Specifications

Bryston SP3 Preamplifier / Surround Processor
ed additional information I needed that was not in the printed manual
so I rather quickly abandoned the printed manual and worked off the
downloaded version. The manual is well written, but the new informa-
tion has been added-on rather than integrated with the existing infor-
mation. I found myself having to skip from the “old” part of the manual,
forward to where the extra info had been added, then back to the older
part of the manual.
The remote appears to be cut from a block of billet aluminum. The
finish matches the brushed black anodized finish of the SP3’s front
panel. Changing the battery requires removing four Phillips screws
from the bottom plate. The fit of the battery cover to the body of the
remote is remarkably tight. All that aluminum makes the remote feel
quite a bit heavier than plastic remotes. The remote isn’t very big and
all the small black buttons become invisible in a dark room against the
black faceplate. The name of each button is printed in a very small font
in white. The font is so tiny it takes quite a lot of light to read. It was
fairly easy to remember where volume, mute and power were located,
but other less-often used buttons were often a mystery or a guess with-
out turning on some light. The buttons are arranged in groups of two
rows, one row, two rows, and two rows. There’s a slightly larger gap
between the row groupings and that did help me find some buttons,
but it wasn’t enough help. I still needed light fairly often. The remote
worked fine, but I found the tiny black buttons, tiny white lettering,
black body, and no lighting of the remote made it a little tricky to use
when you needed something other than the most commonly used con-
trols.
Setup
It’s a trip back to yesteryear. Pick the active loudspeakers and their
size. Select the frequency you want the SP3 to use for a crossover fre-
quency for each pair of loudspeakers. Then repeat that process for
each input you are going to use. Measure the distance from each loud-
speaker to the main seat and enter that in the appropriate setup menu.
Use a hand-held sound pressure level meter to give each channel the
same SPL from the internal pink noise test tone. If you want different
loudspeaker levels for each input, you can do that also.
Work through the rest of the setup options and you’re done. You will
need the manual for this as some of the options may not be intuitively
obvious to the casual observer. Copying settings for each input can be
tedious, but most owners won’t have to change settings very often.
Bryston says the next firmware release will allow global settings for all
sources to cut down on the need to copy settings, but custom settings
per input will also remain possible.
Using The SP3
It took a little time to get used to all the options, especially for an
analog stereo input. You can have three modes… Stereo locks you in
to stereo mode and disables any processing of the sound, but this is
not a pass-through mode. Bypass mode is a pass-through mode, but
you do have the option of having the subwoofer active or not when
you’re in Bypass mode. Then there’s the mode where you are neither in
Stereo mode nor in Bypass mode. In that case, there are no front panel
LEDs illuminated for mode. In that mode, you can scroll through sur-
round modes with the remote. The front panel display shows how many
loudspeakers are active for each surround mode and whether the sub-
woofer is being used.
I had maybe 12 cases during the review period where the SP3
wouldn’t produce sound from any source. The only way to recover was
to turn the SP3 off then back on. That usually resolved the issue for
many days at a time. The loss of sound always seemed to be associat-
ed with some change in the programming being displayed, a source
change, or some other “thing” happening. The frequency of this prob-
lem ranged from two times in 1 hour to zero times in two weeks. In
other words, it was completely random. I also had a problem getting
the SP3 to play music via the USB input when it thought the “idling”
Mac Mini was sending Dolby Digital. When the music playback soft-
ware actually began playing music, the SP3 changed to PCM mode
(as it should) but there was no sound until I switched to a different
input then back to the USB input. That only happened one time. The
other times when using the USB port, it reported PCM was the source
and music would play properly when the playback software started.
When there is a resolution change or any video signal “drop out”
where the signal goes away momentarily, the SP3 comes back on (pic-
ture and sound) momentarily with the return of the signal, only for the
screen to go black and the sound stop for maybe 2 to 3 seconds
before the sound and image would return. It was a bit disconcerting
since the SP3 was sending video and audio that appeared to be OK,
only to “black out” momentarily while re-syncing. This may be a func-
tion of the particular combinations of components used with the SP3
during the review or it may be present with all combinations of compo-
nents. There’s simply not enough time to keep trying different configu-
I
nputs – HDMI (8), XLR analog (2), RCA stereo analog (4),
7
.1 analog (1), AES/EBU digital audio (2), Toslink optical (3),
S
P/DIF coax digital (4), USB 2.0 port on back panel (48 kHz
m
aximum sample rate for music) (1),
O
utputs – XLR analog (9.1), RCA analog (9.1), ¼-Inch Headphone
j
ack (front) (1), HDMI (2), Toslink optical (1),
F
eatures
S
upports 5.1 through 8.2 channels
S
upports all current Dolby and DTS formats except Dolby Pro
L
ogic IIz and DTS Neo:X are not supported
A
ux L&R jacks can be configured for L&R main channels (second
s
et of outputs) or for a second center channel and second
s
ubwoofer
S
eparate digital and analog power supplies
Z
one 2 allows audio from a different source than Zone 1
H
DMI Switching
N
o video processing
S
ilver or black faceplate
O
ptional 19-inch rack mount faceplate
I
EC Power cord socket
E
thernet connection (connect to PCs, support firmware updates, &
r
emote control over Ethernet)
R
S-232 Remote Control port
1
IR mini jack input
1
DC triggers outputs
1
DC trigger input
2 “tape loops”
24 bit 192 kHz A/D and D/A converters (lower rates may be used
depending on source)
Texas Instruments DA710 DSP
No online audio or video streaming apps
Specifications
Dimensions (WxDxH) – 17 x 6.25 x 15.38 (inch) (includes knobs
and feet)
Weight – 22 lbs
MSRP – $9,500
Power Requirements: separate models for 120 VAC and 230 VAC
Power Consumption: Standby- less than 1 (watt); maximum
power-65 (watts)
Frequency response: 20-20,000 Hz; +/-0.25 dB
Dynamic range: n/a
Input Impedance: 50,000 (ohms)
Output Impedance: 110 (ohms)
Signal-to-noise ratio: 105 dB – 110 dB depending on type of input
and output
Channel separation: n/a
THD+Noise: .006% in DSP modes; .0025% Bypass mode
Warranty: 5 years
Designed And Assembled In Canada By:
Bryston Ltd.
677 Neal Drive
Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
K9J 6X7
Phone: [phone] or 705 742 5325
Web site: www.bryston.com
Email: [e-mail]