On streaming, USB & more...
The last time we interviewed Brian Zolner, the ‘Bri’ in Bricasti Design, we learned a good deal, and were especially taken with his explanation of why hardly any digital DSD recordings are really truly DSD, and why most of the few that are, aren’t worth having. This time we interviewed Brian Zolner during last year’s Australian Hi-Fi & AV Show, where Bricasti was showing its new M21 and its recent M5 in the suite of its distributor, Studio Connections Australia.
To briefly recap the story so far, Bricasti Design was formed by two former employees of Lexicon, joined subsequently by engineers from Madrigal Laboratories. The company’s first product was for the professional market, the M7 reverb unit. But it was the first consumer product, the M1 DAC, which brought Bricasti to the attention of audiophiles in the home. It straddled both pro and high-end consumer camps with its generous connecting options and solid build quality, and won praise especially for the results of its built-from-first-principles digital engineering, notably in using Bricasti’s own reconstruction filters rather than adopting one of the popular DAC chips.
The result was an ongoing stream of panegyric reviews for the M1 from the hi-fi press, including a DAC of the Year award from our own team at Sound+Image, followed by more for the M28 monobloc power amplifier, which along with an M15 stereo integrated amp and the M12 source controller, allowed Bricasti to offer a complete system solution. It also introduced a shiny chrome-style finish for what is called the Platinum Series, currently limited to the M12 source controller and the new M21.
The smaller M5 came next, this being a network player with digital but not analogue outputs (so a DAC is still required). And debuting at the Show was the M21, which is listed by Bricasti as another stereo DAC, same as the M1. So we asked Brian Zolner to explain the expanded range, and particularly what differentiates the more expensive M21 from the original M1, and from the M12. The answer to this and all the questions surrounding it took about 45 minutes, and you’ll note we didn’t say much ourselves in that time. Mr Zolner is an excellent interviewee, and his thought streams so congruent that it’s almost impossible to edit his speech other than to clean up hesitations and repetitions. We thought it enjoyable enough to bring it to you here in pretty much its entirety.
SOUND+IMAGE: So tell us about the M5 and the new M21.
BRIAN ZOLNER: So we have the M5 which we announced a year ago, but we also launched before that the M12. And the idea of the M12 was what I call a source controller; it has analogue in, digital ins, so it’s a nice front-end for somebody, a preamp/DAC. And we developed the network rendering streaming interface for that product, and designed that card — the physical shape of it, how it mounts — so it could be retrofitted into any M1. So it fits in the M12, it can be put into an M1 or M1 DAC, so people can upgrade if they want, or they can order it with that.
And then I realised I could put that in its own little box. So the M5 is this little box with the analogue power supply out of the M1 powering the network interface, and that drops down to a card we made that has a SHARC (processor) on it, and with AES and SPDIF out.
