Bryston 7B ST - Sounds anaemic. Any help?

If you are unable to correct the problem you're having with the 7B-ST's, I suggest you contact James Tanner at Bryston for advice/suggestions. The easiest way to contact James is to go to Bryston's home page (www.bryston.ca), and at the bottom of the page you will send a hyperlink for technical questions. James (or one of his minions) always responds very quickly, and will probably have the solution to your problem.

Pbb, you forget that i make my living working on electronic gear taking hundreds of measurements on a daily basis. As such, i'm not just talking as an "avid audiophile" discussing "fantasy situations" and associated explanations. There are PLENTY of times that one component will perform measurably better on a bench but just won't cut the mustard under real world conditions.

I've seen an RF transmitter showing more than twice the power output on a lab grade wattmeter and scope get its ass kicked by another transmitter showing slightly less than half that same amount of power. Before you ask, this testing was done using the same loads ( same dummy load on the bench and then both transmitters feeding the same antenna on a switchbox ). We are not even talking about how each deals with different types of loads and why but in effect how they work apples to apples. As far as i know, Hafeez did that same "apples to apples" type of comparison.

Try explaining to a customer why his "antique" radio that he thought would be a "spare" works better than his latest / greatest / far more expensive "high tech" piece of gear that he just bought and shows more than twice the power. Then you'd know how i feel at times. There are some things that we just don't know how to explain and are not "quantifiable" at this point in time.

The above RF situation is no different than what i've experienced with AF ( audio frequency ) amps. My old 250 wpc 4B that was factory serviced could not drive speakers as well as the 75 wpc Classe' 70 that i had. While i have NO doubt believing that the 4B would measure quite noticeably more powerful on the bench, i also have NO doubt that it sounded anemic and kept going into clipping. At the same time within the same system, the "baby sized" Classe' just kept pumping out the tunes with nary a problem and at higher listening levels. Neither amp really sounded "good" to me, but i had a HELLUVA lot more respect for that little Classe' for obvious reasons. Once again, this was an "apples to apples" type of situation with the same equipment being used. The only variables introduced were the two different amps.

As i mentioned, i was simply commenting on the information that was presented in that article. LG's comments fell "close to home" as i had been in a similar situation with the older Bryston. As to my "reading between the lines" about the amp going into clipping on more than one occassion, would that be "illogical" given the statements that were published ??? Personally, i think not. Then again, i have no agenda ( i don't sell or service ANY brand of hi-fi gear ) nor do i feel the need to stick up for a product that i felt performed in a sub-standard manner. How much "weight" or "value" someone puts on my comments as an end user is strictly up to them. As anyone that has read more than a few of my posts knows, i always try to stress that one needs to buy / use / work with their system and not worry about brand names, what someone else likes or what is currently "fashionable".

As to the subject at hand, Hafeez MAY be in a similar position. As such, i simply referred him to what was already a discussion in progess on another forum. I then asked questions so that we may be able to get to the bottom of his problem. Obviously, something IS wrong or being misinterpreted. Unless all of the variables can be explored, we'll never know what is taking place. The more that he knows and can familiarize himself with that piece of gear, the better off he'll be. Even then, since we can't "quantify" everything, we still may never know what is taking place. Sean
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1) Have the unit checked, even the best lets a little quality issue slip out from time to time.

2) However, a bigger, higher current amp gets a lot tighter grip on the woofs, and may have just corrected the looser boom sound your used to. As such it will sound less bassy.

3) Does the bass sound tight, tighter than before? Then see #2 again.

jeff

Sean, don't take my comments too personally. I think that there might be some merit in the fact that if someone is not used to tight bass, of the type to be heard with a 7B ST, but is rather used to a fat, floppy sort of bass, the conclusion could be that (assuming the only change in the system was the power amp) the power amp is not hefty enough. Unless a Bryston is not working properly or is being asked the impossible in source material being reproduced, SPL and load, it, like any other amp, will clip. The point at which it does is, for all practical purposes short of torture testing, so high as to be irrelevant. I stick to my point that manufacturers are at the whim of people who invent problems where they don't exist and would rather believe gibberish than rational explanation. No, it's not good enough in my opinion to say, nay to insist adamantly, that one's ears are the only and final arbiter and that anything goes in high-end audio. Like I said before, some people out there are laughing as I write this thinking how gullible their customers are. On the other hand, some honest, hard-working, intelligent people are not so prone to hilarity when nonsense about their wares has put them, if not in bankruptcy, on the edge of it. On the topic of measurements: what is being measured and how is very important, the correlation between the numbers generated and the sound is another kettle of fish. A sane and rational approach to evaluating components individually and systems as a whole in the one and final important criteria, that is listening to music in a real world situation, is sorely lacking. The placebo effect is all to real. So many audiophiles cannot tell the difference between a malfunction and some artefact in the reproduced sound, that another problem has crept up: audio-psychosomatic disorders. As a technician you surely must have come across such instances. One and all, stop fretting and listen to music is my advice. You will still enjoy the "hobby", not to worry.

1) I have worked on enough gear to know that sometimes what measures fine is still not operating "correctly". As such, i do not doubt that a component is acting "squirrely" for a customer even though i may not be able to duplicate the problem on my bench.

2) I have run into TONS of situations where a component was "screwed up" or "not running right" simply because it was responding to a problem elsewhere in the system. In many of these cases, the customer blamed what they thought was convenient rather than doing any of the simple yet effective steps to troubleshoot the problem themselves. If i was an unscrupulous person, i could charge them for repairs that were never done or sell them something else that would do nothing for them while nodding and smiling while i say "this will fix your problem".

3) Our testing methods are very lacking. There are things that we just can't explain even if we have all of the data directly in front of us. I could go into details but it would be a moot point. Once one realizes that, "crazy explanations" sometimes seem to make more sense than "what should work but doesn't" or vice-versa.

As to your comments about listening to music, i am lucky in the fact that i get to listen to music at least 6 to 8 hours every day. I typically listen to my HT system via the mains ( large 4 ways with 5 drivers per cabinet with very high powered digital amps ) for appr 2 to 2 1/2 hours before leaving for work in the morning. When i get home from work, i listen to my computer room / home office system ( omnidirectional full-ranges with monoblocks ) for what usually turns out to be about 4-6 hours a night. On occassion, i will fire up my basement system ( tubes with horns ) for a couple of hours before heading into the computer room. On weekends, i make use of my main system ( tri-amped with mono-blocks and a line array of e-stat tweeters, double stacked e-stat panels for mids and multiple dynamic woofers ) for several hours on end. When it's time to "keel over", i can doze off in the bedroom with a bi-amped pair of monitors on stands and two downloaded subs. If i'm not listening to music, it is because we are watching a movie, etc... When all is said and done, i probably need a little more "peace and quiet" : ) Sean
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