Dave's Faves - Bryston BR-20 Preamp/DAC

Bryston BR-20 Preamp/DAC $6800

(4.5h, 17w, 13.5d)

Bryston’s new state of the art preamp/DAC has been dubbed “BR” to honor Bryston’s Brian Russell, who died in 2020. Brian was Bryston’s outgoing national sales manager for 45+ years. Bryston honors Brian with this designation. All Bryston preamps up to now have been dubbed BP.

The $6800 price tag DOES include Bryston’s new BR-20i remote. Don’t chuckle. Bryston has typically sold its remotes a la carte. I want to be clear that you get the new remote with the preamp.

BR-20 is a brand new design, achieving state of the art lows in noise and distortion, that comes with stunning Bryston DAC built in. The BDA-3 DAC sells separately for $3400. Considering you get it built in BR-20… it’s a fantastic start!

BR-20 is also a fully balanced analog preamp with 2 balanced ins/outs. It has a high end headphone amp built in.

BR-20’s sonic character is immediate, or, transparent, if you prefer that term. The resolution of BR-20 is to die for. You won’t have to guess, or hunt for any detail within the music. It’s all there, in proper balance. BR-20 combines the speed/clarity of a great digital design, with its eminently musical performance. With more than a few high end preamps, you can actually hear their input sections being saturated. The overloading casts a pall of IM on to the music. BR-20 strips any such artifacts out of the equation.

OK. Permit me a bit of whining. I don’t think Bryston preamps have EVER gotten their due. Bryston power amps have been SO HIGHLY regarded that its preamps have been somewhat lost in the shuffle.

I, for one, have never understood, why the rags have appreciated how great the amps are- but have routinely ignored how strong the preamps are. I mean, it’s just crazy! BP-26 has been among the finest preamps on the market since the early 2000s, and yet it rarely gets mentioned with commensurate competition. If you’ve owned a BP-26, BP-17/3 or even BP-25 from back in the day, you know how clean and quiet these Brystons have been. It’s almost as though the mags have gone so APE over the power amps that they feel it would be blatherskite to gush similarly over the preamps as well. I promise you, THIS is about to change. BR-20 is such a magnificent sounding piece, that even the snooty mags that rave about $80k Swiss built gear, are going to sing the praises of BR-20!

You read it here (first?!). I predict, that with the intro of BR-20, Bryston will, at long last, be recognized for making not just among the very best POWER AMPS in the music world, but that this preamp will finally win Bryston the highest echelon of accolades as well!

Bryston proudly announces that BR-20 is its best preamp ever. They’ve positively nailed it!

BR-20 comes with green lights.

BR-20 is available in black or silver, 17” or 19” face.

Options Include

*MM Phono, $1000.

Inputs

*2 balanced

*2 analog

*2 AES/EBU

*2 Toslink

*2 Spd/F RCA

*1 USB-B