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Bryston BHA1 Headphone Amp


The Monkey

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They did choose male xlr outs for headphones, instead of female. So they're going their own path completely (and following the standard the non-headphone community has always followed).

They're jumping on the recable bandwagon?

"Bryston will also provide modifications to some headphone models to make them compatible with a balanced output configuration, along with an adapter cable assuring backwards compatibility to all traditional (unbalanced) headphone outputs."

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They're jumping on the recable bandwagon?

"Bryston will also provide modifications to some headphone models to make them compatible with a balanced output configuration, along with an adapter cable assuring backwards compatibility to all traditional (unbalanced) headphone outputs."

Complimentary business lines? How shrewd.

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Definitely a dynamic amp.

That thread linked by Grahame is interesting. The design process of this thing seems odd. They are prepared to release, pull it to change design, then apparently pull again to tweak circuit. All good if they get it right, but still. Then Bryston acknowledges that they are aware most balanced HPs are male XLR, which is the main reason for the retermination service. WTF? Why not just go with female?

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Definitely a dynamic amp.

That thread linked by Grahame is interesting. The design process of this thing seems odd. They are prepared to release, pull it to change design, then apparently pull again to tweak circuit. All good if they get it right, but still. Then Bryston acknowledges that they are aware most balanced HPs are male XLR, which is the main reason for the retermination service. WTF? Why not just go with female?

My guess is they are targeting the speaker crowd familiar with the Bryston brand and are new to headphones. So they buy the headphones and amp at the same time and send their phones off to Bryston who make some money off the recable.

I gotta agree with Beefy that gain is insane. Even crazier if you have a 4v balanced source. Unless they are using some non-standard attenuation curve pot.

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How about just put the right jacks on it? They should make the female jacks standard.

I'm not real familiar with balanced jack conventions, but the initial pic looked wrong to me...

At the very least, safety first. You should not be able to touch 'high' voltage, high current pins, which you can do with male panel connectors.

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Still don't think any output should use male pins, too much chance of shorting them. But I guess if this is industry (commercial sound) standard for XLRs it is kind of hard to change at this point. At least they didn't go with some goofy video camera connector or other.

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Last I checked the balance knob is still there. I would never have a use for such a thing (software can do it more precisely), and it is one more thing that is in the signal path. Looks really nice though.

I wonder about the topology though, because the mW into a high impedance is higher (667mW @ 600ohm) than into a lower one (500mW @ 32ohm). I have never seen such a figure. I always thought it was the other way around for pretty much any amp.

http://bryston.com/PDF/brochures/BHA1_BROCHURE.pdf

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Last I checked the balance knob is still there. I would never have a use for such a thing (software can do it more precisely), and it is one more thing that is in the signal path. Looks really nice though.

True, though relying on software knocks out a lot of source options (or you're back to adding more hardware in the path).

Edited by blessingx
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