Hi Amdan -
Well everybody who has answered in this thread, is unfortunately, quite, totally,
WRONG. The B&W's are nice speakers, but may be difficult to drive, each speaker has its little quirks, as it is a complex set of inductors, capacitors, resistors, and voice coils (and the room - never forget the room). What you have seems, to me, to be a bunch of very high priced, not faulty, but perhaps incompatible due to non-complementary imperfections - combination of audio components.
Now the system you have owned for fivemonths and have questions about includes a Supratek Sauvignon tube preamp and a Bryston transistor power amp. That, simply stated, is not always a good combination. So there is a problem. What is the
The Cause and
The Result ? Tube Preamps usually are designed to work best feeding into a 250K ohm to 1Meg ohm load. Transistor Amps can have way too low an input impedance: 20K, 30K, 50K ohms are common values... which, when driven by a Tube Preamp, perceptually will cause: a decrease in the Bass, and possibly audible distortion in the treble. This is because the preamp
REALLY doesn't like the load it is being forced to drive.
Secondly, this may be especially problematic and exacerbated, if using high quality Inter-Connect Cables which may have
also added way too much capacitance onto the tube circuitry, so this combination could also show brightness, harshness, or smear in the treble. Yes, your Bryston 14B ST is a monster of an amp, and powerful due to bridged operation, with its 0.1% metal-film resistors, polystyrene capacitors, and hand-selected/matched transistors to reduce noise and distortion... But. So what?
BECAUSE...
Power isn't always The Solution.
In other words, Amdan, the signal is getting mangled at the output of your Supratek Sauvignon tube preamp, due to the
grossly mismatched Input Impedance: 50k ohms unbalanced, 20k ohms balanced; that your Bryston power amp's input circuitry presents to it. That being both the electrical cause and effect, and also what you report that you hear, neither the Brystons' 900 Watts per channel into 4 ohms, nor all the 0.1% metal-film resistors, polystyrene capacitors, or hand selected transistors in the world can fix it. A "properly matched"
$500. amp would sound much better, given your combination of components, and wires, than your
$5995. Bryston does. Lugging over the Bryston 4B SST is really just more of the same (but less power)
so that won't help either...And lastly, everyone's hearing is every bit as different as the speakers you own. System Synergy is tough to find, and insults do not help one to find it. I'd say try a few amplifiers, see what you like.
P.S. - The Bender Amps that I design, both the ULT Transistor ones, and the new Pseudo SET Tube types, have 100K ohm and 1 Meg ohm input impedance's respectively, and they work fine with all known Tube Preamps ( as well as Transistor Preamps, and Passive Preamps ).
BTW. - Currently, I have two of my early built "Prototype" ULT Level 2, and Level 3 Stereo Power Amplifiers on eBay priced at just $350. each; and also two of my current Bender ULT Rebuild Kits priced at a reduced $150. for the Level 2, and $350. for the Level 3A, with less than 2 days to go...
Steven L. Bender, Designer of Vintage Audio Equipment
James - moron is probably the right word. I very much doubt there is anything wrong with a Bryston-B&W combination. However, I am trying to keep an open mind.
Mag - I have this combination for 5 months.
I am going to borrow a friend's 4B SST to replace my 14 B ST. Then I will know if it is simply a fault in my unit.