Well everyone, I just received my new Bryston SP3. Whoohooo!
Having many trials & tribulations setting inputs - I'll work through it, but this is definitely NOT user friendly. This remote is just plain awful. Who puts 4 arrow keys in a straight line?! Can't wait to get a universal remote. (Just picked up the Logitech Harmony 900)
I did some testing for sound and here's what I can report:
I use a computer I built as a music server running iTunes with everything ripped using AIFF. One of the reasons for getting the SP3 was to eliminate other pieces, such as my Ayre K-3x pre, my Marantz AV-7005 and my NAD M-51. Well, this piece does the job of all of those and better. Great, great sound detail and presence in 2-ch and multi-ch sound.
I had the use of a Stello U3 piece and tested the USB out of the computer into the Stello, then into the SP3 using a Coax cable and an AES cable. Sounded pretty good. But then I plugged the USB cable directly into the SP3 and it was just as good, so no need for the Stello. Then, I plugged my trusty Chord optical cable from the PC to the SP3 and it sounded even better! So this is the configuration I'm going to stick with. The optical connection is the best sound I get. (I may have said this before in a previous post, but using the music server blows the doors off playing the CDs directly from any player I have ever tried).
I have discovered one major flaw though - I was trying to play a 3D movie from my OPPO BDP-103 today to my Epson Pro Cinema 6010 through the Bryston and it kept saying I didn't have a 3D display hooked up. Well I actually have 2 displays hooked up - a Sanyo HDTV 42" 2D display and the Epson. Unless I disconnect the 2D from the back of the Bryston (in HMDI 2 out) I cannot play 3D movies. Not good! I think Bryston should have made the HDMI outputs selectable to run in either parallel mode or independent mode and allow you to switch between the 2 outputs. It's not good having to unplug a cable every time to watch 3D. Is there another way to do this that I can't figure out other than adding an HDMI switcher to a system that should be able to do this?
