Loudspeakers Buyers Guide

GUIDE to
ST E R EO MULT I C HANNE L AUD I O MUS I C

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2 Guide to High-Performance Loudspeakers www.theabsolutesound.com
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From The Editor
On The Horizon
Loudspeakers:
Why Spend More?
What to Listen For
When Choosing
Loudspeakers
Go to: contents | from the Editor | on the Horizon | feature articles | Loudspeakers up to $10k | Loudspeakers $10k-$40k | Loudspeakers over $40k
Contents
Cl i ck on one o f the l inks above to j ump to th at secti on, feature or revi ew.
Features
Loudspeakers
$10k-$40k
Audio Physic Cardeas
Focal Diablo Utopia
KEF Reference 205/2
Magico V2
Martin Logan CLX
Quad ESL-2905
Raidho Eben C2
Thiel CS3.7 Loudspeaker
Vienna Acoustics The Music
Von Schweikert Unifield Three
Wilson Audio Sasha W/P
YG Acoustics Kipod Studio
Loudspeakers
over $40k
Avalon Acoustics Time
Focal Grande Utopia EM
Magico M5
Marten Coltrane Soprano
MBL 101 X-Treme
Verity Lohengrin II
Wilson Audio MAXX 3
PREV!0US PACE NEXT PACE
CO 1O: ConLenLs | From Lhe LdiLor | On Lhe Horizon | FeaLure ArLicles | Loudspeakers up Lo $0k | Loudspeakers $0k$^0k | Loudspeakers over $^0k
LOUlPMLN1 RLVlLWS
Loudspeakers
over $40k
Loudspeakers
up to $10k
B&W 684
Coincident Super Victory
DALI Mentor Menuet
Esoteric MG-10
Nola Boxer
PSB Image T6
PMC Fact
Reference 3A Episode
Rega RS5
Sonus faber Liuto Tower
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CO 1O: ConLenLs | Flannel Panel | From Lhe LdiLor | On Lhe Horizon | FeaLure ArLicles | Loudspeakers up Lo $0k | Loudspeakers $0k$50k | Loudspeakers over $50k
LOUlPMLN1 RLVlLWS
Loudspeakers $10k-$50k
THI5 5ECTIDN
BPDUCHT
TD YDU BY
CUAD
CO 1O: ConLenLs | Flannel Panel | From Lhe LdiLor | On Lhe Horizon | FeaLure ArLicles | Loudspeakers up Lo $0k | Loudspeakers $0k$50k | Loudspeakers over $50k
LOUlPMLN1 RLVlLWS

Loudspeakers
up to $10k
publisher. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jim Hannon
editors-in-chief . . . . . . . . . . Robert Harley
Alan Sircom
executive editor . . . . . . . . . Jonathan Valin
acquisitions manager
and associate editor . . . . . Neil Gader
founder; chairman,
editorial advisory board . Harry Pearson
music editor . . . . . . . . . . . . Mark Lehman
creative director . . . . . . . . Torquil Dewar
art director . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shelley Lai
production coordinator . . Aaron Chamberlain
designer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mikki Bullock
senior writers . . . . . . . . . . . Anthony H. Cordesman
Wayne Garcia
Robert E. Greene
Chris Martens
Tom Martin
Dick Olsher
Andrew Quint
Paul Seydor
Alan Taffel
reviewers &
contributing writers . . . . . Roy Gregory
Ian Harris
Jim Hannon
Jacob Heilbrunn
Jason Kennedy
Chris Thomas
NextScreen, LLC, Inc.
chairman and ceo . . . . . . . Tom Martin
vp/group publisher . . . . . . Jim Hannon
advertising reps . . . . . . . . Cheryl Smith
(512) 891-7775

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2010 NextScreen, LLC
HIGH-pErformancE
LoUDSpEakErS
GUIDE to
ST E R EO MULT I C HANNE L AUD I O MUS I C
W
elcome to the 2010 Stereo Loudspeaker Buyers Guide, brought to you by The Absolute Sound and Hi-Fi+
magazines. Whether you are looking for a small bookshelf speaker for a second system, just starting out and buying
your first real set of floorstanders or want a cost-no-object loudspeaker that makes a grand statement about
your listening, its all in here, a distillation of the finest loudspeakers weve heard in the last few years. Well also bring you
information on the latest developments in loudspeaker design from around the globe. Whatever the price, whatever the size
and no matter how new weve got it covered!
Weve divided this Buyers Guide into three distinct sections, based on
price; up to $10,000, $10,000-$40,000 and over $40,000 per pair. We
think these are fair price points, given the tastes and demands of you
the reader; there are many who think a loudspeaker costing over three
figures is too expensive, and there are some who think anything less
than six figures represents lo-fi. So, we decided to cater for all. Weve
selected products that deliver excellent sound at their respective prices.
No, were sorry, but we havent yet stumbled upon the $300 standmount
speaker that can fill a large room, have the volume, dynamic range and
tonal balance of a $300,000 floorstander and we dont think well find
such a thing just yet.
What we have instead are speakers that deliver a stunning
performance in their class. And as you go from class to class, so that
performance becomes all the more stunning. It also often becomes
more demanding of room, electronics and even listener; sitting in front
of some of the best loudspeakers on the planet can focus your attention
on the music in a way that surprises listeners used to listening to
background sounds.
Its a difficult thing to swallow in our new-found austerity, but
sometimes you get what you pay for. And thats especially true in
loudspeakers. Aside from the physically bigger, generally more
exotically finished cabinet and the high-grade components, as you
move up the price categories, so you buy a loudspeaker that can deliver
a flatter frequency response across a wider range of frequencies, a
more dynamic, open and accurate sound, and one that can play louder
without distortion. Those used to more compromised loudspeaker
designs are often shocked at just how much improvement a good
loudspeaker can make.
And weve got plenty of good loudspeakers to choose from.
Alan Sircom
FROM THE Editor
Cl i ck here to turn the page.
Quad has introduced Classique versions of its highly regarded electrostatic
loudspeakers: the ESL-2805 and ESL-2905. While the new versions have the same
electrostatic panels and design as the standard versions, they have upgraded
finishes and grill cloths. The visually striking Quad ESL-2805 Classique sounded
glorious at CES, driven by the new Quad integrated amplifier and the Merrill-
Williams turntable, producing one of the best sounds at the show.
price: $11,499 ESL-2805 Classique; $14,499 ESL-2905 Classique.
quad-hifi.co.uk
A Sneak peak
at the Best
Loudspeakers
Coming Your Way
Jim Hannon
on tHE HorIZon
Hansen has premiered its flagship Grand
Master loudspeakera ten-driver, ported,
three-way floorstander and it has already
impressed our editors. RH thought it
sounded absolutely magnificent on a wide
range of material at CES, with a complete
sense of ease and composure during loud
and complex passages. JV thought that it
sounded simply fabulous on every track he
threw at it at CES, with wonderful balance,
bass, dynamics, resolution, and musicality.
price: $250,000.
hansenaudio.com
all prices are per pair
Go to: contents | from the Editor | on the Horizon | feature articles |
Loudspeakers up to $10k | Loudspeakers $10k-$40k | Loudspeakers over $40k
on tHE HorIZon - a Sneak peak at the best Loudspeakers
coming your Way
The new Canton Reference 2.2 is a floor-standing
3-way loudspeaker with a unique three chamber
cabinet, aluminum drivers with Cantons patented
triple curve cone and wave surround, and an
aluminum oxide ceramic dome tweeter. As with the
rest of the Reference line, the Reference 2.2 uses
a high quality crossover network with electrical
performance that is fully integrated with all the drivers
and enclosure characteristics. The speaker also
uses Cantons signature DC displacement control
circuitry to limit uncontrolled driver excursions at
infrasonic frequencies. The Reference 2.2 offers
much of the performance of the flagship Reference
1.1, but in a slightly smaller size.
price: $25,000.
cantonusa.com
How do you achieve the aesthetic grace of a slim
tower with the greater extension of a three-way?
Burmester solved the problem by incorporating a
side-firing woofer into its new BP30. At CES, this
speaker system sounded truly full-range; indeed,
its bass would put many a subwoofer to shame. At
the opposite frequency extreme is an air motion
tweeter that was incredibly open and un-etched.
These drivers, plus the mid, rest in a bass-reflex
wood cabinet that can be finished to the buyers
taste or, as was the case with the show samples,
painted to look like metal. (NB: Porsche colors are
available for a modest premium.) Best of all, the
BP30 sounded well worth its asking price.
price: $15,995.
burmester.de/en
NEXT pAgE
Magico has unveiled its Q5, a 5-driver, 4-way
floor-standing loudspeaker housed in a fully-
damped, aluminum and brass, hard anodized
enclosure. It features Magico-designed Nano-
Tec drivers (two 9 woofers, a 9 mid-bass
unit, and a 6 midrange) and a new beryllium
tweeter, reported to have significantly wider
extension, lower distortion and greater power
handling. The Q5s remarkable coherence, low
distortion, and rich, delicately detailed timbre
and texture reminded JV of a gigantic Quad
ESL-2905 at CES. A full review of the Q5 is
pending.
price: $54,000.
magico.net
YG Acoustics has introduced its newest and most affordable speaker
the Carmel. With a cabinet constructed of machined Aircraft Grade
aluminum and a unique enclosure to minimize mechanical losses and
resonances, the Carmel is an inviting and elegant floor standing speaker.
It features a DualCoherent crossover between a highly modified ring-
radiator type tweeter (the same tweeter used in the far more expensive
YG Kipod Studio) and a special 7 woofer designed for both clarity and
extension. The Carmel delivers ultra-transparent sound, with a huge yet
precise soundstage. AT reported that at CES, the Carmel was admirably
free of tizz with solid bass that was chock full of timbral information.
price: $18,000.
ygacoustics.com
The Focal Stella Utopia Be EM speaker system is
the most recent entrant to join the ranks of Focals
renowned range of reference loudspeakers. This
commanding three-way floor-standing loudspeaker
employs a breakthrough Electro-Magnetic active
bass driver system, combined with rare and
precious metals, (27MM pure Beryllium tweeter)
formed using precision engineering. The Stella is
scaled to visually impress, as well as convey the
very emotion and dynamics of live music. A few of
our reviewers seem to love the Stella even more
than the Grande Utopia in some respects.
price: $90,000.
focal-fr.com
on tHE HorIZon - a Sneak peak at the best Loudspeakers coming your Way
on tHE HorIZon - a Sneak peak at the best Loudspeakers
coming your Way
Wilson Audios most affordable floorstander
has just been upgraded. The new Sophia
3 pulls together the tweeter and midrange
drivers from the epic MAXX 3 and Sasha W/P,
adds a bass unit with a magnet structure
twice the size of its predecessor and a
radically revised cabinet. Although retaining
the concept of an integrated cabinet, the
Sophia 3 uses essentially the S-material top
box from the Sasha W/P combined with the
X-material for the bass cabinet.
price: $16,700.
wilsonaudio.com
NEXT pAgE
The prestigious 800 range from Bowers & Wilkins has been
given the Diamond treatment. A major player in the new
range, the 802 Diamond retains much of the uncompromising
feature set of the flagship 800 model, but in a more slimline
cabinet. As the name suggests, the new 802 features a
tweeter made from industrial diamond, set in a Nautilus
tapered tube enclosure. This sits upon the midrange head,
which is molded from Marlan, a granite hard synthetic mineral
filled resin, and sports B&Ws distinctive Kevlar FST midrange
driver. The main cabinet features Rohacell bass drivers in
the companys Matrix cabinet and Flowport vents, and ultra-
premium Gold/Silver/Oil Mundorf capacitors.
price: $15,000.
bowers-wilkins.com
www.theabsolutesound.com 9 Guide to High-Performance Loudspeakers
go to: Contents | From the Editor | on the Horizon | Feature Articles | Loudspeakers up to $10k | Loudspeakers $10k-$40k | Loudspeakers over $40k
oN tHE HoRIZoN - A Sneak Peak at the Best Loudspeakers Coming Your Way
Coincident Speaker Technology has
introduced its first statement loudspeaker: The
Pure Reference Extreme. The key difference
between the Extreme and the standard Pure
Reference is that the Extreme physically
separates the enclosures for the mids/highs
and the woofers to reduce vibrations and
enhance cabinet rigidity, resulting in greater
sonic purity and transient precision. The front
baffle of the enclosure for the mids/highs
is sloped to ensure precise time alignment
between the drivers. Look for a full review in
TAS of this exciting new loudspeaker.
Prices: $26,000 (Square monitor enclosure);
$26,800T (Trapezoid monitor enclosure).
coincidentspeaker.com
Though it looks seemingly like other Gallo units, the new
Nucleus Reference 3.5 loudspeaker features new midrange
spheres with isolation bezels, a new tweeter, and a new
ceramic woofer (replacing a paper unit) for reported gains in
transparency, coherence, soundstaging and neutrality. When
hearing a prototype at CES, AT marveled at how the Reference
3.5 was getting such authoritative bass out of essentially a
non-existent enclosure while still sounding musical.
Price: $5995.
roundsound.com
NEXT PagE PrEviouS PagE
The KEF Reference 201/2 bookshelf loudspeakers are now available in 12 additional custom
color, high gloss finishes that match those of high-end sports cars. These popular three-way
bass reflex bookshelf speakers continue to be hand built in Maidstone England and combine
a new 6.5 Uni-Q driver array, 6.5 ultra-low distortion LF drive unit and a 1 titanium dome
tweeter. KEFs pioneering Uni-Q combo continues to evolve, producing even more refined
soundstaging with time alignment. Like the floor-standing models in KEFs Reference series,
the Reference 201/2 delivers a fluent, musical, full bodied sound, surprising in proportion to
its modest dimensions, with a wide and deep soundstage.
price: $5999 (standard finishes).
kef.com/us
The Wisdom L100i is a line-source column of
planar magnetic mid/high drivers handling all
frequencies from 275Hz up, complemented
below by eight 8 woofers. The L100i is bi-
amped, so it requires the separate SC1 active
crossover unit which provides pro quality
room correction/equalization. According to
CM, these speakers sounded terrific at CES,
playing music with verve and stupendous
lateral imaging. The big surprise was that
these in-wall speakers were able to compete
with the best-sounding speakers at CES.
price: $28,500 (includes SC1 System
Controller with room correction).
wisdomaudio.com
A new MartinLogan hybrid electrostatic loudspeaker should
start shipping this summer. Descended from MartinLogans CLX
loudspeaker, so favorably reviewed by JV, the new Ethos mates
a slender 9.2 wide, curved electrostatic panel with an 8-inch
woofer and 8-inch passive radiator. The woofer is powered by a
200 watt Class D amplifier and utilizes a 24-bit Vojtko DSP engine
to extend bass performance down to a reported 34Hz (within
3dB). This sleek and compact hybrid stat looks very promising.
price: $6499.
martinlogan.com
The new Magnepan 1.7 has already wowed both CM and JV.
