Subject: Playing Above Their Pay Grade
I've been spending the morning exploring my favourite kind of music, jazz, as reproduced via Bryston electronics and the Model T. I like jazz in and of itself. I also like it because I think it brings out the very best in my audio system. Lots of good news.
Sax is a very important instrument for jazz enthusiasts. Perhaps closer than any other instrument, when played by great artists, it has the quality of singing.
Today, I was brought to attention in my chair by a very mellow, low register sax, which at first I took to be Houston Person, who plays tenor sax and whose sound is rich and fat. I was wrong. It was Gerry Mulligan. I'm a big fan. Many feel he made the baritone sax a mainstream jazz instrument. In the random play of my collection, this cut was from one of his late, well-recorded albums on the Telarc label.
What made listening to it both interesting and wonderful is how it made Gerry's sax new again, reminding me that his baritone was very tenor like, but with the Model T, it is markedly more well-defined, even closer to the tenor of a "fat" sounding tenor like Person's. This shows off more accurately what made him famous, namely his ability to play a baritone as if it is a tenor. Mellow, as one wants in a baritone sax, but not flabby. This also shows that the Model T does excellent things in the lower mid and upper bass range.
Not all speakers are kind to the sound of the sax.
I once demoed Wilson Sasha's (close to $30k) driven by very good electronics. There was much about these legendary speakers to love. Open, airy. But I gave them a pass because, to my ear, the all important sax did not sound right. Paul Desmond had, arguably second only to Johnny Hodges, the sweetest alto ever. For me the Sashas replaced the sweetness with air. That may be highly desirable for some listeners, no doubt, but not for me.
The Model T gets sax right. That means a great deal of my beloved jazz collection is going to sound new, and right.
But this morning's listening to this new speaker reminded me of something old and unchanged about Bryston.
For all these years I have found Bryston to be great for many things (such as impeccable service), but of all these the greatest may be the comparative price/performance of its products. Because it produces high-end products, Bryston prices are not low. Yet when compared to many other high end products, I've always seen them as something of a bargain. For example, I own a Bryston BP, the replacement cost of which is several thousands of dollars. A Best Buy shopper would shout, "Ouch!" But many of Bryston's high end competitors offer comparable preamps at several times Bryston's price.
It is no surprise, and therefore all the more welcome, that the Model T continues in this tradition. By no means inexpensive, I can confirm based on what I own (PMC MB2is) and what I have heard (eg. Wilson's), the Model T performs dramatically above its pay grade.
D