For all you Bryston Fans

BRYSTON!!!

I love Bryston! I love my Bryston amp. If Bryston came out with a HeadPhone amp with the Bryston sound,at a reasonable price,with its usual Bryston 20 year warranty,with 2 headphones jacks for the home unit(make a portable also) and a switch for different impedence headphones,descrete circuitry instead of an op-amp chip, id buy one for sure! They can make it like their amps,with those handles on the front and all! 1/4" outputs, RCA inputs & Balanced. I want mine in black styled like my 3BST!

Hear this Bryston?!? People want this!!! :Bryston Smiley:

I think it has just been proven that headphone amps are a small market and only 2 people are interested in seeing a Bryston Headphone amp. Bryston sells their power amps for over $1000 and they make quite a few of them. If they made a headphone amp it would probably have to sell for $5000 to make any money on them. I don't see Bryston headphone amps in the future.

especially since the Class-A Discrete Op Amp circuit they use for their preamp gain stages already can perform admirably and is part of the total package (headphone jack on the front panels).Ever see the output stage schemo ? Damn mini power amp !


Hint : any line level gain stage that can drive a long line without high end loses and/or signal attenuation at a high level can likely drive any headphone out there with the exception of the ones designed to be driven by a power amp like some of the AKG models.Just whip up an RCA In-DPDT-to-RCA or TRS out box for line/headphones duty

I doubt it could be done for that.If you look at the schematics of the Bryston Preamplifiers all they are is a Class-A Op-amp gain stage with very high output drive,a power supply and something most companies miss,protection circuitry to make the preamp bullet proof in a real world system.

Other than the input selector what would you leave out ? Since it seems to me from reading various threads everyone is looking to add MORE inputs to their headphone amps,which means add-on selector boxes, and even use the headphone amps as system preamps and constantly ask if it is even possible why would a smaller "box" sell once everyone realised it was the same device called something else ?


The Bryston Preamps ARE headphone amps and as good as any solid state amps currently available just ignored as such for some reason.I personally kinda like the "single-box for all system gain" solution as a product since obviously any Bryston Preamp/Bryston Headphone Amp system would just be redundant or the cheaper knockoff by leaving something out a lesser product in all ways.

what seprates the great amps from the "yeah it works but i have this problem..." amps ?

TOTAL engineering ! RFI protection,turn on delays,relay muting if DC is present at the output and should not be,solid trouble free construction.not the tiny little circuit,the engine,but all the other crap that makes it do its job without pissing you off in the process when something goes wrong and you can't reach the builder/designer/company for an answer or satisfaction

As always just my personal opinion and no more

yes,it will be released in about 60 days,october/november'11 as per the email i received from bryston.my bet it will debut at the toronto audio show.(taves)oh ya,ill be picking one up asap.

The BHA-1 looks mighty nice, wonder what will be the price point.

Final (I suppose production) version of the first Bryston Headphone Amplifier BHP-1

 

Here is a copy of my post I made on another forum. Just want headfiers know about my experience with the not even in production BHA-1.

 

I brought my Audeze LCD-2 at the Montreal show in hope to find a suitable amp for these. I currently have a Perreaux SXH-2 and it's sound really good but I have to push the amp at least at 3 o'clock position on the volume knob to feel my music (I listen really loud). As I was on a mission, I intentionnaly skipped all the speakers demos (much more present than headphone as you can imagine).

At the show, I tried Centrance Dac-mini, Yulong D-100, Grace 902 (all dac + amp) and Woo Audio WA6-SE. They all sound good but not better than my Perreaux (the Woo Audio was the best of the group).

Then, just out of curiosity, I have decided to stop by Bryston room. As a Canadian, Bryston have always been a proud and mythic brand for me. I have Considered some of their products when I was younger but never been able to afford any Bryston products.

I didn't expect to find any headphone related products. But at the end of the room, past all the speakers set-ups, there was this table with two headphone amplifiers prototype (one black and one silver) along with Grado headphones. The silver one was set-up for balanced headphones in balanced configuration from the source. Even if my Audeze LCD-2 have a SE plug, I tried the balanced set-up.

Listening to all genre of music but mostly to electronica, trance, psytrance, I am looking for a strong, accurate and fast bass but not at the price of masking low midrange details and with good high frequency extension.

How was the Bryston sound? in one word AMAZING! this is exactly the sound I was searching for. Smooth, detailed, ample and with extraordinary deep, tight and accurate bass. Listening to some of Deadmau5 tracks with the Bryston, was litteraly sublime. I immediatly felt in love with this beast. I never past the 12 o'clock position on the volume knob (with high gain).

But my budget was between $500 to a thousand. I listened to the Bryston before asking the price. I expect it to be around $2000 or something. No, in fact it had a retail of $1295! Wow! There is no way I am turning back to this unit for about $300 over my budget.

I tried my best to convinced James Tanner (a really kind man that seems down to earth) to sell me the prototype at the end of the show. He told me he can't because the prototype have not yet been approved. I told him it was approved by me! But James was really comprehensive about my enthousiasm and he brought me to a Bryston reseller who had a room near Bryston and facilitate the contact with the manager. In a minute, we had an agreement and I will be a futur owner of a Bryston BHA-1. i will link it to my incoming Wyred4sound DAC-2 in balanced configuration. I can't wait 

I would like to sincerely thanks James Tanner for his patience (I think I shooked his hand about ten time!) and kindness.

Kudo to Bryston.

Steve Lapierre