Bryston makes our favorite tower speakers. They’re ESPECIALLY SOLID at the popular price points of $2-5k per pair. They’re made in Canada, not China. They have a 20 year warranty. Nobody else is close.
Not China!
There are many well known brands that make towers in this price range. In the price range of $2-5k, almost everything is made in China, even from companies who make their big dogs in Europe or N America.
These Chinese built brands include, B&W, Dali, Definitive, Dynaudio, Elac, GoldenEar, JBL, Kef, KLH, Klipsch (below Heritage), Leak, Martin Logan, MoFi, Monitor Audio, Polk, Quad, Revel, Sony, SVS, Wharfedale, Yamaha.
The few remaining brands that are actually made outside of China at these price points, simply aren’t competitive in terms of bass, power handling and warranty- with Bryston.
Did you know that most of these speakers are made in job houses with names we can’t spell or pronounce? One day they’re shipping boxes that say A, the next day B- and so it goes. The speakers are made under contract. The name on the box is simply a marketing ploy.
I don’t want Chinese products if I can avoid them. Almost always… we can avoid them. Certainly in this price strata, LET’S avoid them. The Brystons sound richer/fuller/smoother and give you at least a four times longer warranty.
Further, for many reasons, I don’t want to send our dollars to China.
One of these reasons is, during Covid the Chinese kept pumping out gear while our N American and Euro companies adhered to CDC guidelines and virtually shut down. WE got our fannies kicked. To add insult to injury, the Chinese recognized what was going on and they escalated pricing like gasoline. They knew they had us over a barrel and milked the advantage.
Well, in spring of 2022 our N American and Euro partners ramped their business back up. They’re going full bore now. Let’s support our manufacturers, not the poachers on the other side of the globe.
By the way, if you look at somewhere.com you’ll see all of the Chinese speakers are now ON SALE! How about that. They cranked up the pricing to artificial levels and now they’re ON SALE! Dirty dogs! Please don’t fall for this shell game.
Bryston
Bryston’s CEO, James Tanner, is its speaker designer! He designed a speaker called the Model T just after the recession of 2009. Remember THAT?!
He contracted the construction to a friendly Canadian company down the road, Axiom. Axiom’s biz was making cut above speakers that it sold direct to the public. Axiom sold high value speakers at low price points. James and his team were thrilled with Axiom’s execution of his spec’d design and the Model Ts were used in Bryston’s house to evaluate the electronics they were building.
The recession crushed the N American and Euro manufacturers who were doing business at these price points. Practically ALL of these guys decided to contract their speakers from Chinese job houses.
James realized, hey, we can actually make our speakers in Canada and SELL them now. In short order, Bryston and Axiom merged to become one company, simply called BRYSTON. The speakers have been a power house of success for over a decade. By the way, even the first Bryston speaker buyers have almost a decade of warranty left!
There are many details of speaker building that are unique to Bryston. You can read many of them here.
I’ll point out two distinct bullet point advantages here so you don’t have to read the whole document.
Tweeter Construction
Virtually all tweeters are made with hair thin wire. The wire surrounds the tweeter dome and gets soldered to plus and minus terminals on either side. The problem is, these FINE wires can physically char if the listener clips his amp. Who me?
Bryston has a solution for this. Bryston melts solder on to the wire as it goes to the terminals. This TINNING makes the wire a hundred times stronger. It can take more heat and physical abuse. Bryston tweeters are DRAMATICALLY tougher than the other guys, which allows it to provide its 20 year warranty.
Bass Power & Definition
During the design phase, speakers are measured in anechoic chambers. There’s a major limitation to such chambers. First of all, few companies have access to them. Bryston has its own! Next, designers can’t read behavior below about 90Hz. Ultimately they experiment with listening sessions to land with a result they like.
Bryston has a tool for measuring speakers accurately to approximately 20Hz. They have custom built a tower that is 100 feet high. There is no room inhibition to mask measurements. Bryston can accurately determine, with no guess work, exactly what they are creating down to the lowest regions of what we can hear.
The result is that Bryston speakers, as a family, go deeper than the other guys- who are basically guessing. Bryston bass response is also tuneful and full of character. Most competitors don’t go as deep and produce a more muddy musical signature. Since Bryston can graph exactly what it’s creating along the way, they have a valuable tool that nobody else does. You can hear the pay off in their speakers.
The Line Up
Model A1, $5000 Per Pair
{47.5h, 9.25w, 17d, 71 lbs, 88dB, 4 ohms}
A1 is a HEAVY HITTER. If you want bass to quake your room, A1 goes deeper and stronger than its smaller brothers.
Model A2, $4000 Per Pair
{39.5h, 9.25w, 17w, 62 lbs, 87dB, 4 ohms}
A2 is the sweet spot for most of our buyers. It sounds very similar to A1 but doesn’t go quite as deep or heavy. Yet it fills the bill for the majority of our shoppers.
Model A3, $3300 Per Pair
(37.5h, 9.25w, 15d, 53 lbs, 88dB, 6 ohms}
A3 takes up the same footprint as its bigger brothers. It doesn’t run double mids and tweets so it can’t play quite as loudly. Not everyone needs the extra horse power.
Axiom M60, $2000 Per Pair
{37.5h, 9.25w, 15d, 48 lbs, 92dB, 8 ohms}
The entry level tower is called an Axiom instead of Bryston. It has a 5 year warranty. The cabinet and drivers are similar, but not as hearty as A3 above. M60 is more efficient so it’s not only a great performer for its price point in stereo, it’s an especially sage choice for surround receivers whose manufacturers blatantly LIE about power ratings.