The Bryston amps remind me of a TON of other amps that i've seen. Adcom was the first one that comes to mind.
The problem with a LOT of amps built like this is that they route signal and power wires side by side and even bundle them together. They also make use of ribbon cables for signal wires, which are JUNK. Simply replacing ribbon cables with some "decent" wire in the signal path will remove MUCH of the hard upper midrange glare and "transistor sound" that plagues many SS designs.
This is accomplished by 1) getting rid of the tinned copper / tinned aluminum wire in the ribbon itself 2) getting rid of the ( at least ) 2 harness plugs on each ribbon 3) making lower resistance direct point to point connections with higher grade wiring 4) minimizing crosstalk between different sources or circuits within the unit
This is not to mention that many designs route wiring in paths that are totally ridiculous. I took apart a pair of amps and about fell over. There was NO attention paid to magnetic fields, ground plane, length of signal path, etc.... I could not believe how these things were built and laid out. As mentioned above, they suffered from the signal / power wiring "hodgepodge" all tied together, tons of excess wiring, etc. It was SO bad that i was able to seperate all of these, re-route the wires MUCH more effectively and i was able to pull out appr FOUR FEET of wire from each one. That experience alone made me re-investigate how most of the other components that i own were built and designed. As one might suspect, the manufacturers were more concerned with ease of production than they were with the ultimate in performance. As such, i've SLOWLY ( very, very slowly ) been trying to go through them one by one and "tweak" what should have been built right in the first place.
I have come to learn that if audio engineers were designing RF gear, we would all still be using tin cans and string for communications. Sean
>
The problem with a LOT of amps built like this is that they route signal and power wires side by side and even bundle them together. They also make use of ribbon cables for signal wires, which are JUNK. Simply replacing ribbon cables with some "decent" wire in the signal path will remove MUCH of the hard upper midrange glare and "transistor sound" that plagues many SS designs.
This is accomplished by 1) getting rid of the tinned copper / tinned aluminum wire in the ribbon itself 2) getting rid of the ( at least ) 2 harness plugs on each ribbon 3) making lower resistance direct point to point connections with higher grade wiring 4) minimizing crosstalk between different sources or circuits within the unit
This is not to mention that many designs route wiring in paths that are totally ridiculous. I took apart a pair of amps and about fell over. There was NO attention paid to magnetic fields, ground plane, length of signal path, etc.... I could not believe how these things were built and laid out. As mentioned above, they suffered from the signal / power wiring "hodgepodge" all tied together, tons of excess wiring, etc. It was SO bad that i was able to seperate all of these, re-route the wires MUCH more effectively and i was able to pull out appr FOUR FEET of wire from each one. That experience alone made me re-investigate how most of the other components that i own were built and designed. As one might suspect, the manufacturers were more concerned with ease of production than they were with the ultimate in performance. As such, i've SLOWLY ( very, very slowly ) been trying to go through them one by one and "tweak" what should have been built right in the first place.
I have come to learn that if audio engineers were designing RF gear, we would all still be using tin cans and string for communications. Sean
>