Using any op-amp in any high end product is sacralage in my view. I would prefer to build it single ended with out any sound degrading unecessary op-amp based stages to the thing. All I see that it does is to provide a balanced input. If U want to place that provision on the board thats fine but I'd skip using that part.
Mark
Mark
Dear,
The discrete opamp stage in the SST design's is meant as a buffer and impedance matcher. The old Bryston's had them only for the balanced input. Everyone noted that the Balanced input sounded way better. Stuart Taylor designed for that reason input stages for balanced and signle ended inputstages. The whole BP25/26 preamps excist of this discrete design.
I like discrete opamps very much. I experiment myself with the Jensen 990 design and the forsseltech's. Both great!!
Opamps used in highend is mebey forbidden...tell that to Jeff Rowland with their amplifers based on opamps only (12x LM3886 en OPA2134's)..
They sound quite good, but are not worth the money in my opinion.
With kind regards,
Bas
The discrete opamp stage in the SST design's is meant as a buffer and impedance matcher. The old Bryston's had them only for the balanced input. Everyone noted that the Balanced input sounded way better. Stuart Taylor designed for that reason input stages for balanced and signle ended inputstages. The whole BP25/26 preamps excist of this discrete design.
I like discrete opamps very much. I experiment myself with the Jensen 990 design and the forsseltech's. Both great!!
Opamps used in highend is mebey forbidden...tell that to Jeff Rowland with their amplifers based on opamps only (12x LM3886 en OPA2134's)..
They sound quite good, but are not worth the money in my opinion.
With kind regards,
Bas
Hi Al,
I think Steve is only trying to draw attention to areas in the original design that would give a DIY effort trouble, and I agree fully with him.
In that light I believe his comments are constructive. I have not had the pleasure of seeing a new SST or listening to it.
Any comments from me can not apply to those newer designs.
Bas,
I'll trust you that they sound good. I do know they sound much better than previous products. You don't need to convince me on that point. How do they sound compared to a Marantz PM-17? I really liked that. I only heard it for about 15 minutes though.
-Chris
I think Steve is only trying to draw attention to areas in the original design that would give a DIY effort trouble, and I agree fully with him.
In that light I believe his comments are constructive. I have not had the pleasure of seeing a new SST or listening to it.
Any comments from me can not apply to those newer designs.
Bas,
I'll trust you that they sound good. I do know they sound much better than previous products. You don't need to convince me on that point. How do they sound compared to a Marantz PM-17? I really liked that. I only heard it for about 15 minutes though.
-Chris
Hi Steve,
I dealt with many of those car amps as well. Liked the Nakamichi, was Canadian factory service for Lanzar. I saw all those in for service.
Don't worry, the average installer will gleefully destroy anything he can get his hands on. They are experts at misinstalling any product. Note I am not targeting good installers, just the average idiot.
-Chris
I dealt with many of those car amps as well. Liked the Nakamichi, was Canadian factory service for Lanzar. I saw all those in for service.
Don't worry, the average installer will gleefully destroy anything he can get his hands on. They are experts at misinstalling any product. Note I am not targeting good installers, just the average idiot.
-Chris
Hi Troy,
My gosh this is a busy thread!
A long warranty bears no indication at all as to the quality of the product. It should, but it doesn't. Bear in mind that Bryston did not, until maybe recently, open independent service shops. It was all module replacement with in-house service.
I worked with staging companies, recording studios and the like that used Bryston. Some would bring the amp to me for service even under warranty, and pay for the job. I was not comfortable with this and the guys at Bryston freaked. One of them demanded a customer name once ( I gave it to him) and called him immediately. My customer called me soon after and approved all work. This included paying for me to trace the schematic (it was a secret back then). Since then I always called Bryston with the model, serial and complaint and corrective action. Drove them nuts at the time.
I guess they are much better now, but back then they were not. There products died at least as often as others - I think more due to the heat. They just hid the problems, that's all. The warranty was all marketing.
-Chris
My gosh this is a busy thread!
A long warranty bears no indication at all as to the quality of the product. It should, but it doesn't. Bear in mind that Bryston did not, until maybe recently, open independent service shops. It was all module replacement with in-house service.
I worked with staging companies, recording studios and the like that used Bryston. Some would bring the amp to me for service even under warranty, and pay for the job. I was not comfortable with this and the guys at Bryston freaked. One of them demanded a customer name once ( I gave it to him) and called him immediately. My customer called me soon after and approved all work. This included paying for me to trace the schematic (it was a secret back then). Since then I always called Bryston with the model, serial and complaint and corrective action. Drove them nuts at the time.
