Heard the Bryston SST 2 Squared ?

Yes, I just bought a pair. Amazing. Effortless and Boundless are two apt descriptors. Gobs and gobs of effortless power. Now the volume is only limited by my pain threshold. There was a little glare on the top end but this has smoothed out nicely with about a week of continuous playing (iPod set to loop its playlist). Now very smooth and very dynamic. Just this single change (the amps) has revealed details in the music I had not heard before. The separation and detail of the instruments and voices is remarkable. Did I mention very dynamic? The spec sheet from the final bench test at the Bryston factor rated each amp at 1200W into 8 ohms before clipping. The worst THD for either amp was 0.00421% @ 20KHz, the best number was 0.00077% @ 200 Hz Of course, we all know that the numbers don't tell the story, the music does. But, these are impressive numbers and they do bear out in the final sound.

I also had a chance to visit the Bryston factory over the holidays and met James Tanner who spent about 90 minutes chatting with me and touring me around the plant. Very, very nice people who are dedicated to their craft. Their products are essentially hand built and all are torture-tested before they leave the factory. I saw several amps on the burn-in bench and others in various stages of production. I also got to see the new SP-3 that I wish they would bring to market right now but I'm told won't be here for another 8 months or so.

I'm very satisfied with these amps and am in the process of upgrading other parts of my system. Using a Benchmark DAC-Pre right now that is very nice but I can now hear its limitations. I know the Bryston DAC is very nice but I can't decide on a suitable Pre-amp. My Dealer likes the Audio Research and I've heard the AR Pre on a Bryston 4B which had a very nice synergy; better, I thought, than the AR power amp. Haven't compared the Bryston Pre-amp and that would also be a consideration.

One small criticism I would make of these amps is that the binding posts have large plastic shrouds that make it difficult to fit Cardas spades. The reason for this is that they really want to prevent you from shorting across the posts if the amp is on when you're connecting the speakers (very bad idea!) or if the connectors somehow slip and short out. But, it's awkward and I'm not happy with the connection and have ordered some Vampire spade to banana adaptors. I eventually plan to send my Golden Reference cables back to Cardas to get them cut is half (so that I can bi-wire my speakers) and refitted with bananas.

I'm also planning on getting a 240V service put into my listening room so that I can get a Torus Power Conditioner to supply these monsters with enough current. Each amp has the ability to trip a 15 amp circuit on their own. So far no problems but we all know the difference that a dedicated AC circuit can make. Bryston recommends the Torus for these amps. I currently have them drawing their power from a pair of Shunyata Copperhead power cables off of my Hydra 8 but this is also supplying everything else. The Hydra has it's own dedicated 15 amp circuit on a 10 gauge line into a Hubbel cryo'ed outlet. The Copperheads are an improvement over the stock power cable, even though the Bryston folks don't necessarily believe that this makes a difference - to my ears it does.

I recommend that you go and listen to these monsters (100 lbs each!) and hear for yourself.

Ooops! I forgot to mention that I have the Bryston 28B-SST (squared) amps although I think that most would have figured that out from my description.

5560, I'm a little embarrassed to realize that I didn't actually answer your question - after all those years of University I should know that the first rule is to READ THE QUESTION! Nonetheless, I'm glad that you found my response helpful. I would think that the SST-2 modifications would have the same sonic improvement across the Bryston line, but that remains to be heard. I really liked the 4B SST that I heard a couple of years ago and I would think it would now only be better.

Thanks for the advice on the Parasound Pre. I've read about them and would like to hear the combination. The problem I have is that I live at least a five hour drive from a decent audio shop (and they're across the border) and it gets hard to do home demos (or any demo) that way.

Drummermitchell, I completely believe that the Torus will make a huge difference. The improvement I experienced with a dedicated AC line was not subtle. I saw a Torus on the bench at Bryston and they strongly recommend them. Apparently, Plitron, the makers of the Torus also supply Bryston with their transformers so I would expect that there would be a nice synergy there. I'm keen to get my 240V service put in so that I can get the 240V version. Having two hot lines 180 degrees out of phase apparently cancels out all of the line noise and the massive transformer inside the Torus provides a large reservoir of electrons from which the amp can draw for its transients.

Interesting that you're also using Arcam. I have an AVR-200 that I started out with and still use to do my AV processing and to drive the centre channel. It sounds way better than it has any right to and I had considered the AV-8 in the past. But, I think that the SP-3 with its video-switching and processing capabilities would provide me with the best overall AV solution. Plus, I think it would sound very good, Brian and James at Bryston told me that it will have the same Pre-amp as the BP-26 and the same DAC as their stand-alone DAC. Also, it will have discrete power supplies for the digital, analog and video sections. Should be very nice.