Not quite. ZDSE still had better technicalities (tubes what whaaa??) than the Bryston. Still has the 'emotion' and microdynamics and micro detail coupled with that enormous 3D soundstage that is heard to beat. OTOH-I've gone thru a TON of ss amps for the HD800s, and am usually fairly unimpressed. Even the somewhat synergistic ones had their drawbacks with the Senn i.e. m-Stage, warm and rich but congested and lacking detail and many other strengths of the HD800 are held in check. Phonitor, completely unrealistic soundstage to me and some wonky vocals at times which I can only imagine there's some midrange suckout in certail frequencies...smooth, airy, detailed yes, but...fake. MJ, not bad, but dry, almost a 2D b&w tv comparison someone here made hits it right on the head imo. Master 8...bland and boring (at least in conjunction with M7 and HD800. The list goes on...and on...
The Bryston though, has a few traits that I haven't heard in a lot of other ss amps with the Senn-good soundstaging depth, snappy, textured bass, natural timbers, PrAT...hmm. It falls short of the ZDSE (tubes play a huge role here) in nearly every category...but not by a lot. Again-the ZDSE is the best I've heard the HD800 so far-and it took the right tube to do it (current Sophia Electric)-and I'm sure there were better tubes to bring it to another level still. Keep in mind I also had a much better dac with the ZDSE (Eximus) than I'm using with the Bryston (Dac100)-and not even a balanced one at that. I have a Gungnir incoming and possibly an Anedio D2 and will see how much further those take the BHA-1, especially in balanced mode.
So far-I was completely expecting to the Bryston to be average at best with the HD800, but I'm pleasantly very surprised. Hope you find another deal on one cuz mine is probably staying put...for at least a few more days lol.
-Daniel