Gammonit, I should clarify something I said. Neither the 17 or the 26 is better than the Classe' Sigma SSP. When I was in the midst of the comparison my judgement was swayed by the added gain on each unit. The 26 is extremely transparent, that can be a double edged sword. The 17 was warmer with less transparency, but as indicated it sounded thin in my system and room. The Classe' is more musical, and less analytical. Another reason I thought the 26 was better in my system was because my room is very big. The 26 provided a much bigger sound stage. Hope this helps...
Bryston BP-26 VS 17Cubed
I have been demoing the Bryston BP-17 Cubed for approx. 50 hours. Friday I received my Bryston BP-26. Two different animals here. Both,great pieces of gear. As indicated in my other posts, my gear is Classe' Cam-600 Monoblocks, PS Audio Directstream DAC and memory player, Joseph Audio Pearl 20/20. (these have the graphene mid-range). All dedicated circuits, with Furutech Power Cables, you guys got the picture. The 17 has slight warm presentation, you could call it refined, with detail, and easy listening. The 26 does not have that warmness, but the detail is unreal! Very black background, way more punch than the 17, incredibly transparent, perhaps more musical...If you don't have the right gear I think the 26 could come across as fatiguing and a little too much in your face. I also have a very large room. But I have the right gear, and this is truly a very cool listening experiment! I only have about 12 hours on the 26 to this point. As James Tanner expressed to me if you like mostly classical the 17 might be the best choice, I do like classical however lots of my listening is Blues, guitar forward, female and male vocals. I think the 17 does better at lower volume, but what the 26 does overall is a more musical presentation. I thought this would be easy, I said to a friend I'll know in the first song which unit I like the best. Wrong! At this juncture I'm liking the 26 more in my set up. After another 20 more hours or so on the 26 I'll go back to the 17 and share what my listening results translate to. Hope this helps for anyone on the fence trying to choose between these two units. John
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