Bryston Speakers - Audio Emporium

Bryston is one of the few manufacturers in our business that actually makes its own speakers, in its own house- in Canada no less. Bryston has such stringent QC procedures and a stout construction ethos- that they back their speakers with a 20 year warranty!

Who else does that? TWENTY years!

There are about 500 speaker companies on the market. For many, it is stretching the term to call them “companies.” The vast majority do not make their own products. There are two main formulas the other guys use to make speakers.

Plan A) They buy drivers from parts distributors and screw them into boxes.

Plan B) They order finished product from speaker houses in China.

I’m not saying plan A or B will always produce lousy speakers. But I am saying it’s impossible to buy from A or B and get the unimpeachable solidity and consistency of Bryston. The 20 year warranty is proof that Bryston builds its speakers to UNIQUELY high standards. Bryston has had a 20 year warranty on its electronics for over half a century.

Each Driver Is Graphed

Bryston makes its own tweeters, midrange drivers and woofers, in its own house in Canada.

Every driver is graphed to insure that it measures within a scant variance of the REFERENCE of that driver. It won’t matter if you have serial number 1, 1000 or 10,000. They will all perform identically- for all perceivable purposes. These drivers are then installed in cabinetry with crossover networks, also of Bryston’s design and build.

Bryston drivers are required to pass a battery of tests:

*Amplitude Response

*Impedance Curve

*Phase

*Distortion

* Buzz & Rub test to be sure mechanical integrity is secure

*Polarity

*Temperature

Bryston will not install drivers without them passing these tests. What about the other guys out there who buy from vendors? You know they just open the box off the UPS truck and start screwing them into cabinets.

After you study what’s available out there (I have) you can recognize the same drivers being used over and over. For example, let’s talk tweeters. Take a look at the Peerless XT-25TG 30-04 for $25. Or the ScanSpeak R2604/8320 for $50. You’ll see these nipple shaped tweets in many expensive speakers. Check out the ScanSpeak midrange, 18M/8631 for $200. You’ll recognize this slit paper driver being used in a variety of brand names. I’m not saying these drivers are no good. Each company using them has cooked up a sales pitch for you. But the main reason they use them is because all they have to do is write a check. They don’t have to MAKE anything.

Each Speaker Has To Pass A Torture Test

The finished speakers then must run through the gauntlet. Every speaker has to pass a final full speaker measurement and 24 hour, high powered, cycling torture test- before it will be shipped.

Bryston Sonic Performance

Bryston speakers perform like getting glasses with a precision prescription. If you hear a sustained piano note- you won’t hear peculiar artifacts like warbles or flutters. Musical image, sound staging, timbre and bass tunefulness WILL be exactly what the Bryston chefs promise. The speakers you get at your house will sound the same as the Reference Standard of that model.

Bryston speakers deliver prodigious bass, but not of the “one note” variety. Many listeners choose Bryston for its ability to reveal bass color and nuance, without introducing obfuscating mud or murky waters.

Bryston speakers have an extended top end without being bright. I call it Steinway Smooth- because as a bad amateur piano player, I want to hear the best of the best, playing well. A thousand or more decisions go into great recordings. Which piano? How is it tuned? What is the studio’s ambiance? Which microphones? Mic cables? Mic preamps? You get the idea. And my garsh, thus far this discussion is just about the mechanics of a piano.

What about the uniqueness of each human voice?! For those of us who care about all of these nuances, we want to hear the sum of these choices as transparently as possible- along with a convincing level of power and rock solid reliability. Bryston assures we’ll hear their musical perspective with unmatched dependability.

Bryston speakers cast a large SPACIOUS image- in both the vertical and horizontal domain. This is a distinct advantage over the preponderance of far east ribbons which do well horizontally, but not vertically. Magnepan is among the few ribbons that work well- because they’re so tall.

Vendored Speakers

Vendors who make drivers for clients try to do a decent job. But please understand, these are just widgets for these guys. There can be a wide variance of behavior from sample to sample. There’s no way that each driver can achieve Bryston’s precise accuracy. What a customer ends up with at home can be a veritable mish/mash of drive elements that create a somewhat blurry vision of music.

Will The Other Guys Driver Match?

Speaker assemblers (Plan A) who CARE, will take the time to MATCH drivers. That is, they COULD get in thousand tweeters (for ex) and graph them all. Then, they MIGHT take care to be sure that the ones you get in your speakers, which would have to be matched pairs, are pretty close to each other. What if you toast one some day? Your replacement won’t match. By Bryston’s standards, having to match tweeters- is selling you two defectives.