I guess they are much better now, but back then they were not. There products died at least as often as others - I think more due to the heat. They just hid the problems, that's all. The warranty was all marketing.
-Chris
anatech said:
Dear chris,
I only know the PM14 and PM15 very well (I modified both). Both work with the Sanken emittor transistors. Both have a effortless sound. The same for the so underestimated Rotel RB-1090. For the marantz amps, I only liked to hear the bass tighter and punchier, but that is a matter of taste. In comparison the SST's sounded more open and more in layers. I mean with that, that you can literally look in to the record. Just like shinning a halogene lamp into a dark tunnel. What you see is a lot of tiny dustparts shining in the blackness. I can not find a better way to describe the sound of a SST design.
A bad thing of the marantz amps are the endless metal bridges on the ampliferboard. Bypass them all and you will be suprissed!
Personally I never gonna try to copy a SST design. I simply don't have the experrience that the bryston staff have with this topologie. I encourage everyone that wanted to try, but i gonna be a hard job I think.
With kind regards,
Bas
Hi Bas,
The hard job is creating something new. Once someone has been there, it's much easier to create it again. That's because you know where you are going.
I believe that the 3 series SST is probably worthwhile. I'd like to see what comes out of this. I bet there are improvements that can be made since it's not for mass production.
-Chris
The hard job is creating something new. Once someone has been there, it's much easier to create it again. That's because you know where you are going.
I believe that the 3 series SST is probably worthwhile. I'd like to see what comes out of this. I bet there are improvements that can be made since it's not for mass production.
-Chris
Dear,
A small quote from Bryston about the VBE multiplayer:
"There is also a slight increase in the complexity of the biasing considerations for this type of output section, since the normal VBE-multiplier bias string, (not shown in the diagrams), is not accurate enough to track the several stages of distributed current-gain-with-voltage-gain which make up this circuit. Bryston thus has bias-tracking thermal links in more than one location. In practice, this works very well and quite predictably once the engineering considerations are understood."
Regards,
Bas
A small quote from Bryston about the VBE multiplayer:
"There is also a slight increase in the complexity of the biasing considerations for this type of output section, since the normal VBE-multiplier bias string, (not shown in the diagrams), is not accurate enough to track the several stages of distributed current-gain-with-voltage-gain which make up this circuit. Bryston thus has bias-tracking thermal links in more than one location. In practice, this works very well and quite predictably once the engineering considerations are understood."
Regards,
Bas
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Mark and pinkmouse,
I’m for simpler single ended version. Less complications (what is good for us). Discrete op-amps are for buffering and enabling balanced operation. I can live without that, more important if we go for more complex variant – we will never start!
Chris,
Bryston amps give you hard times in the past and we all understand your traumas.
You are great expert and will be more practical for all of us if you focus on new 3B SST schematic, differences with older ST series, etc.
I have pleasure to listen Marantz pm17 integrated amp and was nothing special for me. Slow bass, lucking details. I assume preamp section is problematic part, but didn’t have schematic to confirm that.
Chicco
I’m for simpler single ended version. Less complications (what is good for us). Discrete op-amps are for buffering and enabling balanced operation. I can live without that, more important if we go for more complex variant – we will never start!
Chris,
Bryston amps give you hard times in the past and we all understand your traumas.
You are great expert and will be more practical for all of us if you focus on new 3B SST schematic, differences with older ST series, etc.
I have pleasure to listen Marantz pm17 integrated amp and was nothing special for me. Slow bass, lucking details. I assume preamp section is problematic part, but didn’t have schematic to confirm that.
Chicco
Hi Chicco,
I agree the SST is the one to build. It may be one of the better amps out there. I didn't suffer any more than any other tech in the early days, Steve is a good example of this.
Besides, I want to see where this goes!
As for the Marantz PM17, it was the best room at the show in London the year before last I guess. The stuff sure is pretty to look at. I would like a chance to hear one in my room, but in Canada, that's an unlikely event. We don't get as much good two channel product as you lucky Europeans do.
-Chris
I agree the SST is the one to build. It may be one of the better amps out there. I didn't suffer any more than any other tech in the early days, Steve is a good example of this.
Besides, I want to see where this goes!
As for the Marantz PM17, it was the best room at the show in London the year before last I guess. The stuff sure is pretty to look at. I would like a chance to hear one in my room, but in Canada, that's an unlikely event. We don't get as much good two channel product as you lucky Europeans do.