Where Magnepans classic MG1.6 used a planar magnetic mid/bass
panel with a quasi-ribbon tweeter, the MG1.7 is a full-range quasi-
ribbon-type speaker with what the Magnepan folks describe as a
wide-dispersion quasi-ribbon supertweeter. The result is a speaker
that equals or surpasses the strengths of the MG1.6, while offering
greater transient speed plus an even more detailed, more open,
and more coherent sound. CM suggests that in terms of top-to-
bottom cohesiveness, the MG1.7 may prove to be the best of all the
Magneplanar speakers, and places near-top-tier sound quality within
reach of a very wide range of music lovers, not just for an elite few.
price: $1999.
magnepan.com
12 Guide to High-Performance Loudspeakers
www.theabsolutesound.com
Electrocompaniets The Nordic Tone, a floor-standing
speaker of astonishing quality, impressed JV at both
RMAF and CES with its outstanding dynamics, resolution,
and bass. While it is scheduled for an intensive review
in TAS, initial listening suggest this is potentially a great
speaker that is consistently revealing details in the music
and the mix that others dont, particularly in the bass and
dynamics. For those who like their music gorgeous and
powerful and who also want to hear all there is to hear,
The Nordic Tone is already a top contender.
price: $29,500.
electrocompaniet.com
The latest product from NOLA Loudspeakers is the Metro Grand
Reference which uses the same Raven true ribbon tweeter, special Alnico
magnet midrange and smaller versions of the twin magnesium woofers
used in the Baby Grand Reference, yet provides detailed musical bass to
26Hz. Occupying only one square foot of floor space, the Metros open
baffle design allows the tweeter and midrange units to operate in dipole
mode. A pre-production version of the speaker demonstrated at CES
was one of the highlights of the show for AT, producing effortlessly great
sound at what he thought was a very competitive price.
price: $25,000.
nolaspeakers.com
Verity Audio has announced a new statement loudspeaker system. The Monsalvat is
designed to fulfill the requirements of discerning customers with large, to very large, listening
rooms. Main towers with a mid/high frequency module seated atop a lower midrange/bass
module are complemented by low-bass modules that can be stacked to make towers of (4)
15 woofers per channel. The complete system is 99dB @ 1w/1m and requires no less than 6
channels of amplification. A Verity designed-and-manufactured active crossover is included,
allowing amplitude adjustment of each module and delay between main towers and woofers.
Expect Monsalvats release in early-2011.
price: $325,000 (estimated).
verityaudio.com
To complement high-performance loudspeakers, REL Acoustics
Ltd has announced the Gibraltar G1 subwoofer. The G1 uses a
sealed cabinet, with rigid internal bracing made of layered hardwood,
housing a massive 12-inch carbon-fiber driver powered by a 700-watt
Class A/B amplifier. Setup and adjustment is made easy by a unique
analog rotary control based remote control. What is really striking,
and demonstrated to great effect by Sumiko at CES, is that each
Gibraltar model can be used in multiples by stacking the units using
the optional stacking rails and daisy chain connectivity.
price: TBD.
sumikoaudio.net
Loudspeakers:
Why Spend More?
Alan Sircom
I
ts possible to buy a pair of loudspeakers for just a few hundred bucks.
Its also possible to buy a pair of loudspeakers for a few hundred
thousand bucks. Whats the difference, and why should you spend more?
Yet, even at the very top end of the scale,
there are still compromises to be made some
loudspeakers will prioritize flat frequency response
over dynamic range, for example. Many more try
to accommodate as many of these benefits as
possible, but do so at the expense of amplifier
compatibility or off-axis performance (the ability
for more than one person in the room to hear the
best possible sounds).
Reducing Compromise
Its also worth noting that the limitations and
compromises found in loudspeakers continue to
improve, right across the board. Sometimes the
best get better and that technology trickles down
to smaller or more affordable lines. Other times an
innovation born of needing to make thousands
of pairs of budget speakers trickles up to more
exotic designs, refined and improved upon in
the process. All of this means that the cone and
dome conventional dynamic loudspeaker may
be externally very similar to designs from half a
century ago, but produce a sound that is far closer
to the audiophile goal today.
The big changes are in materials sciences and
in the tools and techniques used by the modern
designer. Weve come a long way from doped
paper cones in simple plywood enclosures; ultra-
light spun metal and a variety of plastic materials
(from polypropylene to Kevlar) have been used
in drive unit design, while all manner of MDF,
metal, plastic, glassfiber and stone-loaded resins
have been used to make loudspeaker cabinets
of greater intricacy and resilience. Crossover
networks can sport components derived from the
space program (Teflon capacitors, for example),
Human hearing begins around 20Hz (20 cycles
per second) and goes up to about 20kHz (20,000
cycles per second), although age, genetics and
too many loud concerts frequently mean that
latter figure begins to fall off rapidly after we
reach our mid-30s. We can also hear across a
dynamic range of almost 100dB, which means
are capable of comfortably perceiving sounds
almost a million times louder than the quietest
sounds we can hear. Just think of the difference
in sound pressure between a mosquito buzzing
a couple of feet from your ear late at night and
the climax to the 1812 Overture and youll see
just how massive a task reproducing sound can
be. However, even the cheapest electronics can
replicate this 20Hz-20kHz range (and beyond)
and dynamic range, in some cases with very great
accuracy and stunningly low levels of distortion.
The same is not true for loudspeakers. Lets be
honest here. The best loudspeaker ever made has
deviations and distortions from that ideal that are
an order of magnitude higher than apply to most
modern audio electronics. And this is why you
often get what you pay for in loudspeakers. As
you climb further up the loudspeaker ladder, so
you get a design that has smaller deviations from a
flat frequency response across a wider frequency
range, one that reaches down further into the lower
end of the frequency range without diminishing
the sound, can play with greater dynamic range
(without sacrificing clarity), can present a greater
sense of live instruments playing in a physical
space and can deliver all of these things across a
range of volume levels. Its possible today to find
loudspeakers that do all of these things without
sacrifice or compromise; possible, but expensive.
and even the traditional fillings that fill the interior
of a loudspeaker have benefited from years of
technology (out goes long-haired wool; in comes
Dacron). Some of these innovations have helped
to bring more accurate performance down to far
cheaper loudspeaker designs, but many have
helped make high-end speakers even better than
their predecessors. These elements have given
designers more scope to break free of the narrow
constraints imposed by materials essentially
unchanged from the 1920s to the 1970s.
As important in loudspeaker development, the
changes to the way a professional manufacturer
can measure, design and create loudspeakers has
changed beyond all recognition in recent years.
While its still possible to design speakers using
your ears and knowledge alone (and good designs
are almost invariably fine tuned by ear), most
loudspeaker manufacturers rely on a plethora of
instruments and computer programs to examine
the way every aspect of the loudspeaker works
in order to make it work better. And, in many
cases, a combination of small, almost inaudible
and incremental changes to a design can end
up making substantial changes to the sound
quality of the loudspeaker as a whole. The use of
laser interferometry to view the properties of the
vibration across the front baffle of a loudspeaker
is still beyond the reach of the smaller loudspeaker
designer, but many of the design tools that used
to be prohibitively expensive a few years ago are
now standard computer programs; this gives
even relatively small manufacturers the chance
to use a range of technologies when designing
loudspeakers and as a consequence, many high-
end speakers from small specialist manufacturers
have improved significantly in recent years.
Reading The Right Specifications
From a user perspective, what should you look
out for? What parameters in the specification
sheet are important, and what can you
comfortably forget about? From the perspective
of connecting the loudspeaker to an amplifier, the
two most important figures are sensitivity and
impedance (ideally expressed as both nominal
and minimum). Sensitivity or efficiency is an
expression of how much undistorted sound you
can get out of a loudspeaker for a single watt of
power output. In other words, a sensitivity rating
of 85dB (more accurately, 85dB/W/m) means for
a listener sitting one meter from the loudspeaker,
one watt of amplifier power will return a listening
level of 85dB. The higher the figure, the less power
needed to be able to play music and vice versa (its
also surprising just how much power is needed
to express something approaching the dynamic
range of a piano even at relatively low levels). A
sensitivity figure of about 88dB is average today.
Impedance is a measure of how demanding a
load the loudspeaker is for an amplifier. Impedance
is not a static rating, and varies according to
frequency, so is often given both as a nominal
(overall) and minimum (worst case) figure, in ohms.
A amplifier that sees a relatively benign eight-
ohm nominal load, and a minimum impedance of
just six ohms has a very easy life, where one that
is connected to a speaker that had just over three
ohm impedance at best and approaching one ohm
at worst will struggle. In the latter case, careful
matching to a large power amplifier is mandatory,
because amplifiers with a less stiff power supply
may not be able to deliver sufficient power.
Fortunately, such loudspeakers are relatively
rare today and those that are punishing loads are
usually high-end designs and are unlikely to be
partnered with lesser amp designs.
Unfortunately, selecting the right amplifier for any
given loudspeaker is not as easy as the specs might
imply. The specifications give broad guidelines (a
single-ended triode amplifier will struggle to work
with a 1.2ohm minimum impedance loudspeaker;
a loudspeaker with 98dB sensitivity is unlikely to
be a good match with a 1kW behemoth solid-state
power amp), but the only real way of determining
synergy with an amplifier is to listen to the two in
combination, or take the advice of someone who
has heard that combo. Reviewers also frequently
cite systems that work together well.
Frequency response is a useful indicator of
quality, as well as potential matching with room and
equipment. A loudspeakers frequency response
is often cited with limits. The smaller these limits
are, the tighter the tolerance of the loudspeaker
design. A loudspeaker that claims 40Hz-20kHz
3dB is going to provide a sound closer to the
original source than one that claims 40Hz-20kHz
6dB, because that last number allows for greater
variation across the frequency range. Sometimes,
this is due to smaller loudspeakers rolling off
naturally in the bass, but the same statistic can
hide boosts or dips in the frequency response.
Surprisingly, some of these are deliberate, like
the artificial 80Hz boost found in some smaller
loudspeakers, designed specifically to make them
sound bigger than they should.
The first number also represents real-world bass
performance. A full-range loudspeaker system
should provide sounds from 20Hz. In reality,
only a handful of loudspeakers can deliver good,
accurate bass in the first octave (16Hz-32Hz),
but as this is the domain of the 32 and 64 organ
pipe, this is arguably not that important in musical
replay. Nevertheless, deep bass is also useful to
create accurate soundstaging and image solidity,
as it includes components of environmental
sounds like Underground trains rumbling below
Londons Kingsway Hall, which means even if the
music doesnt reach that low, an underpinning
of bass below 32Hz is useful for truly accurate
reproduction.
Other aspects of speaker design are not so
commonly pinned down in simple numerical
analysis. Loudspeaker off-axis performance, time
alignment, crossover design and more are all crucial
parameters of a loudspeakers performance,
but not ones that lend themselves to number
crunching, at least not outside of the design studio.
But its here also that the designers personal
tastes begin to manifest. Some manufacturers, for
example, demand a loudspeaker to have good off-
axis performance, meaning those not sitting in the
hot seat (the optimum position at the apex of the
listening isosceles triangle) get to hear good sound
too. The arguments for good off-axis performance
suggest that getting this parameter right almost
guarantees good performance in other areas.
Some argue that because audio listening is often
a solitary pursuit, good off-axis performance
is irrelevant, as long as the on-axis sound is
excellent. Similar arguments abound regarding all
parameters of sound. Even coloration, arguably
the first thing a manufacturer tries to eliminate,
has its supporters; horn loudspeakers are often
criticized for their coloration next to conventional
dynamic designs, but their supporters consider
that coloration comparatively unimportant next to
the increased presence and dynamic range a horn
design offers. An important issue here is not to be
swayed by arguments either way, but trust your
ears when choosing loudspeakers.
Finding the Ideal Demonstration
So, what should you use when selecting
loudspeakers? First, try to find a demonstration
studio that is broadly similar in size and
construction to your own listening room. Theres
no sense in selecting a pair of loudspeakers in a
room one-third or three times the size of your own
space, because the interaction between room and
loudspeaker is a close-knit one. Ideally, this means
a home demonstration, but this can be difficult
to achieve with huge full-range speaker designs.
For similar reasons, your dealer should be able
to replicate your system as best as possible, or
failing that bring your own equipment in for the
demonstration. Naturally, bring along your own
music; try to bring along a broad, representative
spread of music you listen to and know well, as
well as audiophile test discs, but keep the number
of discs relatively low. A good loudspeaker system
should not only showcase your music well, but
should naturally invite you to deepen your music
collection and widen your musical tastes. Being
pragmatic, if 99% of your music is opera for
example, its worth weighting your listening to
accommodate that, but its also worth considering
the long game tastes change over time, and the
music you listen to today might not be the same
as the music you listen to in five or 10 years tie.
We recommend that even if your musical tastes
are very narrow, try to select loudspeakers that
play the widest range of musical material well, and
for this reason unamplified instruments (especially
ones you are most familiar with) recorded in a
natural acoustic still represent the gold standard
of subjective listening tests. Generally, if a speaker
gets live, acoustic voices and instruments right, it
will be able to play a wider range of sounds than
a speaker designed to bring out the best in pop
records.
