Amps: Bryston vs Electrocompaniet

i've only heard bryston in dealer/show situations, but what i heard sounded nice. i *do* have electrocompaniet stuff at home, tho, & like it a lot. lotsa folks say its solid state for those who like tubes - seems pretty close to me. the only reason i replaced my older ec-1a preamp was cuz i am a lazy slob & wanted to have a remote-controlled preamp. i'm still using my two electro amps, tho - an aw75dmb driving the tweets of my monitors & an aw100 driving the mid-woofs. (a pair of bridged adcom gfa 555's are used to drive my subs). if ewe like the electro sound, i would suggest buying used an older model - according to heinz preiss, the n. american electrocompaniet technician, they *all* have pretty much the same sonics. if i could ever find another aw75dmb, or an aw100dmb, i'd sell my aw100, but only cuz it's not bridgeable, and i want to try my monitors biwired/bridged, instead of my current bi-amped set-up. and, w/bryston *or* electro, new *or* older models, if ya buy used, ewe won't take such a financial hit if it turns out ya wanna try something else. oh, heinz has a www: http://www.angelfire.com/biz/grundig/ good luck, doug

Hi Rob, It's nice to hear you refer to your wife as your better half. I've never heard the Electrocompaniet but I did recently borrow a friends Bryston (thanks BJ)to break in a pair of Eidolons. My amps are the VK60-mono's and (pre-amp VK50se) I didn't want to waste 300 hours of tube life playing the system straight for for all that time. While the Bryston may be good at its price point I'm affraid it didn't sound to good in my system especially compared to the VK60s. Less than 2 years ago I did compare a variety of amps in my system both solid-state and tube and found the Bat VK500(batpack) to be overall my favorite of the solid-state amps auditioned. On the used market they sell for around $2500 to $3000. I'm sure it would be a great match with your VK5ise and would be able to drive your speakers. Good luck, Tom

Hello Rob You might want to try talking to either Jeff Or Mark at Jeff Sound Values. His site is under the browse part of audiogon. He is a Electro dealer and pobably can give you some insight on this matter. They are good people and have helped me out many times when I needed a second opinion. Best of luck.

Since you are using a Dynaudio Contour series speaker and I'm also using one. My advise would be to use the Plinius SA100MK3 power amp. Somehow the Plinius and the Dynaudio have a very synergistic match. Along in that lines, I have great sucess using the Analysis Plus Oval 9's with the above amp and speakers. I think the AW120 might not be enough to drive the Dyna Contour if youhave a big listening room. I'm using the 8150i which is 150 watts @ 8 ohms and it just right for that speaker. THose speakers really love megawatts to get the most out of them. If you have any more queries pls send me an email at:fld@mozcom.com. I have not heard of the Bryston so I cant comment. I was able to hear the AW120, AW180 and ECi-3. Great amps but I think the DYna's could just use some more power. Although the SA100 is just 100 watts, but its very high current and high power. Its more powerful than my 8150i integrated amp.

I own a bryston before, it sounded too sharp and edge. Full spectrum music such as metallic or full jazz band was ok. The tone quality of the solo or single vocal did not come through as a clean nature sound....so I sold it to someone who was running eletrostatic speakers. One thing I can say good thing about the bryston is the durability of the amp.