BROOKLYN BRIDGE II ROON CORE FAQ

What exactly is the Brooklyn Bridge II and why did Mytek built it?

Brooklyn Bridge II is All In One a High End DAC, a Music Streamer, an analog and digital Preamp and a Headphone Amp. In short it's a central house music source capable of playing and streaming all music sources, with the highest possible resolution and quality. Brooklyn Bridge being relatively small and portable is an immediate, convenient source of hi-res music available immediately anywhere, to be connected (including via hotspot) and controlled with a smartphone. Mytek has 30 years of experience of building the best sounding mastering quality DACs. To create BB2 Mytek took an award winning Brooklyn DAC design and inserted a Roon Core (Nucleus+) in the same Brooklyn style box for the ultimate seamless experience which does not require Internet nor network expertise.

Why does BB2 use Roon as the main engine for playback?

Mytek has opted to choose and license Roon for its main playback engine, because Roon is the most advanced high end playback software available today. Roon has originated from the Sooloos software, a pioneering product from Meridian in early 2000's, and has consistently focused on providing the ultimate music lover experience and support of all music formats including hi-res PCM, DSD and MQA formats. Roon's ability to use recordings' metadata to provide an amazing record playback and studying experience is unprecedented and does not exist in any other playback software. Additionally Roon provides unique features such as unified library of local files and multiple streaming services, multiroom playback to multiple DACs and "own private streaming service" experience of Roon ARC. Roon was simply the best and that's why Mytek chose and licensed it.

How powerfull is the BB2 Roon Core?

BBII Roon core uses the Intel i5 11th generation CPU and is actually more powerful than the Nucleus+ because of this more powerful CPU. It's sufficient to handle a very large libraries, even exceeding the size of internal 4TB drive.

Why does BB2 have the Bluetooth connectivity?

For convenience. Bluetooth connectivity is meant for all casual sound sources that user may instantly need to connect to speakers, such as podcast, youtube sounds, music samples etc. Bluetooth is extremely useful in daily situations. Mytek uses Intel Bluetooth 5 capable of all formats available on the source phone, including hi-res formats such as AptX and Sony's LDAC 9624.  In addition Mytek plans to introduce the Bluetooth headphones playback capability in the future software updates in 2024.

How good is the DAC circuitry inside the BB2?

It's the same circuit based on our own special implementation of the ESS ES9028PRO chipset, same as in the original Brooklyn Bridge released in 2019 (and Stereophile Product of the Year). However, because of the 90W toroid linear power supply and linear regulators, subjectively, the sound of BB2 is roughly 20% better than the original Brooklyn Bridge which used the linear power supply. Also the BB2 DAC has a newly invented HAT(tm) Harmonic Audio Tuning feature which allows for "warm" sound setting where the even 2nd and 4th harmonics of the DAC can be increased for subjective sound improvement. There are no comparable Streamers in the market with this good hi-res DAC at this price.

How will the BB2 software evolve?

BBII has a powerful Intel i5 CPU running customized Intel Ubuntu Linux. Mytek has combined the Roon platform with its own Mytek OS Software Platform. You can think of it as a computer with an OS which is periodically updated with new OS versions adding new functionality.  Mytek will continue developing and adding new functionality to BBII which will include new options for streaming, playback and connectivity and digital signal processing. 

Can BB2 be used without Roon or with services not supported by Roon?

Yes. Roon focuses on providing the best UI experiences for hi-res streaming services and local library. Some services, for example Spotify, are not supported by Roon. Mytek will be adding this extra functionality in a form of software upgrades. The first feature to be available in the subsequent software updates is the Upnp function which allows universal network streaming. This feature will be gradually expanded, first providing connection via Spotify Connect, the Audirvana and Jplay playback software and eventually more streaming services. Additional to the main Roon feature, the BBII software will be offering the most playback options available from any other music streamer on the market. BBII can do this better because its I5 CPU is about 20x more powerful that the A55 ARM CPU found in the entry level streamers such as Eversolo etc. Because of this, going forward, the BBII will offer a plentiful of new features coming with periodic software updates over the next several years.

Can BB2 be used as Roon Ready end point in a system with another Roon Core?

Yes. It is possible to turn off the BB2 Roon Core in menu/settings and make the BB2 a Roon Ready DAC without Roon Core running.