Loudspeaker technology has progressed
significantly through most of the 20th and the first
decade of the 21st Centuries. But development has
not come to an end. Each new improvement in the
loudspeaker design creates additional demands on
the rest of the developmental process. Significant
improvements dont happen overnight, but if you
bought a high-end loudspeaker 10 or 20 years
ago, you should hear what the new generation has
to offer.
single dealer visit. If you must choose between
three models, select between the first two on
one visit, then return to compare the winner of
the first audition with the third contender. You
should listen to each candidate as long as you
want (within reason) to be sure youre making the
right purchasing decision.
Some loudspeakers have different tonal
balances at different listening heights. Be sure
to audition the loudspeaker at the same listening
height as your listening chair at home. A typical
listening height is 36, measured from the floor to
your ears. Further, some loudspeakers with first-
order crossovers sound different if you sit too
close to them. When in the showroom, move back
and forth a few feet to be certain the loudspeaker
What to Listen For When
Choosing Loudspeakers
Robert Harley
Finding the Right Loudspeaker
Before You Buy
Youve done your homework, read reviews, and
narrowed down your list of candidate loudspeakers
based on the criteria described earlier (favorable
reviews, brand reputation, etc.)you know what
you want. Now its time to go out and listen. This is
a crucial part of shopping for a loudspeaker, and
one that should be approached carefully. Rather
than buying a pair of speakers on your first visit to
a dealer, consider this initial audition to be simply
the next step. Dont be in a hurry to buy the first
loudspeaker you like. Even if it sounds very good
to you, you wont know how good it is until youve
auditioned several products.
Choosing an appropriate amplifier power-
output range for your loudspeakers, listening
tastes, room, and budget is essential to getting
the best sound for your money. If the amplifier
is under-powered for your needs, youll never
hear the system at its full potential. The sound
will be constricted, fatiguing, lack dynamics, and
the music will have a sense of strain on climaxes.
Conversely, if you spend too much of your budget
on a bigger amplifier than you need, you may
be shortchanging other components. Choosing
just the right amplifier power is of paramount
importance.
Audition the loudspeaker with a wide range
of familiar recordings of your own choosing.
Remember that a dealers strategic selection
of music can highlight a loudspeakers best
qualities and conceal its weaknessesafter all,
his job is to present his products in the best
light. Further, auditioning with only audiophile-
quality recordings wont tell you much about
how the loudspeaker will perform with the music
youll be playing at home, most of which was
likely not recorded to high audiophile standards.
Still, audiophile recordings are excellent for
discovering specific performance aspects of a
loudspeaker. The music selected for auditioning
should therefore be a combination of your
favorite music, and diagnostic recordings chosen
to reveal different aspects of the loudspeakers
performance. When listening to your favorite
music, forget about specific sonic characteristics
and pay attention to how much youre enjoying
the sound. Shift into the analytical mode only
when playing the diagnostic recordings.
Visit the dealer when business is slow so you
can spend at least an hour with the loudspeaker.
Some loudspeakers are appealing at first, and
then lose their luster as their flaws begin to
emerge over time. The time to lose patience with
the speakers is in the dealers showroom, not a
week after youve bought them. And dont try to
audition more than two sets of loudspeakers in a
will sound the same as it should at your listening
distance at home.
Make sure the loudspeakers are driven
by electronics and source components of
comparable quality to your components. Its easy
to become infatuated with a delicious sound in
a dealers showroom, only to be disappointed
when you connect the loudspeakers to less
good electronics. Ideally, you should drive the
loudspeakers under audition with the same
quality of power amp as you have at home, or as
you intend to buy with the loudspeakers.
Of course, the best way to audition
loudspeakers is in your own homeyoure under
no pressure, you can listen for as long as you
like, and you can hear how the loudspeaker
performs with your electronics and in your
listening room. Home audition removes much of
the guesswork from choosing a loudspeaker. But
because its impractical to take every contender
home, and because many dealers will not allow
this, save your home auditioning for only those
loudspeakers you are seriously considering.
What to Listen For
There are several common flaws in loudspeaker
performance that you should listen for. Though
some of these flaws are unavoidable in the lower
price ranges, a loudspeaker exhibiting too many
of them should be quickly passed over.
Listen for thick, slow, and tubby bass. One
of the most annoying characteristics of poor
loudspeakers is colored, peaky, and pitchless
bass. You should hear distinct pitches in bass
notes, not a low-frequency, one-note growling
under the music. Male speaking voice is a good
test for upper-bass colorations; it shouldnt have
an excessive or unnatural chesty sound.
Certain bass notes shouldnt sound louder than
others. Listen to solo piano with descending or
ascending lines played evenly in the instruments
left-hand, or lower, registers. Each note should be
even in tone and volume, and clearly articulated.
If one note sounds different from the others, its
an indication that the loudspeaker may have a
problem at that frequency.
The bottom end should be tight, clean, and
quick. When it comes to bass, quality is
more important than quantity. Poor-quality
bass is a constant reminder that the music is
being artificially reproduced, making it that
much harder to hear only the music and not
the loudspeakers. The paradigm of what bass
should not sound like is a boom truck. Those
car stereos are designed for maximum output
at a single frequency, not articulate and tuneful
bass. Unfortunately, more bass is generally an
indicator of worse bass performance in low- to
moderately-priced loudspeakers. A lean, tight,
and articulate bass is preferable in the long run
to the plodding boominess that characterizes
inferior loudspeakers.
Listen to kickdrum and bass guitar working
together. You should hear the bass drums
dynamic envelope through the bass guitar. The
drum should lock in rhythmically rather than
seem to lag slightly behind the bass guitar. A
loudspeaker that gets this wrong dilutes rhythmic
power, making the rhythm sound sluggish, even
slower. But when you listen to a loudspeaker that
gets this right, youll find your foot tapping and
hear a more upbeat and involving quality to the
music.
Midrange coloration is a particularly annoying
problem with some loudspeakers. Fortunately,
coloration levels are vastly lower in todays
loudspeakers than they were even 15 years ago.
Still, there are lots of colored loudspeakers out
there. These can be identified by their cupped
hands coloration on vocals, a nasal quality, or
an emphasis on certain vowel sounds. A problem
a little higher in frequency is manifested as a
clangy piano sound. A good loudspeaker will
present vocals as pure, open, and seeming
to exist independently of the loudspeakers.
Midrange problems will also make the music
sound as though it is coming out of boxes rather
than existing in space.
Poor treble performance is characterized by
grainy or dirty sound to violins, cymbals, and
vocal sibilants (s and sh sounds). Cymbals should
not splash across the soundstage, sounding like
bursts of undifferentiated white noise. Instead,
the treble should be integrated with the rest of
the music and not call attention to itself. The
treble shouldnt sound hard and metallic; instead,
cymbals should have some delicacy, texture, and
pitch. If you find that a pair of speakers is making
you aware of the treble as a separate component
of the music, keep looking.
Another thing to listen for in loudspeakers is
their ability to play loudly without congestion.
The sounds of some loudspeakers will be fine at
low levels, but will congeal and produce a giant
roar when pushed to high volumes. Listen to
orchestral music with crescendosthe sound
should not collapse and coarsen during loud,
complex passages.
Finally, the loudspeakers should disappear
into the soundstage. A good pair of loudspeakers
will unfold the music in space before you, giving
no clue that the sound is coming from two boxes
placed at opposite sides of the room. Singers
should be heard as pinpoint, palpable images
directly between the loudspeakers (if thats how
theyve been recorded). The sonic image of an
instrument should not pull to one side or another
when the instrument moves between registers.
The music should sound open and transparent,
not thick, murky, or opaque. Overall, the less
youre aware of the loudspeakers themselves,
the better.
Some loudspeakers with less-than-high-
end aspirations have colorations intentionally
designed into them. The bass is made to be big
and fat, the treble excessively bright to give the
illusion of clarity. Such speakers are usually
extremely sensitive, so that theyll play loudly in
comparisons with speakers of normal sensitivity.
These loudspeakers may impress the unwary in
a two-minute demonstration, but will become
extremely annoying not long after youve brought
them home. Youre unlikely to find such products
in a true high-end audio store.
Finally, the surest sign that a loudspeaker
will provide long-term musical satisfaction at
home is if, during the audition, you find yourself
greatly enjoying the music and not thinking about
loudspeakers at all.
Excerpted from The Complete Guide to High-End Audio,
third edition. by Robert Harley. hifibooks.com
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEWS

Loudspeakers
up to $10k
Bowers & Wilkins 684
Six of the best
Alan Sircom
T
he 600 Series has been a constant stream of musical pleasure for entry-level
and cash-strapped audio enthusiasts for the longest time. The latest iteration
builds on this, but with a twist or two. Like many modern audio products, the
new 600 range two standmounts, two floorstanders and a subwoofer features
local design and global production. The 684 floorstander tested here is typical; it is
designed in the Steyning plant in West Sussex, England and built in China.
Curiously, the nomenclature is back to front.
Normally, the higher the number, the better the
speaker, but the top model in the 600 range
is the 685, and below this model are the 685
standmount and the entry-level 686. Its nothing
to get concerned about of course, but might
cause confusion when trawling through the price
comparison sites.
The 684 is a ported, two-and-a-half-way
design. Its sporting the now standard B&W issue
Flowport golfball-pitted port both fore and aft,
a 25mm aluminium dome tweeter and a pair of
165mm Kevlar mid-bass units with hard bullet
phase plugs in the acoustic centre of each driver.
Each speaker comes supplied with a pair of
flexibungs (Ive got all her movies); these allow
the speaker to be extremely fine tuned to its
environment, as you can have the front bung in,
the rear bung out, in, out, in/out and the middle of
the bung out. In total, this gives you nine different
acoustic modifications to the same loudspeaker
and that gives you a lot of freedom in positioning
and room size. That being said, the best placement
is in a room around 12x16 or larger, firing down
the length of the room and approximately half a
metre from the rear and side walls. I found that
after a lot of experimentation, the best sound
came from using the outer portion of the bungs
in both speakers, but the dynamics of my room
meant it worked well (arguably better) with left
bung being complete and the right being just the
doughnut, not the whole bung, with a mild toe-in.
My only gripe here concerns the manual,
which makes little useful mention of how to
use the flexibungs and many will just give
up because of this. Its worth the effort and
experimentation, because the loudspeaker
benefits greatly from trying out all the different
options. So, heres what the manual should say
on this The two ports are tuned to slightly
benefit from grille removal where possible;
although supposedly acoustically transparent,
Im not entirely convinced and felt the speaker
lost a bit of mid and top clarity with the grilles in
place. The bi-wire rear panel is usefully set low, so
speaker cables rise only a few inches up the back
of the speaker itself.
These are deceptively heavy loudspeakers
(thanks in part to the B&W trait of a healthy
amount of internal bracing) and the plinths mean
they top 39lbs. And they are efficient and easy
to drive too; 90dB sensitivity, with an eight ohm
impedance (although the company also claims a
three-ohm minimum impedance).
The 684 makes a typical Bowers and Wilkins
sound, again with a twist or two; very clean,
extremely neutral and very, very competent.
Exciting too, the combination of taut, surprisingly
deep bass and bright treble makes for a speaker
with a zing to them. Twist number one: perhaps
a little too much zing for some. Its not a rising
treble, nor is it a treble with a definite peak or
sting, but the 684 seems to make the top end of a
piano sound more like a piano than a real piano.
For most, though, this will just make the speakers
sound exciting and alive. Playing Lambchops Is
A Woman album through the 684 showed just
how minor this treble lift is; the sound is very
open and Kurt Wagners speak-sing vocals come
across brilliantly, thanks to a very open and clean
midrange. The top remains untouched, except for
a very slight increase in the guitar vibrato effect.
This is a subtle effect on a relatively obscure
background part of the mix.
Bass is exceptionally good, and not just for the
money. Once the experiment process with bungs
and placement is over, bass is both deep and
taut, and that easy drive means it will be like that
irrespective of the amplifier used. And this is one
of the most important plus points for the 684 its
remarkably unfussy as to its business partners.
It will deliver a remarkably similar performance
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - bowers and Wilkins 684 loudspeaker
different frequencies with and without ports; the
rear port can be used to subtly tailor the way the
loudspeaker interacts with the room. If you have to
place the speakers closer to the rear wall than the
recommended half metre, try inserting the bungs
into the rear ports (first the round outer section
of the bung, then the bung entirely). Dont make
snap decisions. The front port tailors the bass
output for the room; once you have positioned the
speaker properly, experiment with the front bungs
in order to accurately match the bass to the rest
of the performance. Once again, dont jump to
any snap decisions.
Initially, Bowers and Wilkins supplied the 684
with just the spikes, and initial findings surrounding
the speaker (best played loud) reflected possible
issues with centre of gravity. Soon after, the 684
shipped with a black plinth with a set of spacers
to raise the speaker a centimetre or so off the
baseplate, house spikes and widen the footprint.
That, plus the slight increase in mass at the base
of the speaker, does help give the 684 a sturdy
footing. The company includes both spikes and
little white rubber feat for those mounting on bare
floors. Purists might think anything other than
spikes is an abomination, but this is a practical
solution that in practice works better on a hard
wood floor than spikes in this context.
The finish is very slick, although irrespective of
whether you use the grilles or not, you are faced
with a big slab of flat black to the front and the
plinth. The rear and sides are finished in several
vinyl woodprint wraps, including light oak, cherry,
weng and black ash. Personally, I think the
speakers look better with grilles off, highlighting
that distinctive off-centre Bowers & Wilkins
tweeter surround logo. I also think the speakers
Bowers and Wilkins 684
type: two-and-a-half way reflex loaded floorstanding
loudspeaker
Driver complement:
1x 25mm aluminium dome tweeter
1x 165mm woven kevlar
cone bass /midrange

1x 165mm woven kevlar
cone bass
bandwidth: 44Hz22kHz 3db on reference axis
-6db at 34Hz and 50kHz
Sensitivity: 90db (2.83v, 1m)
Impedance: 8 ohms nominal (minimum 3 ohms)
Dimensions (WxHxD, not including plinth or feet): 198 x
910 x 300mm
Weight: 18.2kg
finishes: black ash vinyl, Light oak vinyl, red cherry
vinyl, Weng vinyl
SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
price: $1100/pr
B&W gROUp NORTH
AMERICA
54 Concord Street
North Reading, MA
01864
(978) 664-2870
U.K.
price: 700/pr
BW gROUp LTD
+44 (0) 1903 221 500
bowers-wilkins.co.uk
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22 Guide to High-Performance Loudspeakers
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - bowers and Wilkins 684 loudspeaker
whether its the most expensive part of the
signal chain, or the cheapest. Differences are still
apparent, but not as marked as many designs.
