Macintosh c52 with Bryston 7b3

I was considering a C2600 / 14B3 combo so somewhat along the lines of what the OP is looking at.  I had purchased, on a 30 day trial basis, a 4B3 and brought a demo 2600 home to try with it.

I really liked the 4B3, a lot.  Very full rich dynamic sound with better bass than the competition for the money, and worked well with the McIntosh.  The only area I detected any of the Bryson “hardness” people refer to is in the upper midrange, but only on some material (hard rock with lots of guitar).  My thought was the 14B would be similar but with added transparency so I thought that was the direction I’d go.

But then I auditioned the Gryphon Diablo 300 integrated and that completely changed my plans and went with that.




 

The Bryston "b3" series is a very refined and high resolution amp, but it is very fast and can come across as thing/bright in some systems.  It can be tamed using a Isoclean gold-plated fuse (internal) and using gold-plated terminations on copper interconnects/speaker wire.  I would also recommend pairing the Bryston with a warmer/fuller sounding preamp.  I don't have personal experience with C52, but the few youtube videos I listened to seem to indicate the C52 is a very high resolution and resolving amp (not warm or laid back like typical McIntosh gear). 

I have been using a c52 for about a month.

It's not running with a Bryston amp, but I did own a Bryston amp at one point.

The c52 sounds huge. Enormous and dynamic. It's musical and articulate and a heck of a lot of fun to operate.

The Bryston amp I had was, at the time, too bright for my system (speakers with ribbon tweeters). Thinking about it now, the combo would actually, probably, work pretty well (the c52 has an EQ and one could tweak it a bit if the Bryston remained bright with the pairing).

I've owned a lot of pre amps and a lot of equipment and the c52 is one of the very few pieces of gear I've inserted into my system and have been pleased with since day one.

I can't compare the 2 you mention however, I'm running a C1100 with a 14b3 and its an excellent combo.  Before I got the 14b3 I had a 4b3 and it worked well also I just wanted more punch for the Maggie 20.7s

Brett