Bryston has long been a respected manufacturer when it comes to high-performance audio electronics such as processors and amplifiers.
Now, the Canadian company is hitting your ears on the other side of the audio chain with the debut of its first loudspeaker products. And Bryston isn’t just getting its feet wet by treading into new territory lightly – the company is making a full splash with a complete lineup to give you everything from a two-channel listening room to mega multi-channel theater with a lineup of floorstanding, center channel, on-wall, in-wall and subwoofer products.
Since Bryston hails from Canada, we’ll excuse them from borrowing from American ingenuity and Henry Ford by naming the main speakers in the lineup “Model T” – there’s the Model T, Model T Signature, Model T Active, Middle T and mini t, for starters – and because perhaps the T in this case could be a nod to Tanner, as in designer James Tanner.
According to the company, Tanner spearheaded the design initiative for Bryston’s speakers by developing the crossovers, drivers and enclosures, and then putting everything through the rigors of testing that included more than 200 anechoic measurements on the Model T alone during its design phase.
“I think we met with a degree of skepticism when we first announced the loudspeaker project – and rightfully so. There are a lot of speaker companies already in the marketplace,” says Tanner. “But we set out to create an affordable reference quality loudspeaker and went to great lengths to achieve an end result that separates us from the competition – we are confident that these products will be quite well received.”
Bryston describes its Model T as a 52.5-inch tall, three-way floorstanding speaker that you can get in three formats: “the standard speaker with an internal passive crossover network, the Signature model with an external passive network that utilizes custom-made components including air-core chokes and Bryston-proprietary film capacitors, and a flagship Active version that comes with a Bryston 24-bit digital electronic crossover (instead of a passive network) enabling tri-amplification of the system. All three versions of the Model T utilize three 8-inch woofers, two 5.25-inch midranges and two 1-inch titanium dome tweeters.”
In addition, the Middle T is a smaller three-way floorstander, while the mini t is a pared-down version of that only with a single bass driver instead of dual ones like the Middle T. Later this year Bryston will ship its on-wall and in-wall three-way models, the T OW and T IW, respectively.
Bryston is delivering the speakers in three standard finishes – black ash, natural cherry and Boston cherry – with optional hardwood veneers and high-gloss finishes available at additional cost. Here’s the full product lineup, with expected shipping timeframes:
Model T (MSRP $6495 pair) shipping now
Model T Signature (MSRP $7495 pair) shipping now
Model T Active (MSRP $9495 pair – requires 6 channels of amplification not included) shipping now
Middle T (MSRP $4600 pair) shipping May, 2013
mini t (MSRP $2695 pair) shipping now
TC1 Center (MSRP $3200 each) shipping now
TC1 mini Center (MSRP $2200 each) shipping May, 2013
T Sub (MSRP $4195 each) shipping now
T IW (in-wall) (MSRP $560 each) shipping Q3, 2013
T OW (on-wall) (MSRP $560 each) shipping Q3, 2013