And yet, this doesnt come at the expense of the
musical presentation. Its a remarkable leveller of
equipment. I suspect that might disenfranchise
those who want the sound of their expensive
CD and amps to be immediately apparent, but
for many others this is a handy bonus. Arcam,
Cambridge Audio, Marantz, NAD and (obviously,
given the company connections) Rotel would be
logical choices for electronics happiness.
The 600 Series speakers have often had exciting
treble and deeper than you might expect bass for
any given cabinet size. The problem in the past
has been a sound that had all top, all bottom
nothing in between. Worse, as you went up the
600 Series, so the gap between bass and treble
widened. Fortunately, based on the evidence of
the 684 at least, those days are gone and one
of the best parts of this loudspeaker is its clean,
open midrange. There are so many recordings
that demand a good midrange, but All Is Yes by
The Blessing really takes advantage of this. The
percussive piano and drum kit, coupled with
a Miles-esque muted trumpet can all so easily
degrade into a midrange-free zone, but the 684
brings out the less accented bit in the middle.
Stereo is fine, although those looking for a pair
of speakers that throw out a huge soundstage or a
lot of image depth will be disappointed. Increasing
toe-in improves stereo imaging considerably, but
does so by trading precision in the bass. Its a
question of balance.
In fact, balance is the key to the Bowers &
Wilkins 684. There are speakers that might do
one or two things better (superior imaging, for
example), but at the expense of other aspects
(overall balance, detail, compatibility, fun). These
will prove perhaps more attractive to people
seeking the same. However, the 684 should be
considered the default choice for loudspeakers
for the money. Its the benchmark. +
NEXT pAgE
M
y long time audiophile cohort said it best when he stopped by one day, soon after Coincidents
new Super Victory loudspeakers had arrived. He wondered aloud what I thought of the new ribbon
tweeters. Nodding towards the sweet spot, I motioned for him to have a seat. It wasnt more than 30
seconds into the music that I could see a look come over my normally poker-faced friend. Holy high end,
Batman, the sound just slaps you right in the face. I couldnt help but laugh as I had been similarly slapped
just a few days earlier. And I mean that in the best possible way.
Coincident Speaker Technology
Super victory
Ribbon Magic
Sue Kraft
The sound that didnt surprise me too much was
the thud of the price dropping on my Coincident
Super Eclipse speakers with silk dome tweeters.
(I hate when that happens.) While Im still not
ready to put them out to pasture quite yet, I can
understand why theyve been discontinued. For
only a few dollars more you can buy a speaker
that is significantly better. There seems to be a
bit of a gap now between the Partial Eclipse (silk
dome tweeters) at $4,500 and the Super Victory
at $9,500. Id dig deep for the Super Victory if it
were my listening room, which is exactly what Im
doing right now. If anyone is interested in a pair of
lady-driven speakers only used on Sunday to play
chamber music, you know where to find me.
The Super Victory was introduced in 2008 as
a scaled-down version of Coincidents $15,000
Total Victory IV. I was impressed that owner and
designer Israel Blume did not scale down quality,
only the overall size of the speaker and number
of drivers. There is one fewer 7 proprietary
composite (treated paper) midrange as well as one
fewer 12 side-firing Nomex cone woofer in the
Super Victory versus the TV IV. Otherwise drive
units in this three-way, nearly 4 tall floorstander
are identical, as are the Extreme internal wiring,
crossover components, enclosure construction
and materials, and outrigger extender feet with
oversized spikes. This is not always the case with
some companies, as oft-times scaled down
can mean cutting corners or using similar but
inferior parts. Israel Blume doesnt make cheap
speakers, only varying sizes to accommodate
room and budget limitations.
According to Blume, the newly developed,
isodynamic planar ribbon tweeter with a radiating
surface less than the volume of a cubic inch of air
is three times as large as the ribbon previously
used in the TV II. This ribbon is a purely resistive
load at a flat 8 ohms. Very high sensitivity is partly
due to the use of a highly powerful neodymium
magnet structure that measures 3 x 6 and
weighs in excess of two pounds. An ultra-rigid,
solid aluminum faceplate ensures resonant-free
reproduction and the elimination of diffraction
affects. All well and good, but how do they sound?
Stunning!
With a sensitivity of 92.5dB and impedance of
10 ohms (never dipping below 8 ohms), the Super
Victory has a minimum power requirement of just
3 watts and a maximum of 500. Ill admit to raising
my eyebrows a bit, especially with the minimum 3
watt power requirement. I was fresh out of flea-
powered amps at the time, but I did have several
Atma-Sphere OTL (output transformerless)
tube amps on hand that seemed an interesting
alternative, as OTLs flourish on sensitive speakers.
Add to the mix an Atma-Sphere MP-3 preamp
and a Meridian 808.2i (the best CD playback
Ive heard to date) and Im getting goosebumps.
I know we all have our preferences, but for me,
this tube-based system would be on my desert
island short list. Was the Super Victory up to the
challenge? In spades!
Neither the 60W Atma-Sphere M60 nor 100W
Novacron with 6C33-B output tubes had any
difficulty driving the SV in a medium/large 14 x 20
room. It was dynamics gone wild from the finely
detailed precision of the gorgeously extended
high frequencies to the tight control and definition
of the side-firing 12 woofer. The M60 was more
neutral with deeper bass, while the Novacron fuller
in the bottom octaves with a touch more warmth
in the midrange. Both amps flaunted nearly
unrestrained dynamics through the SV, but without
the type of in-your-face impact that will set you
back in your easy chair. Based on my experience,
the unfettered and unforced dynamic range of the
OTL is one of its truly unique characteristics, and
the Super Victory could not have done a better
job of recreating the experience.
I did swap out the OTLs for a Balanced Audio
Technology 50W VK-55 tube amp with excellent
results as well. BAT gear has always been blessed
with a gorgeous midrange that is only further
enhanced by the inherent fullness of the 7
midrange driver of the SV. The VK-55 was gutsier
and more robust on the bottom end (another BAT
hallmark) but never to the point of overwhelming
the room. The Super Victory always maintained
tight bass control, making for a more room-
friendly speaker. (A good attribute in my book.)
Theres nothing worse than getting your new
pair of speakers home from the store only to
find out you have to stuff socks in the ports to
keep every pane of glass from rattling. This might
impress your friends, but Ive come to appreciate
articulation on the bottom end rather than having
to leash my woofers to keep them from getting
loose.
I initially set up the SV in a smaller 12 x 12 room,
but ultimately preferred them in the larger room.
The small room is fully treated with Echo Busters
and sounds quite good, but I didnt feel like I
could sit far enough back to comfortably listen.
If you dont mind nearfield listening, they might
be perfect for that spare bedroom converted to a
music room. In the larger room the Super Victory
was happiest about 3 from the front wall and
67 apart, with the woofers facing out. And I was
much happier sitting further back with room to
stretch.
I was initially concerned that perhaps the
new ribbon tweeters would be more directional
than the silk domes I was accustomed to, thus
shrinking the sweet spot and forcing me to modify
my listening habits. Unless Im listening late at
night and happen to doze off, Ive never been able
to sit in the sweet spot like a statue for hours at
a time without moving. I cringe sometimes when
I see the uncomfortable chairs some audiophiles
sit on, one even stacked with books on the seat to
be at the precise height required for the system.
The thought of sitting in a chair like that, unable to
move my head for fear of losing the center image
just wouldnt work for me.
It is true when you stand directly in front of the
Super Victory you hear almost no sound from the
ribbon tweeter, but as soon as you step back, the
soundstage absolutely sparkles with depth and
spaciousness that can be enjoyed by everyone
in the room.. The precision, speed, and intricacy
of the high frequencies with no edge whatsoever
is quite addictive. I cant say for sure what the
dispersion is, but it quickly became a non-issue.
No need to sit on a wooden straightback chair,
atop a stack of books, with head clamped in place
to hear the center image.
Ive always liked the slim profile of Coincident
speakers, and dont even mind the missing grilles.
A very long time ago when I first met Israel Blume
I asked why he didnt use grilles on his speakers.
He answered by asking me if Id put old jalopy
hubcaps on a fine sports car. Good point. So for
the last 10 years when friends ask why I dont have
grilles on my speakers, I simply tell them I enjoy
letting my lug nuts hang out. One nitpick might be
the lack of color choices. The cabinets are nicely
made but your only options are black, light cherry,
or dark cherry. My hands-down favorite would be
the dark cherry. Then not only will your speakers
sound like you paid twice as much, but they will
look it as well.
Ive owned several pairs of Coincident speakers
in the past and can attest to the fact they perform
well with solid-state. But if I could afford to
upgrade to the Super Victory, youd probably only
see the reflection of tubes in my eyes. Not only
is the SV on my desert island short list, its also
on my things-to-buy short list. Do you think Israel
Blume would notice if I switched speakers and
returned the Super Eclipse instead?
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - coincident Speaker technology Super victory Loudspeaker
Coincident Speaker Technology Super victory
Loudspeaker
Driver complement: one Isodynamic planar ribbon
tweeter; one 7 treated paper midrange; one 12
nomex cone woofer
Sensitivity: 92.5db
Impedance: 10 ohms (always between 816 ohms)
power requirements: 3W500W
frequency response: 25Hz35kHz
Dimensions: 47 x 9 x 17
Weight: 125 lbs. each
SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
price: $9499/pr
COINCIDENT
SpEAKER
TECHNOLOgY
19 Strauss Road
Thornhill, Ontario,
Canada L4J 8Z6
(905) 660-0800
iblume@
U.K.
price: Super Victory not
distrbuted in UK. Price
on application only
MUSICOLOgY
+44(0)1273 700759
musicology.co.uk
M
any people equate the size of a loudspeaker with a commitment to high-end values. Nothing could be
further from the truth. Most of us live in a world of limits. We dont have a Gulfstream waiting on the
tarmac, a rosso corsa sports car in our palazzos garage, or even a small auditorium for our stereo. Fact
is, a well-executed smaller speaker of the stand-mounted variety can in many instances get us further down
the road toward the musical truth than hi-fi wisdom suggests. Consequently, there are more of these real-
world speakers on the market today than ever before. But within this extremely popular segment are varietals
targeted for specific applications and room sizes. Cases in point: the DALI Mentor Menuet and the Nola Boxer.
Both are designed by highly respected companies, both are two-way compacts suitable for smaller environs,
yet each fills a distinctive niche.
DALI Mentor Menuet
The loudspeaker for the rest of us
Neil gader
Its easy to be fooled by a small speaker that measures a mere
10 inches tall. Dont be. DALI has jammed a lot of technology
into this highly musical, two-way, bass-reflex design. Beautifully
crafted, the enclosure has a smoothly curved and seamless
front baffle designed to be an acoustically inert platform for
the drivers. And DALI installs rubber gaskets to decouple
those drivers from the cabinet and provide an airtight seal to
it. Internally, the Menuet features a flared upward-angled port,
which has been designed to minimize turbulence and reduce
port noise. The angled design also permits a longer port, which
results in a lower tuning-frequency than what would ordinarily
be possible in an enclosure of this volume.
The Menuet borrows its soft dome tweeter from its larger
siblings. The tweeter uses an oversized 28mm voice coil
rather than the typical 25mm one. Its dome diaphragm is
very lightweight, which allows DALI to make the diaphragm
substantially larger than the average dome without sacrificing
speed. The power-handling of this transducer has been further
enhanced via a powerful motor system with a neodymium
magnet and back-mounted aluminum heat sink. The 4.5
woofer incorporates DALIs wood-fiber conea technology
derived from its flagship Euphonia models. DALI points out that
the wood fiber adds stiffness, ensuring non-uniform break-up
characteristics.
As I alluded to earlier, the Menuet is designed to fill a specific
nicheto be elegant and unobtrusive. Tuned for placement
against a rear wall or boundary (shelf- or wall-mounting is also
encouraged), it gathers significant mid/upper-bass reinforcement
in this position. DALIs placement recommendations should be
scrupulously followed, because once you find the speakers
sweetspotabout a foot-and-a-half from the rear wall worked
wonders in my roomthe Menuet sounds most cohesive,
gathering energy from the back wall, bulking up in the 5060Hz
range, and finding its inner Superman to yield results that are
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - DaLI mentor menuet loudspeaker
utterly musical and compelling. With that wall
reinforcement theres more acoustic and ambient
recovery going on, particularly with symphonic,
chamber, and jazz recordings. Without the
reinforcement, the Menuet will have a prevailing
balance that could generously be characterized
as light, lacking in weight and drive.
The Menuet embodies a size-defying sense
of tonal refinement and restraint that too often
goes missing in this segment. This particular mini
doesnt push excess treble energy at the listener,
nor does it try to reach beyond the physical limits
of its small bass transducer. The Menuet is truly
expressive in its handling of vocals. Its fast and
coherent, able to elicit details from a cappella singer
Laurel Mass on Feather & Bone [Premonition]
from her dark chest resonances to her rich breathy
top octaves. The speaker is capable of sustained
high output, yet remains very controlled. In tonal
balance, its civilized, even a bit polite in the
upper mids, but has no precipitous dips, spikes,
or ridges. Yes, the presentation is lighter weight,
something that lends the air in the upper octaves
a drier, more papery texture and that smudges
harmonic detail a trifle. Foundation-rattling bass is
clearly out of the question, and dynamically its no
hell-raiser. These constraints dampen the large-
scale liveliness of the Menuet, although it does
a beautiful job reproducing midrange and treble
micro-dynamics.