But… do you think any of these guys go to the trouble to do this? Think of the time and subsequent cost of going to this level of effort.

Only a thimble full of assemblers are willing to even try to match drivers. It takes time and expertise. Most of them have neither. It’s just easier and more profitable to have basic laborers use a battery operated screw driver to install a pile of drivers in a pile of boxes and ship them out the door as fast as possible.

Speaker Houses

With Plan B you haven’t a chance of getting speakers that perform like Brystons. Mass production and low prices preclude attaining the premium echelon of sonic performance and utmost reliability that Bryston delivers. Companies buying from speaker houses simply work by remote control with a hope and a prayer.

Bryston Driver Construction

Since I love the sound of Bryston speakers, let’s take a look at how they achieve their sound.

Bryston uses its Titanium tweeter in all models. It is extremely low mass, brutally tough and linear. Its musical timbre is Steinway Smooth. There is no bite or harshness to its musical hue.

It is more than coincidental that one of my other favorite speakers, Amphion, also uses Titanium tweeters. I think we have a pattern here Sherlock!

I’m not saying beryllium or diamond dust tweeters are lousy. But I promise from years of experience, they’re not nearly as sturdy as Brystons and their replacement costs are ghastly expensive.

Here is some further detail Bryston goes to on tweeter construction that the other guys don’t.
Virtually all competitors use tiny wire, often hair like in structure, within the tweeter coil assembly. This wire is extended from the coil and tied via clip lead to connection posts.

Bryston takes the time and expense to hand solder thicker copper leads from the voice coil wire- then tins the wire to make it more sturdy and create a heat sink- which in turn is soldered to connection posts. High powered amplifiers run this wire hotter and challenge their integrity.

There is significant movement in the tweeter mechanism over time. The extra expense and effort Bryston employs to beef up the mechanical interface creates better sound as well as dramatically better reliability. Consider the minutia of this construction when you ask why Bryston can provide a 20 year warranty- while everyone else does well to offer five.

Bryston midrange and woofer drivers are comprised of Anodized Aluminum. Bryston prefers aluminum as a contiguous material- vs accepting transmission loss by making drivers that are multiple materials glued together or sandwiches of this and that.

The contiguous aluminum moves in a linear fashion. It is Bryston’s choice as a stable substance that will not create aberrations. As with the tweeter design above, it’s more than happenstance that Amphion concurs and follows suit.

The Other Guys

Other companies have other ideas- complete with buzz words to try to sell them. I’ll pick on B&W for a minute. They claim their tweeter is “Carbon.” Well, it’s actually aluminum with some carbon particles glued on. This isn’t a contiguous material. It is THIS glued to THAT. Swimming with your boots on. They claim their midrange is “Continuum” which is a woven fabric material with fiber threads and some endemic flex- quite similar to Kevlar. Once again, this isn’t a contiguous material. Swimming with your boots on. Their woofers are “Aerofoil” which consist of Styrofoam sandwiched by paper sheets. Yet again, this is a sandwich, not a contiguous material- you’re swimming with boots on.

Other companies brag up the design de jour- like using slit paper construction or gluing graphene to magnesium. I’m not saying these non contiguous drive elements sound lousy. I am saying I prefer the choices Bryston has made. Bryston’s selections engender a more resolving speaker of superior durability at affordable pricing.

Back To Bryston Driver Construction

Bryston drivers use cast frame designs and massive magnet assemblies. For ex, the 8” woofer used in the Bryston T Series weighs over 15 pounds. Many magazine darlings use stamped frame drivers and magnet structures less than half the weight of Bryston’s.

I prefer the smooth, GIBRALTARISH Bryston sound. Further, I much prefer to buy N. American with a 20 year warranty, than from a country halfway around the world with a 2-5 year warranty.

Bryston Tower Measurements

Anechoic chambers don’t permit designers to measure deep bass performance. They’re only good to about 80Hz. Bryston has created its own 100 foot tall tower (!!) where it can accurately measure bass performance down to 12Hz.

Every Bryston speaker model has been measured on the tower to derive its REAL bass behavior pattern. With this information Bryston can customize a crossover network that will be ideal for each model’s behavior- literally from the bottom to the top of its frequency range.

Bryston wants a true 4pi measurement of its models’ behavior- so up the tower they go.Without such a tower, companies have to measure on a ground plane method. In a large field or parking lot, you only get 2pi accuracy- and have to do some predictive math to assume what a precise bass response would be. As a professional speaker design laboratory, Bryston does it right, without cutting corners to eliminate any possibility of error.
The tower evaluation tool helps Bryston provide deep bass that has texture and accuracy-vs the one-note bass that is more muddy, and typical in the marketplace.