-Chris
Pinkmouse,
we will have hard time with single sided board and you are the man for double sided solutions. How far you are, or we must wait for professionals?
I think main capacitors must be on output board and +- 30V psu for input section can be implemented on board too.
One pcb for all vital electronic will be ideal, anyone can try it on the fly.
we will have hard time with single sided board and you are the man for double sided solutions. How far you are, or we must wait for professionals?
I think main capacitors must be on output board and +- 30V psu for input section can be implemented on board too.
One pcb for all vital electronic will be ideal, anyone can try it on the fly.
Ideal position for electrolytics will be as close as possible to output devices. Bryston climes less than 1”. How we can be better if we put psu 20 cm far from boards? We can do both which will be good, IMO. Instability can be an issue here like Chris and other experts pointed out, so we must be careful.
Chicco
Chicco
Dear,
The capacitors should be as close as possible to the outout stage as this is the case with the orginal SST. I think this is one of the reasson's the amp sound so fast and tight! Offcourse you can decide to use more and/or bigger cap's. For example, you can use the outputstage of the 3BSST and the powersupply of the 7BSST (at least the cap's).
You can put the maintransformers in a seperate enclusure like Musical fidelity does (and the new krell evolution and old KAS).
To make the whole project a little bit easyer, you can deside to use the Forsseltech discrete opamps for the inputstage. http://www.forsselltech.com/ now you can consentrate completly on the amplfier stage itself and the powersupply.
With kind regards,
Bas
The capacitors should be as close as possible to the outout stage as this is the case with the orginal SST. I think this is one of the reasson's the amp sound so fast and tight! Offcourse you can decide to use more and/or bigger cap's. For example, you can use the outputstage of the 3BSST and the powersupply of the 7BSST (at least the cap's).
You can put the maintransformers in a seperate enclusure like Musical fidelity does (and the new krell evolution and old KAS).
To make the whole project a little bit easyer, you can deside to use the Forsseltech discrete opamps for the inputstage. http://www.forsselltech.com/ now you can consentrate completly on the amplfier stage itself and the powersupply.
With kind regards,
Bas
Al,
If you go with this then I'd definitely be up for another groupbuy. These actually appeal to me more than the Krell's did because they don't produce so much heat. When your running 6 KSA's I imagine the heat is quite something for a bunch of amps. So please do have a go at this.
I've never heard a bad word against the recent Brystons ie. SST's until I read the posts in this thread.
One thing that always gets me over on the DIY amps is that some guru's decide to over analyse everything and seem to lose view of the bigger picture because they are concentrating on such a small aspect of the design.
The only thing that matters at the end of the day is how it sounds and just from reading Bas's posts along with a whole raft of users over on AVforums.com I think that this will be a solid design regardless.
Its interesting to note that the main users of Bryston equipment is the pro-audio industry and mainly studio's. I think that these would have died off long ago if the sound was sub below par, the products expensive for the performance ratio and if they weren't rock solid reliable.
So I'd ignore folks who put down very much established designs just from specs and schematics!
Its like the folks who imagine what a speaker sounds like from just a bunch measured responses. Daft!
If you go with this then I'd definitely be up for another groupbuy. These actually appeal to me more than the Krell's did because they don't produce so much heat. When your running 6 KSA's I imagine the heat is quite something for a bunch of amps. So please do have a go at this.
I've never heard a bad word against the recent Brystons ie. SST's until I read the posts in this thread.
One thing that always gets me over on the DIY amps is that some guru's decide to over analyse everything and seem to lose view of the bigger picture because they are concentrating on such a small aspect of the design.
The only thing that matters at the end of the day is how it sounds and just from reading Bas's posts along with a whole raft of users over on AVforums.com I think that this will be a solid design regardless.
Its interesting to note that the main users of Bryston equipment is the pro-audio industry and mainly studio's. I think that these would have died off long ago if the sound was sub below par, the products expensive for the performance ratio and if they weren't rock solid reliable.
So I'd ignore folks who put down very much established designs just from specs and schematics!
Its like the folks who imagine what a speaker sounds like from just a bunch measured responses. Daft!
SST pictures
Dear,
Here some images.
The fist two are from the 4BSST, the third from a 3BSST. Watch how close the capacitors are placed to the outputstage!!
With kind regards,
Bas
Dear,
Here some images.
The fist two are from the 4BSST, the third from a 3BSST. Watch how close the capacitors are placed to the outputstage!!
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An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
With kind regards,
Bas
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