However, those interested in the intimacy of a
quasi-nearfield experience will discover a whole
new relationship with the Menuet. Up close and
personal with the Menuet, youll discovers a fifth
gear. It shines in this environment; closer proximity
means you can ramp down big-room playback
levels, resulting in more open dynamics, greater
soundstage depth, and finer detail. The Menuet
really begins to dance rhythmically and vanishes
from the soundstage without a trace. Orchestral
scale is miniaturizedno big surprisebut this
is easy to adapt to given the enhanced sense of
weight, dynamic thrust, and pressurization in
the nearfield environment. I developed a great
fondness for the musical honesty of the DALI
Mentor Menuet. To be sure, its a small-space/
nearfield specialist, but for those desiring a sweet
taste of the high end without hijacking the room,
my highest recommendation goes this bite-sized
and big-hearted Danish treat.
DALI Mentor Menuet
type: two-way bass-reflex dynamic loudspeaker
Driver complement: one 4.5 woofer, one 1.1 tweeter
Sensitivity: 86db
nominal impedance: 4 ohms
Dimensions: 5.9 x 9.8 x 9
Weight: 8.2 lbs. (net each)
SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
price: $1500/pr
THE SOUND
ORgANISATION
159 Leslie Street
Dallas, TX 75207
(972) 234-0182
dalispeakers.com
U.K.
price: 895/pr
DALI UK
PO Box 639
Huntingdon
PE29 9GS
0845 644 3537
dali-uk.co.uk
NEXT pAgE
You can vi sit a manuf acturer s
website by c l i cking on thei r ad!
T
he audiophile vernacular can be frustratingly limited. Although its useful and even necessary
especially from this side of the keyboardas a means to describe the sound of components
as we hear them, as it is with wine tasting notes our lexicon remains clich-prone and lacking
when it comes to describing what something as complex as our senses actually experience.
Esoteric Mg-10
Purity, Precision, and Generosity
Wayne garcia
This inescapable reality hit me hard as I was jotting down note
after note about Esoterics outstanding loudspeaker, the two-
way, stand-mounted, superbly crafted, all magnesium driver
MG-10 ($2800, plus $1800 for dedicated stands.)
Rather curiously, the challenge is not because the MG-
10 is difficult to get and describein fact it is one of the
most immediately excellent speakers Ive encounteredbut
because to describe the MG-10 while doing it justice requires
more than the usual litany of terms. As Samuel Beckett wrote,
I cant go on, Ill go on.
My colleague Dick Olsher did a fine job of nailing what
Esoteric accomplished with the MG-10s larger sibling, the
$8200 MG-20, when he wrote in Issue 177, I have to respect a
speaker that does not impose its personality on the music.
My few happy months with the MG-10 have confirmed that
Olsher was right about these Esoteric designs, which are the
first loudspeakers from Teacs high-end division, and also said
to be the first loudspeakers to employ all magnesium drivers.
This speaker does impart little of itself on the music played
through it. It is, I believe, as neutral as anything Ive heard, a
speaker that really does channel all that comes before it. That
said, no speaker is entirely neutral. So what exactly does the
MG-10 sound like?
In some ways, like no other speaker system Ive heard. Its
very pure but in no way sterile. Its fast, but not obviously
soas in, Wow, thats one fast speakerbut rather in a way
that equals high resolution and transparency to the source,
while offering insights into both a recordings quality and the
musical performance. Searching for an analogy my mind leapt
to thoughts of white Burgundy, wines, which, at their best,
combine the almost spiritual with the hedonistic, wines of
intense purity and precision, yet also wines of generosity.
The MG-10s attributes no doubt begin with those magnesium
drive units. And while they possess the qualities noted above,
these super-low-mass drivers also manage not to possess
the unnatural-sounding metallic overtones that have left many
of us wary of other metal-driver designs. In the MG-10 the
driver complement comprises a 6.5 low-frequency unit that,
at 1.9kHz, crosses over to a mere half-inch-diameter dome
tweeter (the floorstanding MG-20 uses a pair of LF drivers).
Driver development and manufacturing is the result of a three-
way partnership between Esoteric, which might be called the
visionary behind the project, Britains Tannoy, which plays a
large part in both the design and manufacturing processes at its
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - Esoteric mG-10 Loudspeaker
Scottish facility, and Japans Nippon Kinzoku, the
metal-manufacturing firm that helped create the
drivers, and which developed the thin proprietary
coatings, one of which is ceramic, that aid in
damping resonances (the woofer also uses a
corrugated cone to aid in resonance control).
Ive gone on record before as a major fan of
two-way designs, and while the MG-10 has the
sort of top-to-bottom coherence one expects
from a fine two-way, there seems little doubt
that its truly exceptionally seamless in large part
because its drivers are cut, if you will, from the
same cloth (see what I mean about hard-to-avoid
clichs?).
Reference Recordings latest, Brittens
Orchestra (reviewed in Issue 201), is an excellent
disc for a speaker review due to its very extended
frequency range. From the shimmering opening
strains of Dawn, from Four Sea Interludes, to
the earthquake-like rumbles of the percussion
and the throaty brass of the Storm passage,
the MG-10 delivered the music with a rare tonal
as well as dynamic uniformity. Indeed, this
degree of coherence is something more akin to
what Im used to hearing from planar speakers
such as Quads, the quasi-ribbon models from
Magnepan, or my recently departed long-term
reference, the premium-priced Kharma Mini
Exquisite, than from most other dynamic-driver
box designs. Reaching back to that wine analogy,
think of the MG-10 as delivering purity, precision,
and generosity.
It must be said that achieving such a neutral yet
expressive voice also requires a fine crossover
network. Without divulging much, Esoterics
information sheet boasts of ultra-high-grade
components, such as ICW ClarityCAP film
capacitorswhatever they arefor HF network
and large and low-loss laminated silicone and
steel core inductors. I suppose it goes without
saying that a company that put so much effort
into developing such outstanding drivers has
wired them to excellent crossover components.
But perhaps the most telling bit of information
Esoteric reveals is that the crossover is hard-
wired by hand (no printed circuit boards) with
silver-coated van den Hul connecting cables.
Rear-panel connections allow for bi-wiring,
and also feature an unusual fifth binding post
for grounding the speaker, which is said to an
effective aid against RF (I confess that I never
used or needed to use it).
On the subject of expressive voices, check out
Nina Simones version of I Loves You Porgy,
from Four Women: The Nina Simone Philips
Recordings [Verve], and what youll hear is one
of the most direct sounding, practically reach-
out-and-touch-immediate reproductions of a
human voice there isone the MG-10 places in
your room with a remarkable lack of box or driver
coloration, one that simply seems to be there
by way of the conjuring tricks that make this
hobby so damn alluring on an aural level and so
endlessly satisfying on musical and emotional
ones. Simones voice, a seductive marriage of
smoke and roses, will at times have you leaning
forward with its whisper-soft intimacy, and at
others breathless with its touchingyet never
schmaltzycombination of heartache and
defiance.
Or flip to Side Two of Mobile Fidelitys recent
(and outstanding) mono edition of Sinatras Only
The Lonely. First note how the MG-10s coherence
and easy naturalness are equally impressive with
a male voice (not all speakers are, which is one
reason so many hi-fi demos are conducted with
recordings of female singers). And with a speaker
that gets out of the way like this one does, the
rewards are high when it comes to gaining
insights into Sinatras unparalleled way with a
phrase and the pure beauty of his baritone, as
he purrs and practically moans his way through
Blues in the Night.
The third major component of the design,
the cabinet, is not only strikingly and elegantly
understated from a visual point-of-viewindeed,
the speakers construction is first-class in every
waybut features non-parallel side panels to
minimize internal standing waves, and an inch-
thick, ported baffle and internal cross-bracing to
ensure rigidity.
It perhaps should come as no surprise that a
speaker capable of such clarity and precision is
quite sensitive to room placement (also see my
sidebar on the optional stands.) They need
about three feet from sidewalls and at least a foot
from the rear as a starting place And moving
these babies a fraction of an inch this way or
that can dramatically alter the tonal balance from
Laurel to Hardyfrom lean to fat.
Toe-in is also critical. The manual asks you to
be bold, and angle the speakers so that the cross-
axis point lands one-to-three feet in front of the
listening position. Although rooms and tastes will
vary, given my small room dimensions and that
Im only about seven feet from the front baffles,
this didnt really work in my room, giving me
laser precision but truncated width and depth. I
opted for something of a less dramatic angle that
seemed to give me pretty much the best of both
worldsfocus and spaciousness.
Mg-10
type: Two-way, bass-reflex loudspeaker
Driver complement: .5 magnesium dome tweeter;
6.5 magnesium cone woofer
Sensitivity: 87.5dB
Impedance: 6 ohms
recommended amplifier power: 20120Wpc
Dimensions: 8.5 x 17.33 x 11.75
Weight: 16.5 lbs.
STANDMg10
Dimensions: 10.2 x 24.5 x 12.12
Weight: 28.2 lbs.
SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
Mg-10
price: $2800/pr
STANDMg10
price: $1800/pr
TEAC AMERICA INC.
7733 Telegraph Road
Montebello, California
90640
(323) 726-0303
teac.com
U.K.
Not Distributed in the
UK. price on application
SYMMETRY LTD
17 Holywell Hill
St. Albans Herts AL1 1DT
+44(0)1727 865488
symmetry-systems.
co.uk
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - Esoteric mG-10 Loudspeaker
Of course, the purpose of Esoterics
recommended toe-in is to maximize the
soundstaging effect, which is another of the MG-
10s strengths.
Again, though, its not simply that the MG-10
sounds big (it does), or open (ditto), or deep
or wide, or all of the things we hope for from a
speaker. Its that it can, as a speaker should,
clearly differentiate, say, Rudy Van Gelders
Hackensack, NJ, studio from his later space in
Englewood Cliffs. Or give you an aural snapshot
of the excellent acoustics of the Community of
Christ Auditorium in Independence, MO, where
Keith Johnson recorded Britten Orchestra. Or,
yes, even in mono, transport you to the Capitol
studio where Sinatra and the Nelson Riddle gang
laid down his most magnificent and melancholy
tracks.
Dynamics are likewise very finely expressed
both on the micro-and macro-levels, though,
since the MG-10 is a two-way monitor, there will
come a point, as with a full-on orchestral climax
or grinding rock such as The Dead Weathers 60
Feet Tall from Horehound [Third Man], where the
speaker seems to hit a wall that tells you enough
is enough.
And, as with pretty much every ported design
on this planet, there are moments when you
simply know the darn vent is there. Be it a rare hint
of hollowness to a male voice, a drum thwack, or
even a hard-to-identify something in the sound
of a hall. Im certainly picking nits since 90% or
more of the worlds speakers have ports, but,
hey, a critics gotta do his job, right? Still, please
do note the italicization of the word hint above.
It is merely that, and something most listeners
are likely not to even notice unless theyve been
exposed to something like a Magico Mini II or a
box-free planar design.
I dont know if Ive succeeded in avoiding any
audiophile verbal traps here, but what I hope I
have accomplished is to at least to give you
something of a sense of not only what Esoterics
MG-10 sounds like, but how special I think this
speaker is. In brief, it is among the most neutral,
musically satisfying, and exciting speakers Ive
heard. It is a speaker that will stay with me long
after it has been returned to its maker (and shortly
before I am). It may also, in time, be looked at as
a marker for a new era in metal-driver technology.
And the fact that it delivers so much musical
pleasure, at a price point accessible to many,
makes it sweeter still.
perhaps you did a double take at the mG-10s
price as listed in the main article. as I stated,
at $2800 I think this speaker represents an
excellent value. but $1800 for a pair of stands?
or essentially two-thirds the price of the
speakers? Seems a bit stiff, doesnt it?
Well, first of all the StanDmG10 is optional,
which means you could instead get away for
a fraction of that amount by purchasing, say,
one of Sound anchors excellent monitor
stands. but they wont look as sexy, and, while
Im sure the speakers would sound just fine, I
would guess, because I havent actually heard
the difference, that the mG-10s excellence will
suffer a bit.
but before you make that decision I would
like to suggest that you think of the mG-10 and
StanDmG10 as a complete package designed
to work together. besides, this is no ordinary
stand.
It was custom-designed specifically for this
speaker, and features a steel column thats
been heavily damped with teflon-powdered
polypropylene grain to reduce the mechanical
resonance of the column. the machined
duralumin (a compound of copper, manganese,
and magnesium alloy) top plate not only
precisely mirrors the mG-10s footprint, it
also allows you to bolt the speakers to the
stands via threaded inserts on the speakers
undersides. trust me, this makes an audible
difference. finally, the .6-thick bottom plate
is crafted from solid aluminum and features
Esoterics proprietary self-leveling 3 pin-point
feet system, which is available alone in Japan
for $300.
all in all, the StanDmG10 shows the same
devotion to excellence that the Esoteric team
lavished on the remarkable speaker it was
designed to support. Wg
tHE StanDS
F
or high-end aficionados, Nola needs little introduction. Its open-baffle dipole designs,
which include the Baby Grand and the majestic four-tower flagship, the Grand
Reference IV.1, are the stuff of dreams for many of us. Music is reproduced on such
a transparent and forceful scale that even the most jaded will listen with rapt attention.
The good news for those just starting up in the high end is that veteran designer and Nola
president Carl Marchisotto has an equally deft touch with small affordable speakers, as
Nolas latest effort, the Boxer, clearly attests.
Nola Boxer
The Little Loudspeaker That Could
Neil gader
At barely fifteen-inches tall the Boxer is an unassuming, blue-
collar two-way compact in a bass-reflex enclosureits also
the only box speaker that Nola makes. The Boxers loaded
by a rear-firing twin-flared port for low distortion and noise.
