Bryston 4B gets HOT. Should I leave it on?

Pops: Keep your money and your sanity. Your probably better off with what you have : ) Sean
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Bryston's are not biased high enough to get this hot during normal operation or at idle. As such, your amp is in need of attention. I would contact Bryston USA and send it in for service. While your unit is no longer under warranty, Bryston is phenomenally good about standing behind their products and doing so at very reasonable rates. Sean
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If the amp is as hot as you state it is, you are going to increase the rate of failure of capacitors, possibly shorting out the transformer and / or bridge rectifiers when they decide to let loose, etc... This is not to mention that extreme heat will cause the value of other parts to shift, altering not only the reliability of the parts but also the sonics of the circuit.

If it were my amp and i liked it enough to want to keep it, i would either turn it off and leave it off until i could afford to get it fixed and use something else to listen to music through or "make the money appear" and send it in before something REALLY bad happens.

The guy that i dealt with at Bryston USA ( this was several years ago ) in their service department was Dennis. He was GREAT to deal with. You might try calling him up and asking his opinion about what he thinks since he is familiar with these products inside and out. Sean
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A) Bryston's are not high bias amps and therefore will not benefit as much as other amps that experience wide temperature swings between normal operation or being turned off.

B) Your amp is defective if it is running as you described it. While i hope that it does not "terminate itself" on you ( it's already broken according to what you stated ), i'm sure that it could sound better and pull a LOT less power than what it currently is.

Good luck... Sean
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vetteman: What are you doing, mono-blocking with one amp feeding the treble ( or something similar ) ? Sean
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Vetteman: Sounds like you are running something similar to what i'm doing, just in a different manner : )

I've got six stereo amps and am running all 12 of their channels. They are arranged so that each amp runs only one frequency range of one channel i.e. dual channel mono-blocks set up in an active tri-amp arrangement. Due to the multiplicity of drivers, low sensitivity, low impedances and high reactance, i chose this route so that each channel sees a reasonable load. On top of this, i now have twice the power for each channel to "combat" the efficiency / reactance problem. None of the amps are ever strained using this approach. I also remain in Class A operation for most use. This is primarily due to the reduced power levels required resulting from the limited bandwidth of operation that each amp is responsible for. As a side note, all the amps are biased relatively richly and idle somewhere between 130 - 150 degrees at the the heatsink.

To try and put this in English, i have one 2 channel amp running the line array of tweeters on the left and another identical 2 channel amp running the tweeters on right. I have another 2 channel amp running the mid panels on the left and another 2 channel amp running the mid's on the right. I have yet another 2 channel amp running the woofers on the left and another 2 channel amp running the woofers on the right. The signal is split between the two channels of each amp for each frequency range and each amplifier channel then feeds an identical number of multiple drivers.

Due to all of the cabling involved, the system looks like a "cluster" to say the least. I've got 12 speaker cables, tons of interconnects and a power cord for each component. On top of this, i have to have a power cord to run each of the tweeter arrays and mids, adding four more to the list. While i've tried to arrange this as neatly as possible, there's just SO much going on that it really CAN'T be "neat" and keep cable lengths reasonable :(

I am currently working on replacing my electronic 2 channel crossover with two separate mono units and i need to get my dual mono / dual chassis preamp repaired. I've got to talk to John Curl about sending this out to him and do it soon. Once i can get all of this straightened out, i'll be able to have a central rack for all of my sources and two identical racks for each channel consisting of the mono preamp, mono crossover and three amps per side. This will give me the benefit of being TRUE dual mono from the sources back. As it is now, the preamp and crossover that i'm running are stereo units and are located in the central rack with the sources. Sean
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El: I can hear cable changes in all of my systems, not just this one. This one is tough though as one cable change means changing at least two at a time and possible up to eight all at once. That's why i either buy used or build my own. So far, i've been lucky enough to find phenomenal deals ($0.10 - $0.20 on a dollar ) on very long runs of high quality cables. Since i'm handy enough to cut and terminate them myself and have so many systems and cables, i'm thousands and thousands of dollars ahead compared to what i might be if buying new.

As far as Bryston goes, they have what is probably the best customer service / warranty in the industry. B&K also does a very nice job handling product problems, but not quite in the same league as Bryston. Obviously, the Bryston warranty speaks volumes in itself. Sean
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