too. You just need to add a power amplifier to have an all-singing, all-dancing system that caters for your every digital audio need. Such a set-up really chimes with the way many audiophiles live their lives these days.

It’s been fascinating to watch these things evolve. Mytek has been selling its Brooklyn DAC/preamp for five or so years now, and before that, the Stereo 192-DSD. I reviewed samples of both back in their respective days and was impressed by the sheer attention to detail. The company has been going since 1992 – but for me, it was the Brooklyn DAC that first really hit the spot, at least for a certain kind of specialist, hobbyist buyer. The new Brooklyn Bridge that you see here improves on its electronic design and adds network functionality too.

Polish-born founder and principal designer Michal Jurewicz has an impressive CV, having started his career as a technical engineer at The Hit Factory recording studios in New York in 1989. Today, HEM is responsible for manufacturing both the Mytek and Ferrum Audio brands out of Poland. That explains the way this little box of tricks looks, works and feels; it’s not a slick consumer product in the way that, say, a Denon is. Instead, it seems like it should be bolted into a rack and sat next to a synthesiser or guitar amp in a studio. It has a deliberately ‘techie’ feel that could put some people off, whilst getting some types of audiophiles very enthused indeed.

UP CLOSE

It’s an attractive looking product alright if you like that sort of thing. The aluminium fascia has a lovely textured finish with an illuminated Mytek logo set into it; the case also has the Mytek logo set into it by way of ventilation holes and is sturdily finished. The front display is fairly small, but a crisp looking, high-quality colour affair all the same, and very informative too – a trick that many consumer hi-fi DACs could learn.

It defaults to a basic display of volume and source selected, but press the volume control knob, and it shows peak and VU level meters, peak levels on both channels, sampling frequency, volume, input and mode displays, too. The aforementioned knob has a smooth but not particularly silky action, and attenuates volume in 1dB steps; the digital volume control is done to 32-bit resolution and can be bypassed to give out line-level should you so wish – so this is a pure DAC/streamer if you want it to be.

Around the back, the Brooklyn Bridge sports unbalanced RCA and balanced XLR analogue outputs, plus an unbalanced RCA input that operates at either line, moving magnet phono or moving coil phono sensitivities. There’s an Ethernet port for the streamer, two USB digital inputs (Type A for an external drive and Type B for computer connection), two S/PDIF electrical digital ins and a TOSLINK optical input. Also fitted is a phono ground, Wi-Fi antenna socket, a trigger socket and a 12V power input in addition to its mains power socket. The unit has a built-in switched-mode power supply, but purists can bypass this and use their own 12V PSU or battery supply instead – which is a great feature. The front panel sports two 6.3mm headphone jack sockets, which can be combined to feed a balanced connection.

This is a reasonably easy product to use, providing you don’t mind wading through its slightly involved menu system. There’s a vast array of configuration options, including no less than 16 digital filters, balance, absolute phase, home theatre bypass and MQA auto decoding. The network card is switched off if the internal phono stage is selected to minimise radio frequency interference – and when MQA is active, the other filter options are disabled. Using the Ethernet input also disables the Wi-Fi, further improving the streaming sound quality.

Although this product bears a strong visual similarity to the old Brooklyn DAC, it’s essentially the latest Brooklyn DAC+ with streaming functionality added. Inside its compact (216x216x44mm, 2kg) case, things are very neatly laid out – albeit rather crowded. It sports an ESS Sabre 9028PRO DAC chip, with redesigned analogue circuits with separate paths for left and right channels. An MQA hardware decoder is fitted, which will please TIDAL fans, along with a Mytek Femtoclock Generator with a claimed jitter of just 0.82ps. A new, redesigned 500mA/6W (claimed) headphone amplifier section is also specified, with a high-quality analogue volume control chip built in. The company says that it works up to 384kHz, 32-bit PCM, native DSD256 and DXD via its digital inputs, and 24/192 and DSD64 via streaming.

