Bryston SP-1 Brochure

The best of
both worlds
Bryston SP1

VOL. 7 No. 6 • NOV./DEC. 2000

The best of

both worlds

Product Review / Home Theater

Bryston SP-1 Surround preamplifier/processor

By Éric Lavoie

he advent of DVD video and of the
Dolby digital 5.1 format has

T

already revolutionized the world of
audio/video in many ways. In provoking
the passage of home theater to the digital
era, these technologies have favored the
emergence of a category of surround sound
systems wanting to be considered high-end,
a label reserved until recently to the two
channel audio domain. From the simple
entertaining recreation essentially required
by the amateurs of high sensations and
deafening special effects, home theater
thereby won, like stereo audio,
its letters of nobility and its own purist
clientele, demanding for precision and
absolute. Besides the analogphilus (a variant
of the audiophilus), an enthusiast of
analog stereophony and cathode ray tube
maniac, a new species has in effect
developed: the digitmaniacus (a variant
of the domocinephilus), a fan of the
48 kHz/24 bits sampling rate, an addict of
surround sound micro details and numeric
decoding. The first surround sound
preamp-processor by the Canadian manu­facturer Bryston foreshadows however the
sudden emerging of a hybrid species which
will explode this polarization of the purist
clientele.

One must first know that the analog­philus and the digitmaniacus have many
characteristics in common. Both species
are dominated by an irresistible impulse
towards perfection. Both also have a budget
beyond the comprehension of the common
specie (non-maniacus of any kind) because
this impulse is summed up in tens of thou­sands of dollars. Besides, both agree to say
that while listening to a film on DVD, the
best way to reach an acoustical high is to
have the signal treated by an excellent
numeric preamp-processor.

Their likeness however stops here. Since
the analogphilus leans towards musical lis-

tening and supports that a digital pream­plifier is not capable of treating the analog
signal from a CD reader with the respect
and the virtue of an analog preamplifier.
The other, more interested by home the­ater, thinks that this difference of quality
in the music treatment is insignificant and
considers that a digital processor amply
does the job. Hence, most of the time, the
first sacrifices a part of his pleasure and stays
attached to his analog preamplifier and his
two-channel system. As for the second, he
accepts to go without the best musical
reproduction in order to live to the maxi­mum a home theater experience stemming
from his surround sound system.

The arrival, in the summer of 2000, of
the Bryston preamp-processor however put
in place together the conditions, which cre­ated a genetic mutation of these two
species. It is that the audacious SP1 com­bines, in one system, the best of the analog
preamplifer of the company and a digital
preamp-processor amongst the most per­formant. Since both function in a totally
independent manner, the SP1 thereby
allows exploiting to their extreme limits
the possibilities offered by the best analog
and digital technologies available. The
new purists specie, which will be born,
will therefore
audio system,
without any compromise.

The independence of
the analog and digital sections

The autonomy of the analog and digital
sections of the SP1 represents without a
doubt the most fundamental characteristic
of this ultra sophisticated system destined
to occupy the function of the center core of
the best surround sound systems. It is the
result of a technological choice, which the
designers of the SP1 made after a very
lengthy experimentation period: it took no
less than three years to develop.

be one who will, from the same

enjoy the best of both worlds,

You may be saying to yourself that the
best preamp-processors presently on the
market yet allow the optimal integration
of the musical experience and home theater.
The designers of the SP1 also believed it
until just recently. In fact, the original
design of the SP1 had been thought
according to the same principle as of those
of its competing rivals, which is to entrust
to the digital section a portion, however
minimal, of the analog signals preamplifi­cation tasks. The listening sessions of the
prototype which the designers were work­ing on brought them to conclude that any
junction between the analog and the digital
sections was an audible degradation source
of the analog signal. Therefore, for them,
the only means to obtain the same musical
quality of an analog preamplifier was to
separate entirely the analog section and the
digital section. It was also the only way to
allow the consumer to benefit from the
best analog and digital performances with­out having to purchase two systems.

Topology-wise, the two sections are first
spatially isolated and each possesses its
own transformer. There is only one volume
control however it leads to two distinct
parts: the automatic detection of a digital
signal allows the signal to be directed
towards the digital circuit whereas, by
default, it is directed towards the analog
section. This way, a signal from an analog
source (a CD reader, for example) follows a
discrete analog path (without passing
through a digital circuit or an integrated
circuit) from input to output. This config­uration is innovative in the measure where
even the preamp-processors having a Bypass
function use the converters to increase or
lower the volume.

In stereo listening, this total separation
between the analog and the digital ensures
from the SP1 musical performances identical
to those of a high-end preamplifier. In fact,