The Canadian company Bryston Ltd created the Bryston BR-20 with the goal of developing an analog preamp equipped with a quality DAC and high-definition streamer functions.
The Bryston BR-20 features a balanced analog preamp architecture with a superior converter and streamer derived from the Bryston BDP series and is designed to be connected to any source. For analog sources, the standard version offers two pairs of unbalanced RCA connectors and two XLR inputs for balanced signals. The Bryston BR-20 preamp can be supplemented with a phono stage that matches the Bryston BP-2 equipment and is designed for MM cartridges. True, for this you have to sacrifice one of the two RCA inputs.
Connections for digital sources Bryston BR-20 – 2 optical and 2 coaxial S / PDIF interfaces, 2 AES / EBU interfaces, a USB port for direct connection to a PC or Mac, and additional USB interfaces for appropriate storage media.
On an additional board, the Bryston BR-20 can get in addition four HDMI inputs, each of which passes 4K with HDR, and the audio signal is processed in the device, and DSD is also supported. The onboard Bryston BR-20 DAC can handle up to 32 bits and 384 kHz for linear PCM data as well as DSD256. This also applies to streaming data, for which the Bryston BR-20 has a Gigabit Ethernet interface. The streaming client is UPnP based and can play all relevant data formats.
The onboard Lo Z headphone amplifier, with independent discrete circuitry, is capable of driving even complex headphone models. The Bryston BR-20 also does not forget the RS232 interface and trigger connections. Also, the novelty can be controlled over IP through a convenient web interface.
In addition, there is a Bryston BR-4 Remote, which duplicates the controls on the device.