THE LISTENING

Memories of reviewing earlier Mytek products flooded back, upon powering up the Brooklyn Bridge. It certainly has the company’s house sound – which is no bad thing at all. Put simply, it sounds clean, open and expansive, with a lot of detail and a fair degree of smoothness. It’s certainly a good way ahead of the earlier Brooklyn, if my memory serves – and has a well lit, revealing and engaging sound. Tonally it’s just a little on the dry side; it’s not one to embellish the tonal colour of acoustic instruments, for example – this will suit many down to the ground, but those looking for more of an audio effects processor should perhaps go elsewhere.

In my system – World Audio K5881 valve power amplifier driving Yamaha NS-1000M loudspeakers – the best results were achieved through its digital inputs – specifically via the USB-B from a computer (in my case a MacBook Pro) and the coaxial digital ins (for me, fed by a Cyrus CD Xt Signature transport). It also sounded extremely good when used as a network player (with my Western Digital NAS and Spotify, via mConnect) via the Ethernet connection.

Via its USB input, a hi-res download of REM’s Texarkana was a pleasure to play. This isn’t the best-recorded track this band has ever laid down and sounds positively underwhelming compared to many – but the Brooklyn Bridge gave a great account of itself. The music sounded easy and flowing, with a good sprinkling of low-level detail and as good a soundstage as this recording allows. A hi-res file of Herbie Hancock’s Rock It was gutsy and punchy, with great attack – the Mytek showing off its grip and dynamics to great effect here.

Via Ethernet, its network input really charmed me. It’s capable of very good results and made a beautiful job of the masterclass in new jazz that is 4hero’s Spirits in Transit. It captured the delicacy of this excellent recording, including the lush harmonics of the cascading violins and the hard plucked harp strings. The piano solo had great body and plenty of vibrancy. In absolute terms, a (more expensive) Chord Electronics Hugo/2go I had to hand just pipped it, with better image focus within the soundstage and slightly superior stage depth, but the Mytek was still more expansive left-to-right. Also, playing Rufige Kru’s Menace, I really enjoyed the bass from this bit of kit; although not the most prodigious I have heard, it was never less than supple and bouncy – and well able to get my toes tapping.

Its line input sounded very satisfying. I plugged in my Sony WM-D6C Walkman Pro cassette deck, and the Brooklyn Bridge gave a clean and detailed sound, and accurately caught the format’s natural tonal softness. I also plugged in the analogue output of my classic, highly tweaked Marantz CD-63 KI DP CD player and revelled in this machine’s musicality. It provided a fine rendition of David Bowie and Pat Metheny’s This is Not America, sounding tonally smooth, spatially wide and deep, and musically satisfying – doing a lovely job in particular on Bowie’s expressive but brittle sounding vocals. Surprisingly, few Mytek rivals have analogue inputs, which is odd because it’s a really handy feature.

I was more than a little surprised by the phono stage. I wouldn’t expect that many people buy this unit solely for its vinyl playback ability, but it proved really rather good when fed from my Sony PS-8750 turntable tracking a Lyra Dorian moving coil. I was very surprised by how quiet it is; I’ve not heard many ‘bundled’ phono stages that are this devoid of noise, hum and hiss. The crunchy, overblown rock of New Orleans by Paris was crisp and rhythmically propulsive, and I really enjoyed the propulsive, effects-laden guitar work. In absolute terms, I detected a slight thinning of tonality and lack of atmosphere. Still, you’d have to spend a decent amount of money on a dedicated phono stage to get something noticeably better. Thumbs up too for the headphone amp, which wasn’t bad at all – again, mirroring the clean, detailed overall sound of the unit.

THE VERDICT

Perhaps it’s not the world’s most polished looking or operationally slick streaming DAC preamp on sale at its price, but it’s certainly one of the best sounding and most versatile. And for me, its small form factor, analogue line inputs and 12V DC input option were the icing on the cake, making Mytek’s Brooklyn Bridge even more desirable. Highly recommended at the price then, especially if you’re looking for a dinky-sized, do-it-all digital control centre.

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