Bryston Model T-10, $20,000 Per Pair
{72h, 12w, 17d, 133 lbs, 92 dB SPL, 4 ohms}
Finishes: Black Ash, Walnut, Walnut Expresso, Boston Cherry, Natural Cherry
Four 8” Pure Aluminum Woofers, Two 5.25” Pure Aluminum Mids, Two Titanium Tweets
Frequency Response, 25-20K, +/- 3dB
Bryston Model T-10
Bryston’s brand new Model T-10 LINE ARRAY, is a true assault on state of the art speakers. It has power well beyond the plethora of big boys that sell for $50-100k. Please don’t hold it against Model T-10 that it’s darn right CHEAP for all you’re getting.
Model T-10 casts a huge, realistic soundstage. It is Steinway Smooth, which has always been Bryston’s calling card. The power is in a different world from smaller 3-ways- regardless of price and claims.
Model T-10 gives you more convincing size, space and 3D depth with its LINE ARRAY construction. Its image is massive and more authentic, than I’ve heard from any number of much more expensive 3-way towers.
Of course sound is subjective and we all vote with our wallets. Yet, let me appeal to your logical brain. Let’s look at what you’re getting for your money with Bryston, vs the other guys.
Bryston Audio Module- BAM
Bryston’s new T-10 Series models all revolve around the Bryston Audio Module- BAM for short.
BAM is an innovative technology to derive superb resolution and imaging from your speakers. It features two Titanium tweeters in the center, with a pair of Midrange drivers above and below. The Midrange drivers are housed within their own chambers and are tuned in a unique way that they don’t need traditional capacitors to roll them off. Hence there are less electronics in the road.
BAM’s cabinet begins with thick, densely forged Canadian Rangerwood. The front baffle is braced with an Aluminum contoured plate to provide further structural integrity. The Aluminum panel is machined in a beveled configuration to help the drivers disperse in Bryston’s desired window.
BAM provides sparkling clear detail, with a tall, spacious, rock solid image. Before we even discuss the obvious power advantages you get from Model T-10, I want to make clear that it’s the BAM core module that is responsible for the transparent heart and soul of the music of the T-10 series.
This entry is for the top of the line MODEL T-10. There will also be a MIDDLE T-10 and TRIM T-10 in the near future. Let’s start at the top of the totem pole.
Model T-10 Woofer Array
Bryston uses four, enormous 8” Cast Frame woofers in each tower. Each driver is 5.5” deep, weighs 15 pounds (!!) and has a Pure Aluminum cone for unrivaled rigidity. Configured in pairs, Model T-10 will pressurize the bass in your room from four locations, to eschew standing waves that typically occur when you just run a pair.
Model T-10 creates a true WALL OF SOUND with this format. You would expect great power, and you get it in spades. What T-10 does further is provide a tall, 3D soundstage that brings new life to your music. Wilsons and Magicos at $50k-ish give you a pair of 8s or 9s in 250 pound boxes that two Green Bay Packers can barely move. Bryston is spending its money SMARTER.
Model T-10 Is Under Priced {Please don’t tell Bryston!}
Why do I say Model T-10 is inexpensive now? To appreciate the value of Bryston’s T-10, you have to compare them with other top competitors. What do the other top guys sell you for $20k per pair?
Let me start by saying that I respect these competitors as very good sounding speakers. Bryston isn’t the only company that knows how to make good speakers. Just because I’m selling Bryston, doesn’t mean I think everything else is junk.
I’m a law of diminishing returns kind of guy. I like seeing money spent where it makes the most sense. It doesn’t make sense to put state of the art tires on a nice family sedan. It still won’t be a Ferrari.
LINE ARRAY
For example, Model T-10 is a tall, LINE ARRAY system that purveys a massive image. These other guys are smaller, more traditionally sized speakers that your wife might accept in her room more readily. Their image is commensurately small, as they’re basically selling you a 3-way in a heavy box.
Well that’s not what Model T-10 is about. Model T-10 is about providing the most realistic size and spacial representation of the real event. And yes, that requires a sizable speaker system. SO WHAT?!
I appreciate how good cabinets influence the sound of speakers. Yet at some point, you can get anal retentive about that topic and start spending money out the wazoo, that could have been more wisely spent elsewhere. And that is my point here.
Both Wilson and Magico, the top competing dogs in the market place, have a relatively modest driver array for your investment. They spend intense dollars in the minutia of cabinet construction. That’s their call. I prefer a more generous driver array with a great cabinet, than a modest driver array with an insane, over the top cabinet- which still has resonance by the way. Just check out reviews by Stereophile. (2-24, p 40) The benefits you get from a 250 cabinet are but a scant improvement over what Bryston offers in its prodigious 133 pound cabinet. My take is that half the weight takes you 99% there, instead of 99.5%, and allows you to spend more productively on drive elements.
