Will DAC quality deteriorate over time

Hi Gary,

I have bought my Bryston BDA-1 DAC back in early 2011, So I have used it for more than 3 years already. I remember that this DAC sounded so good especially in vocal. I personally even felt that BDA-1 sound better than BDA-2 as I thought BDA-2 is smoother but less sharp, crisp and kick compared to BDA-1. However, I realise that this DAC seems to have deteriorate in sound quality over the years.

Recently, I even do a A/B test with my recently bought Marantz home theatre preamp with build in DAC. As you know, Marantz is not positioned as audiophile grade equipment especially the DAC within the a home theatre preamp is not really specialized for stereo audio, so by right, it should not sound as good as compared to Bryston BDA-1. But to my surprise, the Marantz playing back the same song (I tested with a few songs with different genre), using the same source, with the same preamp (ARC) and the same poweramp (Bryston 4BSST2), it sounded better, especially for vocal.

Hence, I would like to ask if that is because the Bryston BDA-1 (5 years warranty product) is coming to the end of service? Any solution to revive the sound quality of this wonderful DAC back to its orginal state? Or the only solution is to get a new DAC?

Note: the BDA-1 is functionally working fine, all inputs, buttons and upsampling are working well.

Thanks!
Wey Hsien

Hello Wey,

No, the DAC will not deteriorate over time. It's quite robust in fact, and should last for many years.

Besides the comparison to the Marantz, have you taken any notice of less than ideal sound quality? What interface do you use? What's your source? What about the voice sounded better?

Having owned and auditioned a number of components from a variety of manufacturers over the years, I have found a variety of brands that excel at reproducing a narrowly defined scope of sound quite often at the expense of others. The Bryston gear I've used has consistently proven itself to be neutral and true across the full scope of sound (for instance, not sacrificing sound stage depth for bass response, etc.). However, with new equipment, we do continue to improve.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Thank you so much Gary for the reply! I have done more trouble shoot and realized the bottle neck of the sound quality is the digital aes ebu cable I have used. After I changed to a pure silver digital cable, the sound opens up again!

However, the best news to me is the release of bda-3! Yeh! Really gear up towards the upgrade early next year!

Cheers!
Wey Hsien