Kevin Fiske of HiFi Critic, recently wrote an excellent review of the BP-17³ Preamp and 3B³ Stereo Amplifier. The sound produced by the 3B³ managed to convert him from pure Class A amps after 20 years of Class A listening preference. An impressive feat!
You can find a few of my favorite quotes here:
Blindsided. There is no other word that better describes how I felt on hearing Bryston’s BP-17³ and 3B³ pre-power pairing for the first time.
In the event this solid-state current was required. My tubes sounded lovely as always, but simply ran out of grunt when asked to make the MB2s go loud. I decided enough was enough, disconnected the tube amp and put the Bryston solid state combination in its place. The change took all of five minutes, but it overturned 20 years of Fiske world view.
Bryston’s development lab had not been sitting on its hands for the past two decades. That became clear when, after adding the BP-17³ and 3B³ – otherwise known as the ‘Cubed’ models – to my system, the first few bars of the first disc had me boggling in disbelief at what I was hearing.
Bryston has evidently used some serious smarts with the Cubed series to create what may well be one of the sonic bargains of our era.
The BP-17³/3B³ performance has real substance: no cardboard cut-outs here; instead, a properly convincing representation of the 3D complexity of the human voice, and of plucked, drawn, struck and blown contrivances.
The BP-17³ and 3B³ deliver real sonic value, in my view. And that is not to damn them with faint praise. In terms of measured performance they give little to nothing away to many more costly alternatives, and they combine that technical accomplishment with an ability to preserve and transcribe in very good measure the organic, emotional content of recordings.
Here we have solid engineering by a design team informed by a profoundly nuanced understanding of what it takes to reproduce music in a convincingly natural way.
You can take a look at everything Kevin has to say by checking out the full review linked below. I highly recommend that you check it out in its complete form. You can also find more information about the reviewed products on our BP-17³ Product Page and 3B³ Product Page.
