Review Mytek Brooklyn Bridge

Take It To The Bridge

The Mytek Brooklyn Bridge has almost everything on board in terms of connections: digital and analogue inputs. Balanced and RCA. The only thing missing is a digital AES input. There is also a wide choice of digital and analogue volume control, phono, Roon, MQA, two headphone outputs. With an adapter you can combine these two inputs into one balanced output. In one of the pictures you can see an overview of all the ins and outs in Myteks models.

Listen Up

We especially are fond of the Brooklyn Bridge when used in combination with headphones. The sound signature is neutral, but where we find the earlier versions of the Brooklyn DAC a bit too neutral, the Brooklyn has more balls, more oomph as we call it.

The differences between the headphones are clearly audible when played through the headphone outputs. There is hardly any coloration in the headphone amp, the sound signature is very neutral. The analog outputs were tested in the studio. When listening to live recordings it was noticeable that it all sounds a bit dull.

When comparing it to a Motu 828es interface that has the same DAC on board, the difference was very clear. We heard much more liveliness, soundstage and everything that makes music come alive. If we connect the Weiss DAC2 with streaming module, the difference is even bigger. Speakers disappear, the music is projected – if properly recorded – around us.

Stream the bridge

We can be brief about the streaming function of the Brooklyn Bridge. That’s excellent. The Mytek is immediately recognized by Roon as Roon endpoint. We had the Brooklyn Bridge and the Metrum Ambre played side by side in Roon and the differences are minimal. At first we thought the Metrum had a slightly larger soundstage, but after longer listening that turned out not to be the case. Then again we thought Mytek was a bit more detailed, or musical. Again, the differences turned out to be too small/negligible. In short; the Brooklyn Bridge is an excellent network bridge.

If we compare the Mytek Manhattan II to the Brooklyn Bridge, the differences come clearly forward. On all points the Manhattan outperforms the Brooklyn Bridge. There is more blackness and depth in the sound since the noise floor of the Manhattan is lower. There is more layering and depth in the music. And the output stage of the Manhattan is more musical than the Brooklyn Bridge. Manhattan is high end and one pays a high end price for that; € 8,485. However, we prefer the Brooklyn Bridge when it comes to ease of operation; in use it is more straightforward and intuitive than the Manhattan.