What a great post Rusherific- it's too early in the morning for me to throw in much in the way of the "home audiophile's" reasoning for trying so hard to achieve what we believe we achieve. Suffice to say, from my perspective that there IS a diminishing return for what you spend and what you hear, but for most of us, we stop when we A) run out of money and B) stop hearing appreciable improvements.

But that being said, you'd be surprised how much information and enjoyment (the true key) you can get out a great setup.

Obviously, one of the best persons to answer your question of "why do we do it?" would John Atkinson, editor of Stereophile, who usually give some very well reasoned responses. Take a look at the archived As We See It articles- they often speak to exactly what you are discussing.

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I know that studio monitors are classically paired with Bryston 2B or 4B amps, sometimes McIntosh and that's about all I know about anything! I've read about a million reviews which are in the end useless since all told it seems every power amp reviewed from $1000 to $20000 warrants 2 paragraphs of end-all-be-all praise. So if Bryston's the standard I know of, what are some comparable or cheaper alternatives to get me on the right path? Obviously for my application I'm more interested in neutrality than anything else, and power need only be 100 watts average.

A Rotel RB-1050 would probably work fine for your needs.

AFA the other observations in your post, you can read all you want to about mid and hi fi equipment, but until you go out and listen to some assembled systems that display good synergy, you will never understand what a 'good' system really sounds like.

And yes, many of us here blame the studios, recording co's and their engineers for the low quality and over-compressed crap that is currently being pawned off as 'music' these days.

However, there always was and still are, small independent co's who release high quality, well engineered CD's and LP's.

Given your point of view, why don't you just buy Bryston and forget about it?? I used Bryston for decades, with great satisfaction.

There are many alternatives. If you'll tell us which speakers you chose then we might suggest alternatives. Also, as you know, it'd be helpful to know how large your listening room is.

Save

Great post!

What you are saying are things audiophiles know to be true and are the
subject of our biggest gripe. Most popular recordings blow chunks. They
are poorly recorded to "good enough" standards for the guy driving down
the highway with his windows rolled down and cranking it to drown out
the wind noise.

However, several companies devote their attention to high fidelity recordings
and cater to the audiophile community. We spend our time assembling systems
that can extract the highest fidelity from the recordings that we
listen to the most.

I don't think anyone would disagree with your observation that there is
absolutely no way of getting around the quality of the recording you are
trying to reproduce. We can do little about the quality being offered by
the major labels. But, most of us are music lovers at heart and can
enjoy the crappy recordings while bitching about the inherent fidelity of
the recording.

This can be easily demonstrated by the failure of SACD to catch on with the
public at large. Good enough is apparently, good enough.

I suspect that Bryston has been a favorte for the pro guys for their 20 year
warranty as much as for their fidelity. Few audio companies are going to
stand behind their products for 20 years and 5 different owners.

My Bryston was a 2B, a very fine amp.

Your room is pretty good size, so you might benefit from a power upgrade. I got a significant improvement going up to 185 watts with my Conrad Johnson CA200, which really delivers over 300 watts into my 4 ohm Vienna Acoustics Beethoven Baby Grand speakers.

Dave

Quads use a proprietary cable. The concept is that when connecting an amp and preamp (for example) that there is only a single ground connecting them rather than the multiple grounds of a pair of single-ended interconnects or a pair of XLRs (leaving aside the possibility of ground lifts on some equipment).

You can't go wrong with a Bryston. It appears that you are comfortable with the sound.

NS-10s are indeed everywhere. Amusing how they took over after a well-known producer (I am trying to remember who) used them as a shit box to check the portability of a mix. Others incorporated them for the same purpose, yet others turned to them as project mixing speakers. Those that know them well and how they translate can indeed get good mixes out of them.

I haven't personally found NS-10s that sensitive to amplification but I bet you know them a lot better than I do (I've never spent much time in front of them - I'm listening to a pair of Adams near-field as I type). You may want to stick to Bryston so that you continue to know the sound intimately. Perhaps a used Halfer TransNova would be another option for you.

It

Of those amps, I only know the Adcom GFA-545 II, but I know it well and have been happy with it. 100W per ch., conservatively rated, known for being neutral, and very reliable.