Bryston Amplifiers, Loudspeakers & Hi-Fi Electronics: A Complete Guide

Bryston was founded in 1963 by Tony Bower, Stan Rybb, and John Stoneborough — the three men combined the starting letters of their surnames to make "Bryston." But Bryston did not start out making audio equipment. Back then, Bryston manufactured high-tech blood analyzers and precision medical equipment. In 1968, ex-NASA engineer John W. Russell purchased the company. His son Chris, who had an interest in music and audio equipment, joined fresh out of college soon after.

In 1976, a man named James Tanner found that his Dynaco amplifier couldn't drive his new Dayton Wright electrostatic speakers. Tanner, who was a partner in Whitby Audio in Toronto. Word of mouth brought him to Bryston, where Chris modified Tanner's amplifier. From there, Chris decided to build an amplifier from scratch using medical-grade parts. This amplifier became the Pro 3 amplifier (later renamed 3B). It won a sound quality competition at a local major recording studio. The studio ordered several Pro 3's from Bryston and that began the company's transition to an audio engineering firm, with Chris Russell serving as vice president of engineering (later CEO). In 1978, Brian Russell hired James Tanner to manage Canadian sales for Bryston. It was the 4B amplifier that year that really put the company on the consumer hi-fi map.

Bryston hand assembles and individually tests every product it manufactures. Bryston employs techniques and custom materials in its everyday construction of electronic equipment that are more typically utilized by military and aerospace industries. The company's traditional adherence to the use of proprietary parts, sophisticated construction, and refined testing techniques, guarantees that your Bryston component will perform superbly, without any problems, for many, many years.

Bryston employs techniques and custom materials in its everyday construction of electronic equipment that are more typically utilized by military and aerospace industries. The company's traditional adherence to the use of proprietary parts, sophisticated construction, and refined testing techniques, guarantees that your Bryston component will perform superbly, without any problems, for many, many years. It also prevents any unit-to-unit variance, which inevitably is the result of any mass-produced product.

Each of Bryston's fully assembled products is extensively tested before shipment. During 100 hours of continuous testing, Bryston amplifiers are monitored through a range of input cycles and thermal stress levels to duplicate a broad spectrum of operational loads. If any failures occur, Bryston will catch them during the manufacturing process, before you begin using the product. Bryston's dedication to creating the most reliable products is clearly evident in their 20-year analog and 5-year digital warranty. Bryston has looked into shifting manufacturing to other countries (countries that offer cheaper manufacturing) but decided against it. Given their hands-on approach and commitment to old world craftsmanship, Bryston chooses to maintain all production and design in-house.

The BHA-1 Balanced Headphone Amplifier is Bryston's solution to delivering the finest listening experience from your headphones. Essentially a miniature power amplifier, Bryston applied the same robust design elements to the BHA-1 amplifier that they used to develop their full-size amps. Six class A fully discrete operational amplifiers generate your headphone output, delivering up to 2 watts of power for more than adequate dynamic range. The BHA-1 provides a true balanced mode via balanced outputs, or you can use the single-ended outputs for more traditional headphones. The BHA-1 also has a pair of XLR outputs that allow you to use the unit as a high-quality analog preamplifier.

$2,295.00

Speakers weren't part of Bryston's original plans. What began as an experiment between James Tanner and loudspeaker engineer friend Ian Colquhoun of Axiom Audio has developed into a collection of superbly accurate loudspeakers. Originally, the Model T was going to be a showcase loudspeaker that could demonstrate the clarity and dynamic range of Bryston's award-winning electronics. Tanner had set out to design a fully active, no-holds-barred speaker system that he could use to test Bryston electronics at home. This is how the T Series was born — T stands for Tanner! Since then, Bryston has produced a full line building on the engineering effort that went into the flagship model. Today, Bryston sells a range of A Series and T Series passive loudspeakers, as well as three T Series active loudspeakers. Bryston's loudspeaker engineers are fortunate to have an onsite anechoic chamber. Stocked with state-of-the-art lab equipment, they are able to innovate based on scientific data. By optimizing power response, they can achieve superb in-room neutrality and accuracy. Bryston speakers’ lack of dynamic compression breathes a sense of realism and life into recorded sounds.

"In 2010, I began a personal quest to develop the ultimate loudspeaker — a model that would reproduce the full dynamic capability of music while remaining tonally neutral, crystal clear, and capable of capturing the subtle nuances of any recording. After collaborating with highly respected loudspeaker engineers for two years, the Model T was born. Initially, it was a personal R&D project resulting in a single pair of speakers for my reference system. But upon hearing them, my associates convinced me that I should offer them for sale under the Bryston banner since they so clearly embody the values we hold dear."