It incorporates a low-mass 6.5 bass/midrange driver with
a laminated pulp cone. The high-frequency driver is a high-
resolution silk dome tweeter. The crossover is a shallow-
slope design using high-purity polypropylene caps, air-core
inductors, and 2% metal-film resistors. It incorporates the
same vibration-isolated, hand-wired crossover as Nolas
bigger models and the same passive components used in
Nolas $22,000 Metro Grand. It is assembled by hand with
point-to-point wiring, using a proprietary low-loss oxygen-free
copper wire.
The physical profile of the Boxer may be working class, but,
oh my, does this baby play uptown. Its overall sonic character is
unerringly musical, midrange-ripe with a fine balance of warmth
and detail and the propulsive energy of a finely-honed athlete.
Its presentation is not shy or recessed; its treble isnt brittle or
fatiguing. Theres substance to every octave with no energy
suck-outs. The result is a wide-range dynamic transducer that
is always musically truthful. The soundstage is very large and
open, yet has excellent focus. The Boxer also exhibits the moves
youd expect of a smart two-wayvivid images, quick transient
responses, and the kind of resolution I encountered on Lyle
Lovetts North Dakota from Joshua Judges Ruth [Curb], where
the soft vocal harmonies and parallel melodic lines snapped into
focus at even the lowest levels.
But what makes the Boxer so special is the extent to which
Marchisotto has transported the qualities of his large-scale,
open-baffle designs into such a petite box. Theres much the
same characteristic air and openness without any boxiness
not surprising given Marchisottos history of designing iconic
dipole speakers for the likes of Dahlquist and Alon. For much of
the Boxers sonic excellence, the credit must go to its exemplary
mid/upper bass, which was solid and tight and extended in my
room. Unlike many compacts that cant punch their way out of
paper bags, the Boxer has enough drive to recreate orchestral-
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - nola boxer Loudspeakers
style weight, soundstage cues, and concert-hall
immersiveness. During the opening segment of
Tchaikovskys Violin Concerto in D Major with
Anne Sophie-Mutter [DG], the Boxer immediately
conveyed the way the orchestra wakes up the
halls acoustic. And during Jen Chapins rendition
of Renewable from ReVisions [Chesky], the
Boxer punched outside of its weight class,
reproducing the dueling baritone sax and standup
bass with dynamic authenticity. It should be noted
that the large port outputs a great deal of energy,
so distance from the rear wall does require some
experimentation.
Ultimately the Boxer, like every other speaker,
has limits. When over-driven, the ports tuning will
intrude and thicken the mixthe lowest notes of
cello or brass or plucked bass viols become less
well defined, somewhat reducing timbral clarity
and low-level decay.
Any major issues? Not really, and the trade-
offssuch as they areare honest and distributed
with a subtlety that doesnt dampen the quality
and intensity of the Boxers overall performance.
In the vocal ranges I noted a small presence-
range droop, a hint of sibilance, and, as was to
be expected, a bit of compression during high-
octane flurries of percussion. During Glinkas The
Lark [RCA], the solo pianos energy and air were
not always fully reproduced; as a result lower
midrange arpeggios were dynamically a bit muted,
and the treble octaves slightly glassy.
Post review, I asked Marchisotto about the
challenges of designing at this price point: The
keys are the midrange and midbass areas. We
aim for a clear dimensional midrange with as
much air as we can get and a naturally dynamic,
clean midbass. Many designs today compress
the midbass in order to attain more apparent
detail. I find these designs tiring to listen to, as
they are not musical, regardless of the other sonic
characteristics provided. In my view, mission
accomplisheda designer after my own listening
biases.
The Nola Boxer exemplifies what a budget two-
way compact should be. Easy to underestimate,
its the kind of ringer that doesnt telegraph its
intentions until the bell sounds. Thats when you
realize youve placed your bet on a winnerand
that the competition had better duck and take
cover.
Nola Boxer
type: two-way, dynamic driver, bass reflex loudspeaker
Driver complement: 6.5 laminated cone, 1 silk dome
Sensitivity: 90db
Impedance: 8 ohms
Dimensions: 15.5 x 8 x 11.5
SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
price: $1500/pr
ACCENT SpEAKER
TECHNOLOgY, LTD.
1511 Lincoln Ave.,
Holbrook, NY 11741
(631) 738-2540
nolaspeakers.com
U.K.
price: Boxer not
distributed in the UK.
Price on application
ARTISAN AUDIO
+44(0)1494 858471
artisanaudio.co.uk
NEXT pAgE
I
n years gone by, audio people used to refer to speaker design and manufacture as
a Black Art. And they had a point. Not so long ago, hand-doped drivers and special
response-contouring in crossovers to (try to) fix driver errors were the rule.
pSB Image T6
Science Meets Black Art
Robert E. greene
But times change. New materials have made
drivers better behaved and more consistent in
manufacture. And advances in test procedures
and test facilities have made the evaluation of
designs easierPSBs new T6 reviewed here was
designed with the help of the Canadian National
Research Council (NRC) acoustic testing lab. In
effect, speaker design has been considerably
rationalized. This all ought to add up to good
speakers being less expensive to design and
build. And in this respect the PSB Image T6 is a
very much a case in point. It is rationally designed,
and it does indeed offer remarkable musical
performance at its price. And yet, the art has not
gone out of the whole process. Designer Paul
Barton told me that, while the general outlines of
his design follow theory, much of what he does
is a matter of intuition as far as the fine details
are concerned. And, of course, the fine details
matter a great deal. Well, one can only admire
how superbly his intuition works and be glad for
his mastery of the aspects of the process that
remain in effect an art.
A quick tour of the sound, from the bottom
up: The T6 has real bass, 3dB at 35Hz, a little
bloom but good pitch definition, and realistic
warmth and fullness. No miniaturization here! Its
double-port and double-woofer design give really
smooth bass lower, middle, and upperin the
actual listening room through correct treatment
of the floor-loading issue, unfortunately a rarity
in floorstander designs but very much a feature
here. The midrange is very clean and quite neutral
sounding. And the treble is extended and again
very clean sounding.
Resolution of detail is excellent. One gets a
real taste of high-end presentation of detail at
this semi-budget price. These speakers are
extraordinarily transparent. If you wanted to write
down every note of every part of a multi-layered
piece of music just by listening, this would be a
good speaker to use. The drivers seem well-
behaved, indeed, and the sound very clean and
clear. Perceived distortion levels are very low. (So
are the measured levels, from the manufacturers
measurements.) It is an audiophile tradition to say
that no dynamic-driver speaker can approach
electrostatic low levels of distortion, but the T6
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - pSb Image t6 Loudspeaker
sounds quite close to that low level of distortion. The
midrange is really clean and pure.
Imaging is also excellentthe speakers have
minimized diffraction and they vanish into the
soundfield most satisfyingly. Interestingly, the out-
of-phase sound on test tracks for speaker phasing is
more perfectly directionless and the in-phase more
tightly focused than usual. I shall have a few sonic nits
to pick laterafter all, this is a TAS reviewbut this is
high-end sound in all directions, never mind the low
price.
The speakers look elegant. The dark cherry finish of
the review samples has the warm glow of fine furniture,
and the curved surfaces give a special gracefulness.
After a listen in our audio room, Paige approved
enough not only of the sound but also of the looks to
suggest moving the T6s up into the living room. They
made the cut in both sound and appearance.
The design goal of the PSB T6 as I understand it was
to make a speaker with flat response, wide and uniform
radiation pattern, and (as Paul Barton described to
me) not only smooth off-axis frontal behavior but
smooth directivity, smooth power response. The
power response was intended to be free of glitches
and to droop smoothly with increasing frequency in
the top end, smoothly sloped down with increasing
frequency in room response. This might be called a
textbook ideal, but it is far from easy to pull off!
Incidentally, I am really indebted to designer Paul
Barton for his detailed answers to my technical
questions and for sharing a great deal of information on
the measured performance of the T6s. But for people
who worry about such things, I listened long and wrote
this review except for very minor revisions before
seeing any measurements at allnot even my own,
as my measurement system was temporarily down.
My comments on frequency response were based on
listening and experimenting with what small EQ changes
improved the sound to my ears, not on any preconceived
ideas from measurements. Interestingly, my observations
fit essentially line by line with the measurement information
supplied later by Paul Barton from the Canadian NRC
facility.
A bit technical there in the description, all that about
power response and so onbut it all adds up to things that
are musically important. The well-balanced sound comes
out into the room with real naturalness and no sense of
the listener being restricted to a tiny sweet spot, nor of
the sweet-spot sound being erratically different from the
overall room sound.
Now there are alternative approaches to making a
speaker work in a room involving much narrower radiation
patterns, and it is no secret to TAS readers that I have a soft
spot for the narrow-pattern approach. But truly, the most
crucial point is not so much wideness-versus-narrowness
as such, but rather smooth variation of the pattern with
frequency, and this the T6s do very well. This speaker
really sounds like music at some deep level and very much
not like a speaker, in a way hard to put into words in detail
but very easy to hear.
The T6s are not perfectif they could be, what would
the higher-priced PSB models be for? The tweeter, while
very pure sounding, has to my ears a slightly different
tonal color than the midrange driver, a little metal-dome
sweetnessnot unpleasant, just a bit of extra color, heard
mostly on high massed strings. Also to my ears, the treble
is slightly hot in the real top, in the context of overall flat
response, and the sound a little bit hard. Paul Barton, as
I understood him, is quite intent upon not having any of the
British politeness, which was derived from a combination
of a deliberate dip in the 26kHz rangethe BBC [or
Gundry] dipand the directionality arising at the top of
the operating range of large midrange drivers. Fair enough,
to eschew this, an esthetic judgment callbut to my ears
previous page NeXT page
EQUIPMENT rEvIEw - PSB Image T6 Loudspeaker
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the T6s go a bit too far in the other direction with
what seems to me a little excess around 4kHz.
The T6s do not do much tempering of the wind
to the shorn lamb as far as program material is
concerned.
The exact perceived balance can be altered
by changing seating height and by more or less
toe-in. The speaker has a quite smooth variation
of response with respect to such changes, so
one can use them for adjustment to taste without
introducing coloration.
The midrange does a fine job of the human
voice, which sounds natural and naturally
balanced. Most instruments are similarly well
served. The T6s were not at their absolute best
on solo piano recordings, on which the speaker
exhibited a certain coloration of the specifics of
piano tone. This is subtle, though, and might pass
without notice unless you listen to a real piano in
direct comparison. I think this came from a little
bit of extra energy from the midrange driver, a
little projection around 1.5kHz, since a little EQ
down at that frequency largely eliminated it. (This
little excess can make the midrange driver come
out a bit at close range on material that is at all
midrange-forward). But overall, the sound is quite
uncolored.
The treble is so clean that its slight excess, if
excess it be, is less disturbing than it could be,
and for some types of music the little extra zip and
presence may actually enhance the experience.
I get some idea that the T6 is perhaps intended
for young people and their livelier music, with the
more expensive Synchrony line, which I gather has
a slightly less live balance, intended for the older,
presumably richer, but more sedate customers.
I experimented with pulling the treble/upper-mid
down a little. Lenbrook Industries, parent company
of PSB, also owns NAD, whose products feature
tone controls, so I did not feel guilty experimenting
with such adjustments, though I used the Z Systems
rdp-1 digital EQ rather than a tone control in the
usual sense. For things like classical orchestral
music, this small adjustment, specifically pulling
a dB or so out at 4kHz and as noted a tad out
around 11.5kHz, gave what seemed to me a more
natural balance. But the T6s as they are were by
no means unsatisfactory. Indeed, they are very
much in line with current practice in the high end
where a dB or two of extra treble has seemingly
become regarded as preferable to a dB or two too
little. But a little less treble made things better to
my ears.
The bass was much to my liking, warm, full, yet
defined in pitch. The bass has, compared to, say,
sealed boxes optimized for bass tightness, a little
bloomlike a concert, arguably, but perhaps
not ideal for some music where bass tightness is
called for. For orchestral music, it was fine indeed.
Overall, the sound was very smooth and natural.
And orchestral sound was well balanced and
exceptionally convincing.
As I mentioned, the T6s really dealt effectively
with the floor-loading issue, a pet peeve of mine:
It is all very well to say that rooms vary, and of
course they do. But everyone has a floor. It is
dismaying that most floorstanders do not do
anything to accommodate the loading by the
inevitable floor. This can be a huge effect, both
in terms of measurement and, more importantly,
musically.
Much to PSBs credit, the T6s were deliberately
designed to work correctly with a floor beneath
them. The PSB Web site makes an explicit point
of this, as well it should. The musical effect was
profound and profoundly desirable. Round and
about, one can find reviews commenting on how
the PSB floorstanders are overly warm. Dont you
believe it! This is what music really sounds like,
and invidious comparison to other floorstanders
is just revealing the others floor dip. And floor dip
is neither on the recordings nor a feature of real
music. And if you are inclined to use DSP to make
the bass in room even closer to perfect, you will
find not much to correct and the correction easy,
since the speaker lacks those cancellation dips
that are so hard to deal with.
The T6s sounded remarkably like a real orchestra
on the Telarc Bolero, with the spectacularly well
recorded Carmen Suites in particular. The T6s
also revealed clearly the striking tonal beauty of
the Dvorak Legends recording by Fischer and
the Budapest Festival Orchestra [Philips]; they
also revealed the microphone patterns and the
differences among the tracks, which come in two
sets, recorded at different times.
The result was truly like what HP calls the gestalt
of a real orchestra, with minimal sense of sound
from speakers as such. Smaller scaled music
Ulf Bastiens Winterreise recording [Ars Musici],
for examplewas equally convincing. And the
resolution of detail, the clarity, the intelligibility
of words, the positioning of images precisely
and convincingly were all most gratifying both in
audiophile and in strictly musical terms.
It is a perennial topic among audiophiles, how
far recorded music is from live, with the glass-half-
full side commenting on the similarities, the half-
empty side noting the differences. To an extent
surprising in a relatively inexpensive speaker, the
T6s make the argument for similarity to live sound
very convincingly. These speakers can sound
remarkably like the real thing. And you will never
be able to go back to speakers with that floor dip
between 100 and 300Hz again, that is for sure.
