Bryston 4B: will it blow out my speakers? (1 Viewer)

A friend of mine is moving and willing to sell me his Bryston 4B for cheap. It's an awesome amp, but I'm concerned it will blow out my speakers. The amp is rated at 250 watts per channel. My Paradigm Mini Monitors are rated at 10-100 watts. Please advise!

Actually more often too little power blows speakers as the amp goes into distortion and it gets passed to the speaker drivers. Power output is not continuous and most speakers can takes short term power bursts in excess of their rated power. I've had several power amps over the yrs. on speakers rated for lesser power and not had a problem. If you're going to crank it at high deafening volume (vs. normal music and movies played at high levels) then that's another story.

If you can afford it buy it.
Don't get hung up on watts. At most times you are only using 5-15 anyway at casual listening levels.
Most speakers are blown from underpowering because that induces harmful clipping distortion.

Is the Bryston overkill for those mini's? Maybe, but it will give them plenty of clean and real power that will do them more good than bad.

Get it and enjoy.

Thanks for the advice!

My friend has two of these guys. They're both 21 years old. One is in perfect working order. The other one has one of the two channels working. He thinks it's the power supply. But unfortunately, they're out of warranty. I would pair them up with my Outlaw 1050 receiver and use the half working one to power my center channel.

How long could I expect them to last from here on out? Is $600 for both of them a good price?

That is pretty old even for an amp. I know they are really good amps, but one never knows when they will go and since they are out of warranty, they might not be worth it if you have to get them fixed.
If you are content with your 1050 and will be for a while, then I would maybe buy them and have the one fixed.
If you are thinking of replacing that 'ol 1050 soon, then I would skip it and put the money into a newer reciever.
Perhaps the new Outlaw 1070 maybe.

Have a tech look over both amps, get an estimate to repair the one and give the other a checkup. Brystons are robust beasts, I'm sort of surprised the one broke. Maybe talk your friend down some, given that one needs work. $400 for the pair would be a good buy...you won't get amps of that caliber new for that kind of money, even after repairing the bad one. At any rate, they'rr worth bringing back to snuff, it'd be a waste for them to be disposed of.

Todd in Beerbratistan, vintage gear scrounger

If you're lucky it'll just be a couple of fuses but I bet it's the caps. I think it's a steal for Bryston quality and most likely after a tech looks over them and gets them back up it'll be another 20 on them.

I have the 4b-ST. I have had them for about 5 years. They are very good amps. I think you are getting a good deal. I hope that it all works out. You should notice a huge difference when you plug them in. If you are going to use it on the center, be prepared to hear spoken words that you never heard before. Enjoy

John, if you haven't already picked up that 4B, why the heck not?

In addition to the excellent comments made above, odds are that once you pick that bad boy up, if you call the nice folks at Bryston, they will probably look after you well in terms of servicing your unit. Every story I've ever heard from a Bryston owner who needed service has been lyrical about how Bryston went above and beyond to look after the customer.

Well, it was a tough decision, folks, but I had to pass. I decided to upgrade my fiancee's crappy 24" TV with a 53" Pioneer Elite HDTV instead. The way I see it, i've already got a decent-sounding system already, but for all practical purposes, I didn't have a TV.

So at this point, in the interest of the public good, I feel I should now stand out from behind my deception. It wasn't a "friend" that was selling the amps; it was a guy on craigslist. I think they're still available, if anybody's interested.

http://houston.craigslist.org/ele/88711770.html

If anyone does indeed buy them, I'd love to hear how it all turns out.

I feel used....