[23bw]

Hello Bryston owners,

I looking for some opinions on how much of a sound improvement I can expect if I upgrade my Denon 3805 to a Bryston SP1.7.  If I sell off my Denon, the incremental cost would be about $1200.  How much of an improvement do you think such an upgrade will yield?

Right now I use the Denon 3805 as a prepro for a Bryston 9B-ST amp (recently acquired).  Speakers are all Vienna Acoustics (also recently acquired).  CD and DVDs are played on a $100 Toshiba DVD player connected via TOSLINK to the receiver.  So the prepro does all the digital decoding for both Dolby and 2 channel music.  In the short term, the primary use is HT though I'm starting to show new appreciation for all my old CDs played on this system.  This new fondness for 2 channel music is likely due to the recent speaker upgrades.   If there are compelling reasons to upgrade to a Bryston SP1.7, then I will eventually get an audiophile grade CD/DVD player and use the analog inputs on the Bryston for music. 

My local Bryston dealer doesn't have the SP2 for demo and I do not like to bother retailers because I will be buying used.

Thanks.

[ted_b]

I had a Denon 4806 that I used only as a digital pre/pro (replaced my Lexicon MC-1).  Although I liked Audyssey, etc I replaced the 4806 with a Bryston SP2 and have never looked back sonically.  The SP2 is just more musical.  Although I have a separate two-channel preamp (a couple of them actually, Bent Tap and Modwright SWL 9.0 SE) I used the dedicated separate analog 2 channel portion of the SP2 for a pre for awhile and it was quite quite good.  In fact, very good, and only bested by my current 2 channel rig.  Says a lot for a "throw in".  Bryston spends a lot of time explaining that the 2 channel pre in the SP2 is basically a BP-26 chipset, and I believe it.  I got the SP2 for its musicality while playing 5.1 analog bypass (hi rez stuff) but even the digital DTS and Dolby processing sounds better than the Denon, IMO.

[23bw]

Hi ted_b,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.  This is exactly the feedback i'm looking for. 
Though all the features on the 3805 is nice to have, I'll upgrade if there are sonic improvements.  Sounds like there is so I'll try to find a good price on a SP1.7.

-Chris