I had Pioneer electronics with a Garrard turntable in the 70's.
In March of 1984, I heard my first CD player, a Yamaha CD-2 and was instantly hooked.
I bought that, a Yamaha 70 watt per channel Integrated amp, along with a Yamaha tuner, a direct drive turntable (Ortofon OM-10 cartridge), a 3 head cassette deck and a pair of NS-1000 speakers. Big money for a 23 year old.
In 1995, the NS-1000s were given to a nephew and I bought a pair of KEF Q-70's.
In late 2000, my Yamaha amp starting failing and nuked my KEF tweeters (twice over the next year).
I started looking around for something else to replace the Yamaha.
I had a friend that loaned me his 4B-ST over the long 4th of July weekend of 2001. I had also arranged for an ADCOM (the 555) amp, a Parasound pre-amp and 2 Parasound power amps.
After putting the Parasound pre and each main amp in the system (the rest of the system remained unchanged) and listening for days, the Bryston was the clear winner and it wasn't even close.
I used Alan Parsons Project I Robot, PF Dark Side of the Moon and Cleveland's recording of Pictures at an Exhibition on Telarc along with Miles Davis Kind of Blue and Dave Brubeck Quartet's "The Great Concerts" and
Oscar Peterson's "Swingin' Brass with the Oscar Peterson trio" as the benchmark CDs.
That began my search to find a Bryston dealer that was relatively close by (Birmingham, AL or Nashville, TN). I really didn't want to drive to Atlanta (I still try to avoid Atlanta).
I eventually purchased my 4B-ST the third weekend of September, 2001 from Mr. Curry at Audio Video etc in Franklin, Tennessee.
The Bryston 4B-ST is paired with the Parasound PHP-850 pre-amp.
One of these days, I'll get a Bryston pre-amp. I just don't know when.
The Bryston 4B-ST is absolutely the best money ever spent on audio. It's given me many hours of pure musical enjoyment over the years and still does whenever I power it up.
HsvHeelFan
Poll