Bryston Enclosures

Bryston cabinet composition embarrasses all but the most expensive competition. Canadian Rangerwood is more dense than MDF. Bryston cabinet walls are thick and use non parallel orientation to avoid standing waves. Bryston uses an internal matrix of slabs, struts and buttressing braces to achieve rigidity competitive with metal/epoxy coffins that weigh quite literally- hundreds of pounds.

Side Bar

Some readers might be thinking- why are you going on so much about unit to unit differences about drivers and finished speakers? Can it really matter that much?

Yes. It can.

When you buy drivers from a vendor, pull them from the box and screw them into your cabinets, the customer is not guaranteed to get what he paid for.

With Bryston’s construction and QC of its own drivers, and finished speakers, the following won’t happen!

Here’s an example of what can happen- when even the most fastidious of companies is at the wheel.

There’s nobody more particular than the BBC. In the early 70s they created a small speaker for monitoring recordings. They spec’d every detail about the speaker, from drivers to cabinet and crossovers. They even spec’d how the cabinet walls would be damped, joined and how the dang screw holes would be sealed up! They nailed down this formula and licensed its construction to about a dozen vendors who would build them. This became known as the LS 3/5A. It doesn’t have much bass and doesn’t play loudly. Its purpose was for timbrel accuracy. It was intended as a TOOL for mixers and the BBC wanted it to be 100% consistent. And, especially in England and Japan where nobody has big rooms or high volume aspirations- the LS 3/5A became popular.

To be sure the licensees built to its prescribed accuracy, the BBC required getting two working speakers. These two speakers were tested assiduously for performance. One of these two was held by the BBC as a licensee’s “working reference.” The other was tweaked and sent back to the licensee so they would know they had a match for the BBC’s actual reference. This second speaker got returned to the licensee so they would have a PROPER reference on hand to refer to.

Manufacturing commenced on the LS 3/5A. What could go wrong? By 1987 Richard Ross of Rogers blew the whistle. He was dismayed and said that the finished speakers Rogers was making barely fell within the window of acceptability. He could only accomplish THIS level of control by rejecting up to 85% of the B110 woofers he was getting from KEF, a well esteemed manufacturer, who was making the B110 under BBC license.

The BBC determined that the B110 was essentially defective in adhering to prescribed performance. After copious research the problem was identified as poor consistency in the Neoprene surrounds being used. Technology changed to having a new, improved B110 made with a PVC surround- with a cone of Plastiflex doped with Bextrene, which was more consistent and temperature stable. Other driver and crossover parts had to be upgraded due to the updated B110 improvements.

It was only the conscientious character of a licensee that prevented thousands of defectively built speakers from flooding the market place- that could end up at your house. This, doesn’t even take into consideration how many defective speakers were sold by other licensees who didn’t notice, or care that their speakers were out of whack.

I spell out this story to commend Bryston for going to the extensive detail that they do!

Models:

All available in Walnut, Black & Boston Red Cherry.

Tiny A: $990 Per Pair

{13.5h, 8.5w, 8.25d, 8 ohms, 90dB}

Tiny A is Bryston’s brand new, affordable 2-way stand mount. It has a very smooth, warm presence of sound that is fully befitting of Bryston’s legacy. It will surprise you with its bass amplitude, though it shouldn’t- it’s a Bryston! Almost everything out there for a grand a pair is a bright, skinny sounding box from China. Tiny A is the exact opposite. It is more robust and sophisticated than the

price range would imply. What a nice addition to the family!

Mini A: $1665 Per Pair

{15.5h, 8.5w, 8.25d, 8 ohms, 87dB}

6.5” Woof, 3.5” Mid, 1” Tw

Mini A is more than a mini monitor. In fact, it is a bit misnamed because it is a 3-way capable of surprisingly substantial bass response. Mini A is indeed more pure in the vocal region than Tiny A because it has a dedicated midrange driver. Its bass response out performs virtually any 2-way. When placed in a small to mid sized room, you’ll likely not even need a sub. If you do want to place it in a good sized room, its bass is solid enough to blend with a sub very nicely. The market is full of very respectable 2-ways, Tiny A among them. But Mini A plays more transparently and takes you deeper.

Micro A Center: $900 Ea.

