Bully Sound Company BSC-100m

LL21

Well-Known Member
Dec 26, 2010
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This amp was extremely well reviewed by Chris Bryant of HifiCritic (it was definitely Hifi Critic...think it was Chris Bryant). In any event author considered it the best commercial amp he'd heard. It struck me that the description was more of the sound of the Krell of old without being as much of a powerhouse. I believe Brett is a member here and perhaps on the key design elements that believes contribute to the Bully Sound which HifiCritic clearly admired, he could explain a bit (without any trade secrets of course).
 

wizard

Member
Oct 17, 2010
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wizard-highend.blogspot.com
This amp was extremely well reviewed by Chris Bryant of HifiCritic (it was definitely Hifi Critic...think it was Chris Bryant). In any event author considered it the best commercial amp he'd heard. It struck me that the description was more of the sound of the Krell of old without being as much of a powerhouse. I believe Brett is a member here and perhaps on the key design elements that believes contribute to the Bully Sound which HifiCritic clearly admired, he could explain a bit (without any trade secrets of course).

Hificritic gave it 165 points. The Momentum stereo 210 points.
 

LL21

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Hificritic gave it 165 points. The Momentum stereo 210 points.

Yes, i think that's right...thanks Wizard (btw, i just posted elsewhere a question to you about your opinions on Kaiser Kawero Classic speaker)...I think Martin Colloms reviewed the D'Agostinos 2 issues ago and Chris Bryant did the Bully 1 before that?
 

MylesBAstor

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Apr 20, 2010
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Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
This amp was extremely well reviewed by Chris Bryant of HifiCritic (it was definitely Hifi Critic...think it was Chris Bryant). In any event author considered it the best commercial amp he'd heard. It struck me that the description was more of the sound of the Krell of old without being as much of a powerhouse. I believe Brett is a member here and perhaps on the key design elements that believes contribute to the Bully Sound which HifiCritic clearly admired, he could explain a bit (without any trade secrets of course).

Brett is a member here
 

bretdago

New Member
Jan 22, 2011
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Milford, CT USA
www.bscaudio.com
Well this an interesting thread :) I am certainly open to any questions but will elaborate on a couple of items here...

1. There are no cheap parts in any of my products. Everything is military grade or better, overbuilt and over specified in every category. The implementation is pretty clean and perhaps it is somehow less impressive to look at. But let me point out a couple of things that might not be so obvious. Over 100,000 uF of filter capacitance, a 30lb 1300 VA power transformer and 10 Sanken 17A 250v output transistors per chassis to name a few highlights. I build everything by hand in the USA and source US suppliers. I have actually tried in these designs to keep the price down. I will elaborate on this.

2. I have chosen to design class A amplifiers. I believe they offer the very best listening performance. Because of this there are a few differences and obstacles specific to this type of design. Obviously one of the drawbacks is heat. I wanted to make sure the heat could be contained in a tight area to control the direction as opposed to using external heatsinks that radiate outward. It is easy to design a chassis with external heatsinks, most companies still do this, but for me after collecting many scars over 28 years plus of handling Krell amps and others, I wasn’t going to have external heatsinks in my own designs. Also, as stated above I wanted to control the heat field. Because external heatsinks radiate outward they send heat in every direction into the room, this is great to scrub heat from the output devices but after a short time of listening usually under an hour or so in my experience the room starts to heat up noticeably. With my design, the heat is sent upward in almost a heat column, straight up and added to the warmest part of the room, the ceiling. This postpones the eventual room temperature increase by quite a margin; typically it takes about 3 hours to notice the room got warmer. Also the top and sides of the amp are cool, the heatsinks exposed are not. This presented quite a challenge design wise as the entire output stage is in between the heatsink towers, there is quite a bit in this amplifier you cannot see. I wanted to keep the chassis small and also allow easy service if required. All of the output devices, emitter resistors, decoupling caps etc.. are nestled in between these towers (four circuit boards). Also whether I like it or not I am forced to use a heatsink tower or 4 in this instance that can scrub off enough heat for its class A operation and also its power output. The byproduct of this is that there is a lot of space in the chassis that is open, even though the other circuits are reasonably tightly packed. Overall beside the space created by the sinks it is pretty tight. Class A amps need big heatsinks, if someone is claiming full class A operation at rated power and it doesn’t have large heatsinks and lots of heat, it is not class A. I took the heat issue one step further because listening environments have changed over the years by adding a bias control switch; this allows the user to turn the bias down to a 50% mode and also a 2-5% mode (eco). This effectively turns the amp into a High bias A/B amp at 50% mode and low bias A/B amp in Eco mode. I use Eco for home theater and background music, very good performance but little current draw and very little heat. It can be changed on the fly and even while listening. I also bias the amplifier (100% mode) to be more than full class A at 100W into 8 ohms and deep class A (about 140 watts) into its 200 watt output rating at 4 ohms. The amp will double its output power to 1 ohm with full power output at around 1250-1275 watts full out, that’s not burst output that continuous output.

