Bryston Model T passive speaker review, October 16, 2017
Last winter, I was in the market to purchase an entirely new HiFi sound system to upgrade from what I have had for many years. My vintage walnut veneer tower speakers purchased new in 1975 were about due for replacement. I loved everything about the my old speakers, the look in real wood veneer, the performance and how much dynamic power they put out to fill my rather large room. And just to put the size of the room into perspective; my living room is approximately 25 feet wide, 30 feet long, the ceiling is a vaulted 18 foot high mostly glass wall to the east with a upper level balcony to the western side overhanging a 14 foot wide stone fireplace with two rooms above the living room looking down to the main space. The north side of the room is the staircase going up to the balcony and houses the area under it with the sound system equipment and finally the southern wall is a blend of library cabinets, French doors to the outside deck and an open area leading to the back door and kitchen area. In other words, it’s a large area with a lot of irregularities and of course I should mention wide pine wood floors.
I had listened to a pair of relatively new trapezoid shaped tower speakers offered by one of the predominantly subwoofer based companies and the Bryston Middle T’s. The Middle T’s were superior sounding, but I decided to try the ‘value’ speakers at less than half the price of the Bryston’s. After using them for a few months, I was having some issues with my power amplifier going into over temperature protection mode on several occasions and I decide that the value speakers were too problematic for my taste. The one speaker causing my problems was replaced by the manufacturer under warranty and I sold them right afterwards.
I brought home a pair of Middle T’s on demo while working out my issues with the other speakers with the manufacturer for warranty replacement and was able to do a direct comparison test of the Middle T’s and my ‘value’ speakers in my very large room. Although the Middle T sounded a little better in the demo studio, they sounded immensely superior in home with this very large room. They put out so much forceful dynamic power; with virtually no distortion (they do run at 4 ohms vs. 8 ohms with the other speaker) the difference was quite remarkable.
After using the Middle T’s for a period of time, I was sold on them; they are perfect for my room, my listening preferences and the overall performance in terms of the sound stage and detail they present. The only nagging thought overhanging me was should I buy these or opt for the even larger Model T. After speaking with a number of people who were familiar with both speakers, it seemed like it was going to be a tough decision as I was told that the Model T is a lot of speaker for some rooms, perhaps too much. In fact one opinion from a guy I know who has both speakers was that he preferred the Middle T as his room is considerably smaller than mine. He felt the Model T overpowered his space and it was almost muddy sounding.
I spoke with James Tanner on this subject and he felt that based on my large area, I would really benefit from the larger Model T. As such, I decided to pull the trigger on buying a pair of Model T’s and brought in a pair of Rosewood passive Model T’s from a friend of mine who was downsizing his holdings. I set them up in the exact position which the Middle T’s were stationed and within 5 minutes of use, I just knew these were the speaker! The dynamic power and sound stage of music is nothing short of amazing in my room. All frequency ranges just plain old worked; I was finding myself listening to the same music multiple times just to confirm that what I was hearing was real. The low end is so powerful that I don’t feel any need to replace a second subwoofer which had failed earlier on; the single sub is completely adequate to round out the room acoustics. If anything, I would most likely bring in a sub from Bryston to meld with the Model T’s.
I did make one very interesting observation concerning use with my VPI Ares 3 turntable. With the value speakers, I always was running into problems with excessive low frequency feedback and was finding myself dialing back the bass response to eliminate the annoyance. However, with the Bryston Model T’s, it makes no difference as to what the low frequency level is set at or how loud I play the music, there is virtually no and I mean no low frequency feedback getting back through the turntable. I suspect this is a question for James Tanner to address as to why, but from what I might suggest, it means that there are very minimal, if any low frequency distortion products from the Model T vs. the value speaker.
Overall, I’d not dissuade anyone from buying a Middle T, it’s a pure delight to listen to, however if you have a larger area, go for the Model T, it’s worth every penny for what it is capable of producing for raw/refined, beautiful power. And how do they look? Well as much as I loved my vintage walnut speakers, I just cannot take my eyes off of the Bryston’s, especially in Santos Rosewood; stunning. So simply designed and done with taste.