{7.5h, 17w, 7.5d, 8 ohms, 90dB, 12 lbs}

Two 5.25” Woofs, 1” Tw

Micro A is the ideal center for the vast majority of Bryston speakers. It is reasonably sized, clear and tough. You’ll cross it over at about 80Hz, so you’ll rarely need something bigger. Its timbre is smooth so it’s also a fine center mate for many other brands- where you want an articulate center that doesn’t skew bright. If your Brand X right and lefts are bright in flavor, you would do well to run Micro A for the center. It will tamp down the irritating character of the right and lefts as you watch video content.

Mini A Center: $2000 Ea.

{11.5h, 30w, 13.9d, 6 ohms, 86dB, 48 lbs}

Two 6.5” Woofs, 3.5” Mid, 1” Tw

Mini A Center is not at all a mini. It’s actually a big dog and should have been named Muscle A Center, says me. It is a full testosterone center to join a fanny kicking theater system. I like the Mini A Center on a proper center stand. Yet you can also put it atop a hearty cabinet below your TV. You’ll only need Mini A Center when you’re rockin’ hard.

A3: $3290 Per Pair

{37.5h, 9.25w, 15d, 6 ohms, 86dB, 53 lbs}

Two 6.5” Woofs, 5.25” Mid, 1”Tw

A3 is one of my favorite towers. Let me call it my FIRST favorite tower, because anything less, is a pretender. We’ve run A3 in many a system where you’d swear there was a sub on in the room. At about $3k the competition is almost always a Chinese box full of flimsy hardware. A3 is exactly the opposite. It can produce remarkably strong, SOLID bass and OF COURSE delivers Bryston’s Steinway smooth tonal balance. A3 can be driven with beauty by an integrated like Rogue’s Sphinx for under $2k.

A2: $3990 Per Pair

{39.5h, 9.25w, 17d, 4 ohms, 87dB, 63 lbs}

Two 6.5” Woofs, Two 5.25” Mids, Two 1” Tweets

A2 is about 15% stronger in the bass than A3. You might like that! What you will like, for sure, is the extra height and depth that A2 can provide over A3. By using doubles of drive elements, A2 also has a tad better detail in the middle and top compared to A3. Each driver travels half the excursion in this configuration. A2 is a DYNAMITE point of diminishing returns investment. Integrateds like Sphinx, NAD C399 or M33 befit A2 very well.

A1: $4990 Per Pair

{47.5h, 9.25w, 17d, 4 ohms, 88dB, 71 lbs}

Three 6.5” Woofs, Two 5.25” Mids, Two 1” Tweets

A1 is lean looking TANK. If you like your bass with a sledgehammer punch, you would do well to step up to A1. The middle and high range sounds just like A2- which is clear and spacious. Where A1 steps away is in delivering the board quaking bottom end. The better your amp, the more any Bryston tower will give you. This is especially true of A1. Since A1 is a tad more efficient than A2, it can be driven by the same array of power.

Mini T: $4990 Per Pair

{22.5h, 10.5w, 10d, 4 ohms, 86dB, 42 lbs}

8” Woof, 5.25” Mid, 1” Tw

The T Series sends you into true Reference territory. Mini T differs from A1 in that its bass is almost as heavy- yet it’s leaner and tighter in character. If you’re a connoisseur of accuracy of pianos, large stringed instruments and drum kits, you may prefer Mini T over a tower which sounds thicker.

Middle T: $8590 Per Pair

{39.5h, 10.5w, 16.5d, 4 ohms, 88dB, 82 lbs}

Two 8” Woofs, 5.25” Mid, 1” Tw

Now we’re getting into rarefied air. Middle T is a speaker that can perform with the biggest and most expensive out there! Middle T performs happily with a wide array of electronics. We’ve had many a customer run Middle T with $2k integrateds like NAD and Hegel. Yet if you up your ante to great Bryston separates, Middle T just keeps giving you more. It continually surprises me how this relatively compact foot print in your room can reach new heights as you improve what is in front of it.

Model T: $11,990 Per Pair

{52.5h, 10.5w, 16.5d, 4 ohms, 89dB, 107 lbs}

Three 8” Woofs, Two 5.25” Mids, Two 1” Tweets

Model T is a stellar Reference Monitor tower. It produces music with a huge, weighty panorama of sound. The expansive image and space it can cast is hypnotic. It is literally massively fun to listen to!

While it can be driven well by a high value integrated like NAD’s M33, Model T will reward you for running state of the art electronics. Running a Bryston 4B Cubed with a BR20 preamp takes Model straight to the stratosphere. Bryston 7B Cubed Monoblocks deliver even more. The more quality you put in front of Model T, the more realism you’ll get out of them.