Building on heritage

A decade on from the brand-defining M1 DAC, Bricasti has poured all its latter day experience into a dazzling new flagship

A decade on from the brand-defining M1 DAC, Bricasti has poured all its latter-day experience into a dazzling new flagship

Bricasti Design is not one of those companies that adheres to the 'keep your range rolling' philosophy, seemingly launching updates to its products left, right and centre. Likely informed by its professional audio heritage, it keeps new arrivals to a rare minimum. So the launch of the M21, a flagship digital-to analogue converter to replace the £9,600 M1 of 2011, is of real interest, particularly when you take into consideration the updates the Massachusetts-based company has implemented, and its somewhat breath-taking £17,250 price tag.

There are things that haven't changed all that much in the intervening 11 years, including the M21's choice of third-party chipset, which remains Analog Devices AD1955 - a pair used in a dual mono configuration no less. And once again, the fully balanced circuit path includes separate, isolated power supplies for each channel.

Yet several additions mark this model out as a serious update on the M1, and help explain the significant leap in price. First, there's its native DSD decoding and separate 1-bit DAC, as seen recently on the company's more affordable (£7,000) M3 network DAC/headphone amp. This is described by Bricasti as a: "true one-bit modulator of our own design and unique to the industry". There is still the option of using the AD DAC for DSD conversion, of course, but it'll be converted to LPCM along the way.

For PCM sources, the M21 also introduces an alternative, bespoke ladder DAC option, which like the Analog Devices path can be used with linear and minimum phase filters, both offered in 'O' and '1' flavours.