3. Distortion, well I chose to use as little negative feedback as I could, maintaining the sonic attributes I wanted vest the best overall specification. I am honest about my specifications; it works like other similar class A designs in terms of its distortion rise at higher frequencies and at its rated power at the 1k spec it is under .1% at around .065% on average. I can drop this distortion rating, even at 20K and above to less than .1%, but in this design I would use, in my opinion, a huge amount of feedback and some other adjustments to achieve this, and in doing so, destroy its performance. I have created a simple design with minimal gain stages and low feedback. The performance during listening sessions will speak for itself, the bench performance is better than most and not as good as others as long as we are comparing apples to apples. The noise specifications are reasonable in this design and more than adequate for most listening rooms, but will be significantly improved going forward.

4. I am very pleased with Chris and Martins comments in regards to my amplifier, being my first design I am humbled by their comments. I am hard at work releasing the new Trident preamplifier and new series amplifiers. All I have learned specifically over the last 3 years at BSC will translate into the new products. I am very excited.

5. I know this was a bit long winded, but it is important to respond to questions and clarify some of the confusion that floats around our industry. I have been around and involved with the inner workings of audio electronics for the better part of 30 years, learned from some of the best engineers over that time period and now get to use that experience in my own creations. I have studied and listened to creations by some of the great audio designers Nelson Pass, John Curl, Bill Johnson, Tom Colangelo and more recently Charles Hanson to name a very few and not to exclude so many others in our industry. I have met many of you and love to talk about this industry and the products people use and enjoy. My door is always open so to speak and I have been an impartial ear for countless customers for many years. I am very lucky; what other “new” designer on the audio scene has had that kind of access to product design and also has Dan D. himself to bounce ideas off of??? Of course this in itself does not guarantee a great product, but it doesn’t hurt either~
I am open to questions, and opinions.

Bret D'Agostino
 

LL21

Well-Known Member
Dec 26, 2010
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Great post, Bret, and much appreciated. A new business is hard work and 7 days. Thanks for taking the time and considerable effort to be thorough. If you've earned the respected of Martin Colloms and others of his caliber, that is a tremendous start in my book. Good luck with Bully Sound and look forward to hearing your products at some point.
 

bretdago

New Member
Jan 22, 2011
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Milford, CT USA
www.bscaudio.com
Thank you for the kind words gentleman, I remember a conversation or two Mr. Aldridge, always a pleasure.
I will be eager to release information on the new stuff as soon as it is ready to show, but now I must try and catch up to Dad's 210 score on Martin and Chris's scale. Second best amp on the points scale isn't going to cut it. ;)
 

JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
12,308
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Manila, Philippines
Thank you for the kind words gentleman, I remember a conversation or two Mr. Aldridge, always a pleasure.
I will be eager to release information on the new stuff as soon as it is ready to show, but now I must try and catch up to Dad's 210 score on Martin and Chris's scale. Second best amp on the points scale isn't going to cut it. ;)

That's the spirit! :D
 

hifistan

New Member
Jul 14, 2016
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I was not considering buying one, I was a long ago Krell dealer and that was enough for me. I just got a very good amp used for a fraction of that price. Who the hell is buying this stuff?
 

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