Running in the family

Speaker manufacturers tend to leave electronics to others, but Ed Selley wonders if they might have some bright ideas of their own

- Ed Selley

COMPONENTS

BRYSTON BDP-3 £3,900

The BDP-3 is a network streaming transport designed to work in a wide range of implementations with fit-and-forget reliability. It offers a selection of digital outputs that allow the decoding of your choice to be connected.

BRYSTON BDA-3 £3,600

An exceptionally flexible DAC that has a complete range of connections you might reasonably expect, but then proceeds to add a whole set of HDMI options to act as a 4k video switcher while decoding the audio.

PMC COR £6,000

The Cor is an integrated amplifier that builds on the experiences of PMC’s active speakers and places a 95W Class AB amplifier that adheres to the company’s design principles in a striking-looking piece of industrial design.

PMC TWENTY5.24I £5,500

The largest two-way speaker in the newly revised twenty5i lineup combines a 170mm woven mid/bass driver with a 19mm soft dome tweeter in a cabinet that benefits from laser measurement and includes a 3m transmission line.

It should not come as any great surprise to find that the audio industry thrives on specialisation. Within the church of hi-fi there are, of course, manufacturers that only produce components in a single category and do very well out of it. There are also those that take pride in being able to make a complete system, keeping the entire process in house. Between the two exist infinite variations on the theme, but the setup here is sufficiently unusual to be worthy of comment.