Bryston’s cabinet is thick, rigid and offers tremendous a support structure. My two cents is that the other guys get precious little more from their epoxy resin or aluminum boxes that run twice as heavy. I’ll take Bryston’s LINE ARRAY driver configuration for the extra money, thank you very much. Cuz when you look at what the esoteric boys sell you, it’s basically 3-4 drivers made by Scanspeak or Seas- in an overkill cabinet.
As for me, I appreciate Bryston’s more balanced approach. Bryston provides a much greater proportion of its investment in drivers. Bryston makes its own drivers in its own house. You can see Scanspeak and Seas in these other guys. Yep, that’s exactly what they are. Some vendors make fancy sandwich cones to send Scanspeak. The drivers themselves are still Scanspeaks, for all the good that does, with endemic variation in sample to sample production. That doesn’t make them bad. In fact, Scanspeak and Seas are good vendors. But Bryston makes its own and has total control over the quality AND COST. Again, what do you get for about $20k per pair with these top guys?
Woofs
Model T-10 provides EIGHT 8”, Cast Frame, Pure Aluminum cone woofers for your investment. These drivers are made of contiguous Pure Aluminum. They don’t use a sandwich of this, glued to that- to try to attain a Linear Piston motion. Each Bryston woofer is DEEP and HEAVY. They’re housed it two six foot tall towers to pressurize your room in four locations.
Wilson includes TWO 8s, made of traditional paper pulp, and they’re not nearly as meaty as the Bryston 8s. The cabinet is about 40” tall.
Magico provides six 7” aluminum-graphene woofers. They have an aluminum core with graphene glued on to make them tougher.
Mids
Model T-10 provides four, 5.25” Cast Frame, Pure Aluminum mids. They’re made of contiguous aluminum. Each is housed within in its own chamber within Bryston’s BAM core.
Wilson provides a pair of 5.75” slit paper drivers, doped with epoxy to make them more rigid.
Magico provides a pair of 5” aluminum/graphene sandwich drivers.
Tweets
Model T-10 provides four Titanium tweets. People debate tweeter materials all day long. Titanium is a great choice in that it’s tough, sounds smooth and has no audible ringing. The folks who recommend beryllium will say it’s lighter and stronger. Yet beryllium is more brittle and has an endemic bounce back nature to its flexing. Titanium can be formed more easily and holds its form (stress relaxation resistance) better. Titanium is actually harder. Both materials are great choices.
Soft dome tweets at big money… really? No thanks.
Wilson provides a pair of soft dome tweets.
Magico provides a pair of beryllium dome tweets.
Cabinets
Model T-10 uses six foot tall towers to deliver a large LINE ARRAY of music to your ears. It doesn’t depend on a point source to start small and get larger and stay linear- an impossible task by the way. Model T-10 has three distinct chambers PER TOWER. Model T-10 cabinets are constructed of thick, dense, Canadian Rangerwood. Its BAM core module has a Pure Aluminum curved and contoured baffle to lock in rigidity and control dispersion.
Wilson’s cabinet is epoxy resin.
Magico’s cabinet is aluminum.
Both epoxy resin and aluminum are heavy, expensive cabinet materials. They weigh a ton for the amount of space they take up. There is an argument for using these materials. Yet in Stereophile reviews where speakers are actually tested, Stereophile still measures some cabinet resonance in these dramatically more costly materials.
I much prefer Bryston’s decision to go with many more high quality drivers in a serious cabinet, than go sparse on drivers with overkill cabinets.
Each manufacturer has to decide where to spend its money. I am endorsing Bryston’s decision to give you a much larger array of drivers- all of which use a contiguous Pure Aluminum construction. The alternative from these other companies is to give you a much smaller allotment of drivers, and spend HEAVY on cabinets.
If you spend on crazy expensive machines to cut epoxy resin or aluminum panels to shape, that’s your call. But one has to ask… at what point might it have been wiser to invest in thick, dense wood, and reinforce it with an aluminum baffle plate- vs raiding Ft Knox to buy over the top materials cutters.
Wilson Sabrina X, $19k per pair
40 5/16h, 12w, 15 5/16d, 112 lbs, 87 dB SPL, 4 ohms
One 8” paper pulp woofer
One 5.75” paper pulp midrange
One 1” silk dome tweeter
Cabinet of epoxy resin
Magico A5 $25k per pair
44.75h, 10.5w, 15d, 180 lbs, 88 dB SPL, 4 ohms
Three 7” aluminum/graphene woofs
One 5” aluminum/graphene woof
One 1” beryllium tweeter
Cabinet of aluminum