Perfect, not quite, but startlingly close at the
price, yes, indeed.
psB image T6 Loudspeaker
Type: Three-way floorstanding loudspeaker
Driver complement: Two 6.5 woofers, one 5.5
midrange, one 1 titanium dome tweeter
Frequency response: Bass: -1.5dB at 45Hz, -3dB at
32Hz, -10dB at 28Hz; treble: +/-1.5dB at 20kHz
Sensitivity: anechoic, 88dB; in room, typically 91dB
Impedance: 8 ohms nominal, 4 ohms minimum
Power handling: 200 watts program maximum, 20
watts minimum recommended amplifier power
Dimensions: 43 x 7.75 x 14.75
speCs & priCiNg
u.s.
Price: $1199/pr
psB speakers
iNTerNaTioNaL
633 Granite Court
Pickering, Ontario, L1W
3K1
Canada
(905) 831-6555
info@PSBspeakers.com
psbspeakers.com
u.k.
Image range not
distributed in UK
arMour He
Units 7 & 8, Stortford
Hall Industrial Park
Dunmow Road, Bishops
Stortford, Herts
CM23 5GZ
+44(0)1279 501111
armourhe.co.uk
CLICK HERE TO COMMENT IN THE FORUM aT avguide.CoM
O
nce in a while a component comes along that really twists your melon as some hop heads
from Madchester once proclaimed. These things realign your expectations and make
life rather dull when the manufacturer wants them back again. January is a long dull
month with a tax bill to pay at the end of it and a deficit of sunlight, but this year my January
was enlightened in no small manner by two pieces of equipment, the Rega Isis CD player and
the PMC Fact 8. Now, I like PMC speakers, they are usually good if not very good for their given
price points and some specifically the pro models - are near the top of the if I won the lottery
wish list. But its been a while since a pair of those has come my way and you forget what youre
missing after a while and adjust to the far from scrappy results of coming out of the regular
speakers. Then PMC brings out a new a rather different speaker, something that is distinctly
more elegant than most thanks to the cleanest cabinet design to hit this business in a long time.
Its also different because of the way it sounds, which is quite hard to put your finger on until you
hear another good speaker and wonder why it sounds a bit thick.
pMC Fact 8
Elegant design, studio heritage
Jason Kennedy
The Fact 8 is a new breed of PMC, it has the companys
trademark ATL or advanced transmission line but in
other respects does not resemble anything that Lutons
finest audio equipment manufacturer has built before.
For a start it has a perfectly rectilinear, sharp edged
cabinet which doesnt sit on a plinth but rests on two
chrome plated bars. These extend the footprint to
provide greater stability and are threaded to accept
equally shiny 6mm spikes, but not ordinary examples
of the breed. The spikes have a rounded end as well so
that you can place them on a hard floor without leaving
holes. And if you really want to protect the floor there
are plastic caps to put over the spikes.
The all important drive units do not seem all that
special at a glance but look at a whole bass driver and
you will see that the 140mm bass unit has an unusually
substantial magnet on the back of its cast alloy chassis.
The cone itself appears to be about 95mm in diameter
and is coated with what PMC describes as a feather
light stiff-matte doping process, this is combined with
an excursion braking system (a spider?) that controls
maximum excursion. Despite the existence of three
drive units the Fact 8 is a two-way, itself quite unusual
because this sort of configuration is generally used
in two and half way designs. More unusual, in fact
downright radical is the 1.7kHz crossover point that
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - pmc fact 8 loudspeaker
designer Pete Thomas has chosen. This is around
a kilohertz below the norm and leaves the tweeter
with a lot of bandwidth to cover, its not therefore
your run of the mill 25mm dome. Rather its a drive
unit with a 19mm central dome and a large roll-
surround that brings the overall diameter up to
34mm, a combination of characteristics that when
combined with high quality engineering allows it
to go wide and to cope with power handling that
PMC expects of its designs.
While PMC doesnt manufacture drive units it
does all the R&D work on them and has them built
to its specifications so the tweeter on this speaker
is not one youll find elsewhere. It has a large
enclosure on the back that damps any resonance
and the dome itself is made of Sonomex. Putting
that name into Google brings up the SEAS Excel
range of tweeters which have a similar construction
but different specs alongside prices that start
at 84, which is already expensive, factor in the
custom build requirement and the margins for
distributors and dealers and it becomes apparent
why this speaker costs what it does.
The crossover has to be pretty cleverly put
together to cope with the challenges of taking
the tweeter down so low, it runs a 24dB/octave
slope as a low-pass roll off for the bass units and
a 32dB/octave one to bring the tweeter in above
them. The latter is not a slope Ive heard of before
but is presumably required to take the tweeter
low enough without letting it get to its resonant
frequency. The actual crossover board sits on a
lozenge shaped PCB behind the terminal block
on the speaker. Alongside the beautiful fact Ag
silver plated binding posts there are switches that
allow you to control the output of the bass and
treble sections of the speaker. Treble or HF can
be increased or decreased by 2dB while bass can
be reduced by 3dB or 6dB. If you want to increase
bass output you merely put the speakers closer
to the rear wall. I found them pretty easy to site,
results did vary and it was fairly easy to tune the
bass output to a desirable level with the wall about
half a metre behind them.
As is the PMC way bass output is augmented by
an ATL or advanced transmission line that starts
behind the bass drivers and vents through a slot at
the front in phase with the output from the drivers.
In the fact 8 an extra chamber has been added
above the vent and behind the front baffle, thanks
to a cunning choice of aperture size this chamber
absorbs any upper bass harmonics that remain
and damps them out. It looks and sounds simple
enough but if the speed and resolution in the bass
on this speaker is anything to go by it works rather
well. In fact the whole thing works rather well.
This is the most open box speaker I have ever
encountered and its phenomenally revealing, to call
it a wolf in sheeps clothing is an understatement.
How can something this elegant produce both
high precision imaging in all three dimensions as
well as proper bass. The latter is perhaps the most
impressive give the box and driver size, after all
a narrow baffle and compact drivers are proven
quantities if you want great imaging, but its rare to
hear such well extended, well timed and effortless
low frequencies from something so discreet. But
it shouldnt be a surprise, PMC is renowned for
getting its speakers to deliver uncannily clean
pMC Fact 8
System: 2-way atL
tweeter: 19mm Sonomex dome with 34mm surround
bass driver: 140mm paper cone x2
Sensitivity: 88db
Impedance: 8 ohms
Dimensions HxWxD: 103x15.5x38cm
Weight: 20kg
bass and treble output level switching
magnetic grille
finishes: rich walnut, natural oak, tiger ebony, graphite
poplar
SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
price: $9999/pr
pMC USA, LLC
17952 Sky Park Circle
Building 45, Suite A
Irvine, CA 92614
(949) 861-3350
pmc-speakers.com
U.K.
price: 4,600/pr
pMC LTD
+44(0)870 444 1044
pmc-speakers.com
EQUIPMENT rEvIEw - PMC Fact 8 loudspeaker
and effortless bass and in the fact 8 it has refined
the ATL system that is largely responsible for this
reputation. Its not a wall shaker in the style of the
EB and PB models Ive tried but it certainly delivers
gravitas, and unlike its bigger stable-mates does
so in an unusually unboxy fashion this cabinet is
clearly stiff where it needs to be.
The degree of resolution on offer makes it
very easy to differentiate between partnering
components, it was clear for instance that the Rega
Osiris amplifier is not as high in terms of fidelity as
a Class pre/power. The latter delivering a lot more
of the space, depth and realism of a recording
while the integrated Rega times rather better and
draws you into the music more effectively. When
combined with the Isis CD player this system is
uncannily musical, drawing out the tunes from all
manner of material in effortless fashion. The result
with Mimetisms 20.1 CDP and 15.2 integrated
was far more dynamic, extremely fleet of foot and
natural. This pairing comes in at about 10k yet
seemed very well matched to the fact 8s which
fight well above their weight in terms of imaging
and coherence. I didnt have any of the Bryston
amplification that PMC distributes to hand but
imagine that its bigger amps with their effortless
power would really get this speaker jumping.
Power handling is good as youd expect of PMC
and better than you expect of the drive units. But
appearances are deceptive, this may be a smooth
looking design with normal looking drive units but
if youve read this far youll know better.
The combination of qualities on offer here is
significantly greater than the sum of its parts, the
phenomenally open character reveals nuances
and details that more expensive designs miss
and these combine to give a far fuller musical
and more three dimensional picture than most.
More importantly it lets guitarists like Henry Kaiser
deliver his licks in truly blistering style.
Make no mistake this speaker is the real deal,
the fact (pun only slightly intended) that it looks
so good is a just a distraction. But, a very nice
distraction nevertheless. The days of studio
brands making studio-derived speakers with
whats enthusiastically called a business-like
finish are fortunately a thing of the past, judging by
the facts of the Fact.+
T
he Episode, the latest addition to the Reference 3A speaker lineup, may be
fairly summed up as the Grand Veenas smaller brother. Positioned between the
Veena and Grand Veena it is said to offer an easier amplifier load and greater
sensitivity. The Episode uses an 8 full-range version of the Grand Veenas 6.5 main
driver, but the 1 tweeter, the Murata super-tweeter, and the Bybee Quantum Purifier
are common to both.
Reference 3A Episode
Eminently Listenable
Dick Olsher
To describe the Episodes design as a two-way
box speaker with a super tweeter would be
superficial at best. Its raison dtre is a wide-
range driver featuring a flared woven-carbon-fiber
cone similar in shape to that of an exponential
horn, except that the degree of flare is even more
extreme than that, and is denoted as hyper-
exponential by the folks at Reference 3A. The
rationale for the flare is to improve high-frequency
response. The wide-range driver is operated
wide open without a low-pass filter. Measured by
itself on axis (by disconnecting the tweeters), its
frequency response was reasonably flat to 5kHz
with extension to about 10kHz without evidence
of any significant breakup resonances. Beyond
10kHz, the response starts rolling off quickly and
exhibits a last-gasp breakup mode centered
at around 14.5kHz. Wide response and no
crossover network translate into uniform phase
response and excellent time domain behavior.
The fly in the ointment for any wide-range driver
is treble dispersion. The phase plug helps some,
but even so, moving the microphone to about
10 degrees off-axis produced a dramatically
different frequency response with a gentle roll-
off starting at around 2kHz.
Measured full-range, by reconnecting the
tweeter and super tweeter, the Episode produced
a surprisingly uniform response at 10 degrees
even better than that measured on the tweeter axis.
While the on-axis response highlighted a slightly
hot treble range, off-axis the response gelled,
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - reference 3a Episode Loudspeaker
producing one of the most uniform response
curves Ive measured to date at my listening seat.
Not surprisingly, the owners manual recommends
that the speakers be positioned straight out to
the general listening area with the tweeters on the
outside and no toe-in to the listening position. This
raised an eyebrow initially as I am accustomed to
optimizing the soundstage by tweaking three
parameters: distance to the rear wall, spacing
between the speakers, and toe-in angle. In fact,
the classic approach is to toe-in speakers so that
the tweeter axes intersect in front of the listening
seat. That worked very well with the Esoteric MG-
20s, so naturally I felt that one of the available
degrees of freedom was being taken away from me
and I was determined to experiment in this regard
anyway. What I discovered was that while a toe-in
did help expand soundstage width and depth, the
resultant sound wasnt as smooth and a bit too
hot in the treble for my taste. Since the 1 tweeter
rolls in around 3kHz (a first-order network), when
listened to off-axis (e.g., 10 degrees), it contributes
most of the upper midrange and presence region
output at the listening seat. I think that this is
preferablecleaner-sounding relative to having
the wide-range driver contribute much in the way
of direct sound over these octaves. Conclusion:
The folks at Reference 3A know what theyre
talking about. I suggest that you closely abide by
their set-up recommendations.
The 1 tweeter features a silk dome and a
copper Faraday ring. It is built to Reference 3As
specifications in Asia and is currently modified
in-house for more controlled back-chamber
pressure-release to minimize dome breakup
modes. The Murata super-tweeter features a
spherical piezoelectric diaphragm and is actually
advertised as a harmonic enhancer. It presents
a bit of an enigma in that it kicks in around 19kHz
and its range extends to over 80kHz, well beyond
the limits of human hearing. Precious few of us
can hear anything above 15kHz, and with some
program material (standard Red Book CD), there
is absolutely nothing above 22kHz anyway. So its
fair to ask if theres a benefit to such a device. When
I reviewed an earlier stand-alone version of this
super-tweeter some years ago, I found its effect
to be addictive. It helped bridge the gap between
live and reproduced music. When I disconnected
the super-tweeters, the effect was akin to turning
off the lightsthe presentation became darker
and less present. It stands to reason that, in the
context of the Episode, the Murata adds a dose of
sonic Viagra to what otherwise would have been a
soft and laid-back treble range.
The Episode benefits significantly from attention
to detail, and I mean lots of little details. Reference
3As Tash Goka reminded me of the famous quote
that God is in the details, and added in jest that the
details get so much attention probably because
there is no crossover to play with. The main driver
is mechanically grounded to the cabinets spine
brace. In addition, it is treated with Anti-Vibration
Magic Fluid, which is applied much like paint in thin
layers to the voice coil, cone, and shorting ring to
dampen microscopic vibrational energy. Cabinet
walls are constructed with different thickness of
boards, ranging between 25 and 40mm, to minimize
cabinet vibrational resonances. Highest-quality
components are used, including Bybee Quantum
Purifiers and Mundorf caps. Current production
further benefits from several upgrades. Internal
wiring is now PTFE-coated continuous-cast pure
copper. Optimal wire thickness is used for each
driver: 0.6 mm for the tweeter and 0.8 mm for the
wide range. Soft brass screws are used to fasten
drivers for reduced driver/frame resonances. The
floor pads and cones are now made of brass and
the cones are larger and height adjustable. The
binding posts and jumpers have been upgraded
as well and Im told that all connectors, internal
wiring, and metal driver parts are now being
cryogenically treated.
Note that a long break-in period is mandatory.
