Listened to my new BP17 last night, coupled balanced to 14B-squared and VA Mozart Grand SE speakers. So far....
1. I hear a greater amount of transparency vs. my trusty B100 (BP16 pre out). On some music, like Shelby Lynne's "Just a Little Loving" album, there's a tiny amt of vocal tremor and echo (reverb) that I can hear with BP17 and wasn't noticed with B100. It's subtle. A bit eerie.
2. Less distortion with 17 -- "graininess" is banished, what little amount there was with B100. Most evident on some Deutsches Grammophon CDs recorded from the 70s and 80s, classical symphs and string quartets.
3. Noticed zero heat from 17. No fins like B100. Not surprising, as 17 is a dedicated preamp, whereas B100 is an integrated.
4. Still, the voltage output must be massive on the 17. I cannot crank my 17 past 12 o'clock with balanced out to 14B2 (gain on 14B2 is 23 dB). I am 3.65-m (12-ft) away from each speaker, in an equilateral triangle. Maybe I should go with SE? All plugged into Triton/Typhon power distributors, so noise floor was always sub-sub-subterranean!
5. Soundstage remains rock-solid, slightly behind speakers and beyond their edges. I certainly don't want the stage to be into my room beside/behind my chair -- that would be phony for two-channel playback of classical music and rock.
Overall, BP17 is, so far, a significant upgrade for my system, a step up from the BP16 inside my B100. The biggest improvement is in lowering the noise floor further and eliminating any tiny amt of "digititis" (edgy grain?) that may have been there in some of my mediocre recordings, especially MP3s/FLAC of 70s rock. Gosh, my MP3s (256 kbps from iTunes) now sound amazing thru BDP-1/BDA-1.
Cheers,
