To bridge or not to bridge....

What do you mean "It doesn't have to be Bryston". Keep Canada green, get Bryston. 7B STs is the way to go. Why, anything else (unless it's Simaudio. etc.)simply isn't Canadian.
No I have no relation with Bryston, other than being a satisfied customer. They no have an SST series BTW, for those who must have the latest. Don't forget the music. Good day.

If you are happy with the 4B-ST, I too would suggest a pair of used 7B-ST's (what the heck, a 20 yr warranty). The 4B-ST will not give the same performance level on a bridged basis. If you like to listen loud, you will be hard pressed to find more performance for the dollar (i.e., quality reproduction, not just volume). I am also not affiliated with Bryston but sure do enjoy their stuff. Happy listening! P.S. I didn't know about their SST series so can't comment on that (thanks for the heads up Pbb). I guess their next upgrade will be SSST ;-)

I was in the same situation in that I also wanted more power from my 4BST. My speakers were PSB Stratus Gold I’s. I went with a Spectron Musician II (500 watts per channel) and could not be happier. Not only did I have more power, the sound quality was far superior. I found the 4BST too bright, unnatural sounding and less detailed in comparison. I have since upgraded my speakers to Silverline LaFolia’s and the Spectron is a perfect fit.

Unlike Bryston, Spectron had some prior production problems which gave them some bad press. I have had mine for 8 months and have had no problems. I hear that the newer Spectrons have better quality control. I was willing to trade off built like a tank Bryston, but not nearly as musical, for a Spectron Musician II that didn’t have quite the same build quality as my Bryston, but sounded far superior.

Finally, I have no affiliation with Spectron. I’m just a very happy customer who would like to share my thoughts. Good Luck! Happy Listening!!
Jim

I disagree with Markanetz's general statement concerning monoblocks being better than bridged. Different brands act differently.
Although not knowlegable about Bryston, when you bridge them, they kind of become monoblocks. I personally am familiar with the now discontinued Cello products, and in my opinion, the bridged set of the Performance amps blew away the nonbridged setup.

I think I would TRY biamping with another 4B ST stereo amp. You could try horizontal or verticle biamping as well as bridging them.

Also remember double your power only adds 3 db to the volume. If you amps are clipping, this probably won't solve the problem.

Good luck and have fun.
Richard

Richard,
First we've got to make sure that the author's speakers are bi-wirable. Second we need to know what kind of speakers are we talking about that even Bryston 4b-st doesn't have enough current to swing a woofer(is it some 1000W woofer??)

7b-st as suggested by Ozzfly is basically the same thing as 4b-st but made as a pure monoblock and certainly sounds better than bridged pair of 4b-st. Thus in the case with Bryston and with most brands it's much better to go for dedicated monoblocks instead of using bridged pair.

And at last the question:

If I have amp 1W/ch and I want to use a bridged pair will I add 3dB to the volume?
I guess not! The whole different issue when you double 250W/ch or 200W/ch isn't it?