James Tanner, CEO of Bryston

A Extraordinary dynamic range and lack of compression has been achieved by developing drivers that are efficient, capable of high power handling and extraordinarily low levels of distortion. We also use multiple drive units in parallel so that the system can play louder with less effort than a single driver solution.

B Essential to the clarity and neutrality of our speakers are well engineered crossover networks. Whether internal (standard) or external (Signature Edition), these not only divide the full spectrum of sound across different drivers, but also are used to correct even small non-linearities found in our driver elements.

C Thick walls, up to a 1½-inch thick front baffle, and a precisely designed network of internal braces ensure that the cabinet is all but perfectly inert and contributes virtually no sonic signature of its own. With no cabinet resonances, you only hear the beautiful sound of your recordings.

D Thorough understanding of fluid dynamics led us to develop a fluted port profile which eliminates vent noise even at extreme pressures. This mastery of engineering enabled us to utilize the advantages of a vented system without the turbulent distortion frequently associated with ports.

E Bryston carefully engineered drivers to achieve excellent performance and reliability parameters using advanced modeling and finite element analysis tools. Once initially developed, we verified performance and durability in our anechoic chamber and accelerated life test facility.

The terms "active" and "passive" refer to the type of crossover network the speaker uses. A crossover network directs frequencies to the appropriate driver. A passive crossover has components such as inductors, capacitors, and resistors to create the filters for the frequency responses for each driver inside the speaker. You simply connect your speaker amplifier to the speaker and the crossover in the speaker does the work dividing up the frequencies. An active crossover is an external electronic device that has a power supply and will connect between your preamplifier and your amplifiers for the speakers. It will divide the frequency responses required for each driver set, and it will require you to have an amplifier channel for each grouping of drivers that cover a set of frequency responses. Bryston Active speakers are 3-way speakers, so each speaker requires three channels of amplification. Without going into too much technical depth, an electronic crossover does a better job of recreating the presentation without the dimension effects of passive crossovers.

Moon Audio carries three T Series Active Loudspeaker models: Mini T Active, Middle T Active, Model T Active Note that these are available as either active or passive.

The Bryston Active Loudspeaker System takes performance to the next level. Most fully active systems restrict your choice of preamplifier and amplifiers by building in often inferior models into the loudspeakers. Bryston’s system includes a high-resolution external digital crossover, the BAX-1, that accepts input from your favorite stereo analog preamplifier and outputs analog signal to your choice of amplifiers. The BAX-1 makes it easy to choose the amplifiers that work best for your listening preferences. The Mini T, Middle T, and Model T Active Loudspeakers require you to use the BAX-1 digital crossover and three amplifier channels per speaker. For example, you could use two 21B Cubed amplifiers (three channels each) or three 2.5B Cubed Amplifier (two channels each). The 21B Cubed Monoblock Amplifier provides two channels at 300 watts for the high and middle frequencies and a whopping 600 watts for the bass frequencies. One important aspect of the Bryston Active System that is critical to its performance is that each loudspeaker model and BAX-1 Digital Crossover combination is optimized using the factory anechoic chamber, utilizing over 300 measurements. This ensures that the software controlling the active digital crossover maintains the optimal "sound power response" for each Bryston Active Speaker Model.

The Bryston BDA-3 is a world-class DAC (digital to analog converter) that is packed with the perfect mix of features making it an essential part of your digital audio chain. The BDA-3 is the highest resolution DAC by Bryston to date and it adds DSD playback to its repertoire. Use diverse audio sources such as Bryston's BDP digital music players, computers, music servers, and CD players to get the most accurate and superb sounding digital playback currently available. The BDA-3 is a magnificent DAC best suited for systems where high performance is desired.

$3,795.00

The Bryston BP-17 Cubed analog stereo preamplifier provides excellent sonic performance while still keeping traditional, fully discrete, analog circuits throughout. New to the BP-17 Cubed are two pairs of balanced (XLR) inputs as well as a pair of balanced outputs that can be configured as either variable or fixed. This allows for compatibility with the BHA-1 Headphone Amplifier (or other balanced input headphone amplifier). Software control provides numerous features and functions to this state-of-the-art preamplifier. You have the option for adding an internal DAC and/or internal phono stage.

$4,695.00