Montreal Audio Fest 2018

[James Tanner - Bryston]

MEMO: To All Bryston Customers
SUBJECT: Montreal Audio Fest 2018 – Bryston Demo

March, 2018

Hi Folks,

Great trip to Montreal yesterday for the Montréal Salon Audio / Audio Fest.

Especially the multiple visits and listening sessions in the Bryston room - thanks to those guys for being great hosts!

Bryston room sounded excellent - active system here with 1200w per channel!



Evan McCosham

 

[James Tanner - Bryston]

Montreal Audio Fest 2018

James

Best sound hands down!

Well done!

Christo

 

[James Tanner - Bryston]

Montreal Audio Sound 2018

Yes it was a great room.

I ask M.Tanner to play the song Smooth Operator from Sade and it was superb.

Then he plays a song from Stevie Ray Vaughan and crank the volume, it was marvelous. The electric guitar was there in front of me.
No compression, no distortion, just music.

Thanks Bryston.

Pierre

 

[James Tanner - Bryston]

Eldon Doucet reviewed Montréal Salon Audio / Audio Fest

Just got back from seeing the show yesterday. The quality of sound is just not what is used to be there. I haven't been for the last 5 years as I have been going to the Taves show in Toronto. This show is better for the pure music and stereo lover though.

What I found in a lot of rooms was noise. People and exhibitors talking while the rest of us are trying to listen! That's the purpose of attending the show - listening to all the different equipment. If you're reading this, please, try to take the taking outside while music is playing on your equipment.

Best room in the show, in my opinion, was Bryston. Great sound.

 

[James Tanner - Bryston]

 

[James Tanner - Bryston]

MEMO: To All Bryston Customers
SUBJECT: Montreal Audio Fest 2018 – Bryston Demo - Soundstage

March, 2018

Home-theater standards change so rapidly that it’s hard to keep up. I still have five speakers in my HT system at home, despite my receiver accommodating 7.1 channels. Now there’s what -- 12.2 as a nominal standard?



Just to be sure it doesn’t fall too far behind, Bryston’s new SP4 processor accommodates 16 discrete channels and an alphabet soup of protocol compatibilities. Despite Bryston’s significant accomplishments in the amplification, signal processing, and digital realms, the company realized that trying to keep up with HT protocols is a bit of a sucker’s game, so it farmed out part of the development of the SP4 to France’s Immersive Audio Technologies, a French company that specializes in such matters, so it can keep right up to date.

As a result, The SP4 features a dizzying array of configuration, EQ, and calibration settings -- this unit is so flexible that I honestly gave up trying to follow the full technical description.

If you want a future-proof home theater processor that will give you total control of your audio environment, the SP4 deserves a look.

Specifically designed to power Bryston’s active speakers, the new 24B3, is jammed with six channels of power -- four of those channels are rated at 75W into 8 ohms, and the other two are 300W into 8 ohms. This one amplifier can nicely juice up a pair of Bryston’s Model T Actives, with its compact size helping to make for a nice, clean setup. (ED: or can be used with the Middle T or Mini T Active speakers)



But let’s say you like to listen loud, and you don’t mind another box or more size. Then you’ll probably want to move up to the 21B3. You get three channels of amplification (so you’ll need two for stereo) that are much beefier than those in the 24B3 -- two channels at 300W into 8 ohms, and the remaining channel cranks out a whopping 600W into 8 ohms.



I’ve listened to the Bryston Model T Active speakers a number of times now, and some of those instances were at fairly high SPLs.

With its multiple channels of amplification and a digital crossover, there’s a sense of dynamic immediacy that’s most impressive.

More power into these speakers should be even better.



Montreal Audio Fest 2018 - Montreal, Canada

Jason Thorpe

 

[James Tanner - Bryston]

MEMO: To All Bryston Customers
SUBJECT: Montreal Audio Fest 2018 – Bryston Demo

March, 2018

I was in Montreal this weekend and hit the show on Saturday

The room I liked the most was the Bryston room.

Walked in and heard a version of "Wayfairing Stranger" by some country dude that was fantastic. Then a track by the Fairfield Four (?) again something I want to get and finally Lou's "Walk on the Wild Side".

I checked the guy who was doing the DJ thing and it was JT. He has good taste in music and knows a bit about audio gear I guess.

Those Model T's sounded very nice and compete with all the other mega buck speakers I would say.


J Fraser

 

[James Tanner - Bryston]

MEMO: To All Bryston Customers
SUBJECT: Montreal Audio Fest 2018 – Bryston Demo - NOVO

March, 2018

Bryston Demo Montreal 2018



Aside from being able to listen to a wide range of audio systems, audio shows present the opportunity to meet some of the people that bring these products to life. Inside this room, I sat beside James Tanner, VP of Sales and Marketing, who was happy to play me a great selection of music to demonstrate the new Bryston Active Loudspeaker System.

In the system, the Model T loudspeakers were powered by Bryston’s brand new 21B Cubed 3-channel amps (600 watts were directed to the bass drivers, 300 watts to the mid-range woofers and 300 watts to the tweeters). The electronics stack consisted of all Bryston gear, including the BDP-3 digital player, BDA-3 DAC, BP-26 preamp, BAX-1 active crossover and the MPS-2 power supply for the preamp.

What’s the advantage of an active system? The crossover is placed between the preamp and power amp, rather than inside the speaker (like in all passive speakers). The sonic advantages of such a design are significant.

Bryston 21B Cubed Amp



During the session here, James played me selections ranging from the Crash Test Dummies to Leonard Cohen and Lou Reed. The system offered a massively large sonic landscape with a three dimensional soundstage, a warm, natural midrange and a near perfect tonal balance.

The dynamic range of this system was also incredible, as was the handling of bass notes. I could have sat here for hours, just hanging out with James and listening to music.

This was definitely among the best sounding systems at the show.


Bryston SP4 Surround Processor



Another treat in this room was a static preview of the upcoming Bryston SP4 Surround Processor.

Designed in collaboration with StormAudio from France, the SP4 is a 16 channel, highly configurable processor that will offer all the latest audio formats, including Dolby Atmos, DTS:X and Auro3D.

You can learn more about this bad boy in a blog we wrote about it previously:

http://novo.press/bryston-sp4-surround-processor.