Bryston preamps

Is anyone having issues with the BP 17_3 with hiss ? I went to audition one and heard a louder then normal hiss from the left speaker. I might go for the BP 26 instead.

I have a Luxman CL38U-SE tube preamp hooked up to a Bryston 2.5 SST2 amp and a pair of Aerial 5T's. Excellent combination.

I own a lot of old Bryston gear purchased around 2010. Just ordered a new BP-26 and new MPS-2 for a second system. The BP casing was warped and rocked when set on a table, and the MPS-2 had parts rattling around inside, plus a visible scratch. I’ve noticed quality slipping in a few brands and never thought Bryston would follow suite but it’s hard to look past such obvious oversights. Be careful. They may be so focused on cost cutting that quality is just a fancy word now. 

The Bryston preamps are ok, but if you want to improve the overall sound you should consider an Audible Illusions tube preamp, like the L1. An excellent preamp  and known to be a very good preamp to use with solid state amps without too many connectivity issues!

I demoed both the Bryston 26 and 17. I have Class' CA M600 amps with Joseph Audio pearl 20/20s. At the time I had a PS Audio Directstream Dac. Bad gain mismatch with my amps and dac. Very little volume control, had to turn the volume down on the DSD to have a little more control. Also lots of noise. I have since gone to the EMM Labs DV2 and PRE. Dead quiet lots of volume control. Bryston amps have a gain of 24 and so does the preamps. My Classe' have a gain of 29. I would pair Bryston amps with Bryston preamps as to not run into a gain mismatch. Bryston will adjust the gain to match certain amps however they don't put that info out.