Bryston builds a turntable (and it’s a big deal)

When companies enter new areas, it’s a big deal, and with amp maker Bryston making a record player, you can bet it’s a big deal.

If you’re into your audio, there’s a good chance you know the name “Bryston”, and it pops up for people who like home theatre gear, with the company producing preamplifiers, stereo amplifiers, headphone amplifiers, and a few speakers here and there.

Generally, Canada’s Bryston is all about getting audio as clear as possible, and has produced digital-to-analogue converters and USB converters, and generally has stayed out of audio gear with moving parts, but this week, we’re hearing that the company has finally done something it said it would never do.

In fact, at least a year ago, the company decided to never design a turntable, but went back on that while developing new preamps for record players because the technology being developed by the company reminded its makers of house “fresh” vinyl and its subsequent high-resolution sound could be.

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So it made something to match the preamps, designing a turntable using a Pulse Width Modulation power supply to make the motor more accurate, keeping records running to either 45RPM or 33.3RPM. That power supply is also made to keep the motor from overheating as you listen, while the tone-arm is made with seven segment titanium to work with what the company describes as “perfect belt tension and coupling” to stop interference on the player.

Even the material making up the needle is a big deal, with hardened carbon steel the thing that glides through the tiny canals of a record to take the sound out and push its way through a song system.

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As expected, a big deal like this isn’t going to come cheap, and the Bryston record player — called the BLP-1 — certainly isn’t, with this special phonograph fetching a price of $4999. If you didn’t drop your beverage after reading that, you’re probably even the right market for it, so expect to find it in specialist audio retailers across the country.