Montreal Audiofest 2025

Nothing but Bryston

Robert Schryer  |  Apr 3, 2025

Bryston CEO James Tanner is not only an Audiofest regular but an affable, down-to-earth guy who refuses to use either high-end cabling or hi-rez files at his show demos. Why? Because he doesn’t want visitors to think that the sound from his system is shaped by anything other than Bryston gear. That doesn’t mean he denies that better-designed cables or hi-rez files through his streamer will elevate sound quality—only that, when you hear his system at a show, you know exactly what Bryston gear sounds like. I found that an interesting viewpoint.

Also interesting to me was the company’s Middle T10 speakers’ new and innovative modular proprietary crossover, which the user can pull from the back of the speaker to enable one of five different modes: passive, bi-amped, tri-amped, bi-wired, or tri-wired.

Used in passive mode at the Audiofest—James showed me a graph depicting how flat the speaker’s frequency response was in this configuration—the tall, slim Middle T10 speakers ($8295 each) were powered by a pair of 600W 7B monoblock amplifiers ($8245 each) and a BP-19 preamp ($7495), while the source was a BDA3.14 DAC/streamer ($4995) playing music from a thumbnail drive.

The resultant sound I heard was rich, coherent, and imbued with natural warmth, airy highs, authentic timbres, and big, well-defined images anchored solidly within a vast soundstage.

Prices listed in CA$.

COMMENTS
rschryer's picture
Submitted by rschryer on April 3, 2025 - 7:51am

The user can also make the Middle T10 fully active by using an electronic crossover that bypasses the passive one.

supamark's picture
Submitted by supamark on April 4, 2025 - 12:05pm

https://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/286/index.html

obvious copy is obvious.

rschryer's picture
Submitted by rschryer on April 4, 2025 - 4:35pm

...like US$85,000/pair speakers?

You should work for Bryston.

supamark's picture
Submitted by supamark on April 4, 2025 - 5:12pm

I'm saying they look like a pair of US$140,000 speakers (March 2025 price, now at least 10% higher because they're built to order and tariffs are stupid).

If you're going to try and be witty (and this was not a good attempt), at least look up the current price. That article is like 25 years old. Really f'ing good measurements though, huh? I own products from both mfg's, btw.

Also, don't blame me for (gestures around) - all this crap, I voted for Harris.

Glotz's picture
Submitted by Glotz on April 7, 2025 - 1:43pm

At a local dealer for hours and hours. Great stuff- For almost $100k.

These are 1/10th that price. If they approach the quality of the Dynaudio, that IS something, isn't it? (Moreover, considering their active/passive approaches here, it begs more interest not less.)

I would also doubt that any quasi-d'appolito arrangement would ever be considered original from the original onward. Dynaudio would be guilty too, no?

I would definitely want to hear both models from each company if my money was being used to purchase.

supamark's picture
Submitted by supamark on April 8, 2025 - 8:54am

The Evidence, and later Confidence, speakers arrange their drivers in order to form a "beam" that minimally interacts with the floor/ceiling. I own a pair of Confidence 60's, and they're OMFGWTFBBQ good and the beam forming is legit. Like better than the Focal Grand Utopia (to me) good. Utterly transparent to the source.

I feared my "little" 88 lb Pass XA30.8 wouldn't be enough to drive them, then my wife comes down to the man cave to tell me the windows in a different part of the house (man cave on slab, most of house pier and beam) were rattling. Muahahahaha, victory is mine! Now just waiting on a nice pair of used 60.8's to come up for sale because 50% moar current delivery.

With these speakers it's not just the driver arrangement, it's also the separate (looking at least) mid/tweeter module. It may, or may not, be designed to sound like the Evidence but it certainly uses the same visual design language.

Bryston makes high quality amps that do some things very well (like soundstage depth/layering) but to me, at the end of the day, they sound like neoprene. They really should back off on the global loop negative feedback to free the dynamics. I would keep my 4B^3 over any class D amp though. I have not heard any of their speakers so my comments are strictly about the visual design language.

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