With time, a slight veiling of the soundstage lifted
much like the morning fog. And the midrange
smooths out as well. A fair amount of effort was
expended searching for an optimum amplifier
match. I tried both the ModWright KWA 150 and
the Pass Labs XA30.5 amps, and in both cases
I admired the resultant bass reach and definition.
Bass response in my room was flat to 40Hz, and I
found it hard to believe that the Episode is in fact
a bass-reflex design. But it is, with a box tuning of
around 45Hz. Jazz bass lines were tightly controlled
with almost no added cabinet signature, making it
possible to resolve pitch modulation to a degree
rare in a box speaker. Yet I was still unhappy with
soundstage dimensions and, mainly, my inability
to connect with the music. The tonal balance
deviated slightly from neutral with a perceived
lightening up of the lower midrange and upper
bass. For all these reasons it seemed logical to try
a tube amp. In went the Audio Space Reference
3.1 (300B) power amp and you should have heard
the resultant whoosh sound as I instantly got
sucked into the performance. There is no doubt
in my mind that the Episode needs and wants a
tube amp to sound its best. OK, so bass control
might suffer a bit, but its a small price to pay for a
truckload of sonic magic. Note that the impedance
magnitude over the frequency range of 150Hz to
20kHz is quite flat and tube-amp-friendly, lying
within a narrow band of 5.5 to 8.5 ohms. Expect
only a minor interaction with a tube amps source
impedance.
With tubes firmly in control I could report that
image outlines were solidly anchored within the
confines of the soundstage, and fleshed out in
palpable fashion. Depth perspective was still
diminished relative to what I was able to obtain
Reference 3A Episode Loudspeaker
frequency response: 38Hz20kHz, +/-3db (up to
100kHz with murata super-tweeter)
Sensitivity: 91db/1W
power handling: 120W rmS
nominal Impedance: 8 ohms
Weight: 55 lbs.
SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
price: $5500/pr in wood
veneer; $5995/pr in high-
gloss piano black
REFERENCE 3A
F342 Frederick Street
Kitchener, Ontario
N2H 2N9
Canada
(519) 749-1565
info@reference3A.com
reference3A.com
U.K.
price: 5,095/pr in wood
veneer; 5,605/pr in high-
gloss piano black
ABSOLUTE ANALOgUE
PO Box 30429,
London,
NW6 7GY
+44(0)20 8459 8113
Absolute_Analogue@email.
msn.com
absoluteanalogue.co.uk
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - reference 3a Episode Loudspeaker
with the more expensive Esoteric MG-20, which
has raised the bar to new heights when it comes
box-speaker soundstaging. The Episode sailed
right through female vocals with excellent timbre
accuracy and emotional expressiveness. Male
voice was uncoloreda testament to a lack of
resonances in the lower midrange. String tone
was luscious, and harmonic colors were portrayed
vividly. There was plenty of detail in evidence, yet
at no time did I perceive the presentation to be
hyper-detailed. The music boogied along naturally
and scored high on the listenability scale.
I absolutely hate a comatose-sounding speaker,
and let me make this perfectly clear, the Episode is
far from zombie-like in its reproduction of dynamic
contrasts. In fact, the dynamic range from soft to
loud was reproduced with plenty of conviction.
However, there was occasional trouble during loud
program peaks, at which point the upper midrange
and presence regions congested and turned hard
and shouty. This was an issue with both analog
and digital program material and with both the
Audio Space and higher-power ModWright
KWA 150 amplifiers. The upper midrange is the
transition region where the 1 dome tweeter kicks
in. I wondered if the tweeter was being sufficiently
protected by a first-order network, which forces
the tweeter to work harder with decreasing
frequency. Obviously, it is working from a power-
handling standpoint, but its distortion spectrum
appeared to rise significantly whenever it was hit
hard. If youre looking for a speaker to deploy in a
large room, I suspect the Episode is not for you.
The demise of box speakers has been greatly
exaggerated. You would think that, at least
in the high end, high-tech speakers such as
electrostatics and planar/ribbon magnetics would
have displaced cone-driver technology. But
electrodynamic speakers survived the challenge
because they can be miniaturized to blend into a
smallish domestic environment or be made large
enough to reach levels of bass extension and
dynamics unattainable otherwise. In addition, many
audiophiles prefer a box speakers soundstaging
with its pinpoint imaging precision. The Episode
is a case in point. No, the midrange lacks
electrostatic transparency, and neither does the
dome tweeter approximate the performance of a
ribbon transducer. When set up as recommended,
theres much to cheer and not much to complain
about. The Episode is a complete package, well-
engineered and executed; it sounds coherent
and musicalfelicitous on female voice and in
harmonic colors. And you dont get cheated at the
frequency extremes. In particular, bass definition
and extension are excellentas good as they
get at this price point. Then theres the Murata
super-tweeter, which serves to animate the
upper registers. When driven within its dynamic
comfort zone, the overall presentation can best be
characterized as eminently listenablelively and
engaging without being assertive. At its asking
price, the Episode represents a superb deal for
music lovers and audiophiles alike.
F
or most of us who have followed Englands Rega for the past 30 or so
years, the name conjures thin-slab turntables of ultra-simplicity and
high-performance-to-cost ratio. What many do not realize, or may be
barely aware of, is that Rega also builds really good electronics and, yes, even
loudspeakers. The company successfully made the transition from a relatively
small craftshop into a fully modern manufacturing company, occupying a 30,000+
square-foot factory and design center that employs more than 50 people. The
entire production is dedicated to two-channel products. Rega makes most of the
parts in house, and uses local suppliers whenever possible.
Rega RS5
Affordable and Musically Satisfying
Wayne garcia
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - rega rS5 Loudspeaker
This polymorphous nature is but a part of the
Rega story. More significantly, even in the days
when nearly every other manufacturer decided
that home theater was the most likely path to
long-term prosperity, Rega held firm to its
dedication to good old-fashioned stereophonic
sound. Put another way, Rega never felt that you
had to sell bags of popcorn in order to get music
lovers to stay in their seats. Just good, engaging,
and compelling sound at workingmans prices.
Adding to the firms iconoclasm is this: In a day
when outsourcing is about as commonplace
as a Republican sex scandal, Rega does not
outsource. While many a fine product is built
overseas (see B&W above), Rega builds all its
gear in the U.K., and sources pretty much all its
component parts from local suppliers. Funny,
isnt it, how this sort of backward thinking
suddenly seems very forward thinking?
Now, Ive been a Rega fan for a long time. I
once sold mountains of its turntables at retail,
and have reviewed nearly as many of its products
over the years. But the $1600 RS5 is not only the
first Rega speaker Ive reviewed; its one of the
few Ive ever heard. According to U.S. importer
Steve Daniels of the Sound Organisation, the
RS5 is the first RS-series Rega speaker to be
reviewed on these shores.
Like B&Ws CM7, the RS5 is a relatively
tiny tower design. And while it may not be as
finished as that modelit lacks the sexy gloss
cabinet, slick metal work, and overall refinement
mentioned abovethis is a speaker that, from
the first notes, tells you its got something
special to offer.
Listening to Bright Eyes Im Wide Awake,
Its Morning [Saddle Creek LP] revealed an
outstanding balance between Conor Obersts
introspective, slightly quivering voice, the
shimmering clarity of the acoustic guitars,
and the rumbling, beautifully defined drums.
The Rega RS5 opened up a large window to
the sound that, while focused and grounded,
seemed at the same time to blossom beyond
the boundaries of the cabinet.
This open window to the event would confirm
itself on records ranging from Neil Youngs Live at
Massey Hall [Reprise CD], where Youngs voice
and big ol Martin dreadnought are engulfed by
the venues ambience and enthusiastic crowd,
to Donald Byrds The Cat Walk [Music Matters
Blue Note LP (review this issue)], where you
virtually get to peek in on a Rudy Van Gelder
recording session, to a seat at Ligetis comic
nightmare opera Le Grande Macabre [Sony CD],
a stunning recording that pretty much defines
words such as transparent and palpable.
I believe that much of this quality begins with
Regas cabinet, available in natural cherry or
black ash veneers, which is relatively lightweight
and quite rigid. The midrange driver is sealed
within its own chamber, tweeter below, while
a bass driver fires out the side and a front-
loaded vent hovers near the enclosures spiked
bottom.
The side woofers and front vents also allow
for quite a bit flexibility when it comes to room
placementwoofers inside or out depending
on proximity to sidewalls, with the front ports
allowing for closer to rear-wall placement in
smaller rooms.
The new, hand-assembled-in-house HF20-
ZRR tweeter is a Rega-designed silk dome
with excellent detail, air, and smooth response.
The midrange and bass units are also built in
house, and Regas RR125 mid/bass driver
should be singled out for its musicality and
integration within the design. Rega also boasts
of its simple, easy-to-drive crossover networks,
which are in keeping with the companys less
is more philosophy.
Returning to Wilcos new record emphasized
the RS5s strengthsexcellent clarity, an
uncluttered stage, natural tonality, a large
transparent presentation, and fine focus. Its
tonal balance is nearly spot-on, though some,
no doubt, will prefer a more muscular sound.
And while this was never intended to be a
shoot-out review, its more or less impossible
not to draw a few general comparisons. Where
the CM7 is rich, bold, and dramatically upfront,
the RS5 presents a leaner, more chiseled sound
that invites you in.
And here I cant help but draw an analogy
to wine. Take one varietal, say, Pinot Noir. One
producer makes a big, velvety, fruit-forward
version, while anothers is lighter and less
overtly fruity. At days end you have two very
different yet equally satisfying expressions of
the grape.
Rega RS5
type: three-way, floorstanding front-vented
loudspeaker
Driver complement: rega Hf20-Zrr tweeter, rr125
midrange, 7 side-firing woofer
Sensitivity: 89db
Impedance: 6 ohms
recommended amplifier power: 30500Wpc
Dimensions: 9.7 x 32.7 x 9.7
Weight: 26.5 lbs.
SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
price: $1600/pr
THE SOUND
ORgANISATION
159 Leslie Street
Dallas, Texas 75207
(972) 234-0182
soundorg.com
rega.co.uk
U.K.
price: 898/pr
REgA RESEARCH
6 Coopers Way,
Temple Farm Industrial
Estate,
Southend on Sea,
Essex SS2 5TE
rega.co.uk
the rega opened a large
window on the sound
The Bad Boy from Italy
Neil gader
Technically, the Liuto replaces the Domus line, and falls between the Toy line
and the Classic models like the $13k Cremona M. Its available not only as the
floorstander considered here but as the Monitor, a stand-mounted compact,
and the Smart, a multipurpose surround/center channel. While Liuto maintains
classic Sonus visual cues such as the lute-shaped side panels, Liuto is a
cleaner, more contemporary take that should be an easier and more dcor-
neutral fit into most rooms. Dressed in a glossy rock-star black finish, Liuto is
positively stunning. The only awkwardness is that the outrigger-style spiked
footers stabilizing the rear have not been carried forward to the fronta visual
mismatch.
The Liuto is a three-way, vented, medium-sized floorstander roughly 41
tall. It uses all new drivers including a 6 polypropylene/textile midrange, a 9
aluminum/magnesium woofer, and a return to the larger 1 soft-dome tweeter
of earlier models. Its sensitivity and impedance suggest its an easy speaker
I
d just finished shutting off the system after a lengthy session listening to a wide range of LPs. There
was The Polices Synchronicity, a smattering of Jennifer Warnes and Holly Cole and Tom Waits, and,
just for good measure, the Atlanta Brass Ensemble performing Coplands Fanfare For The Common Man
on no less than the classic Crystal Recordings direct-to-disc LP. As the mighty Plinius Hiato integrated
amp (with 300 raging Aussie watts per channel) cooled down I began noting my impressions, I thought to
myself, mamma mia, a speaker even Slash would love. Meet Liuto, the latest addition to the Sonus faber
family. The name is Italian for lute but any resemblance to the baroque-era gut-string instrument brought
to life in concert by virtuosos like Julian Bream, Narciso Yepes, or John Williams is purely coincidental.
This is the speaker your mother warned you about. One thatll get you blacklisted by that stuffy condo
homeowners association. Yes, a Sonus faberthe same manufacturer known for its elite Homage Series
speakers christened with iconic names like Guarneri and Stradivari. The Liuto is the devilish bad boy of the
lineup with no respect for its elders.
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - Sonus faber Liuto tower loudspeaker
to drive, and sure enough lightweight amps will do
the job, kind of. But as is always the case in audio
the more watts you bring to the party the more
good things are bound to happen. So it was with
the Liuto.
John Hunter of U.S. importer Sumiko told me
the Liuto reminded him of early SF designs like
the Electa and Electa Amator. The difference
is the improved speed of the newly developed
damped-aluminum-cone woofer. In opting for the
speed and slam of the new driver and in order to
maximize its potential, a lower crossover point of
350Hz was required. Sonus therefore needed a
midrange that could kick in at a lower frequency
and a tweeter which could also perform a half-
octave lower. Enter the large chamber soft dome
instead of the smaller-surface-area ring radiator of
Sonus Domus models. As Hunter explained, for
Sonus, this has always been the order of things
the primary directive is to get the drivers right and
the crossover will fall into place, rather than fixing
it in the mix.
Sonically the Liuto applies its handiwork with
a familiar Sonus blend of midrange warmth,
instrumental detail, an enveloping soundstage,
and low-frequency extension that seems
comfortable well into the 30-cycle range. Its a
signature sound that embodies the kind of va-va-
voom sensuousness you can sink into. Like the
perfect doppio espresso, complete with golden
crema, theres a slightly darker tonal character to
the weighty, chocolaty low-end, and an appealing
treble that is detailed but doesnt skew to the
clinical. As good as the bass is (and it truly is
robusto) it will require some serious attention to
placement or it can get a bit thick and unruly (as
deep bass does if not optimized). Find the sweet
spot, however, and the low frequencies impart a
wonderfully tactile impression that lets you hear
the skins of drums, the fingertips lighting on the
strings of a standup bass, any kind of deep acoustic
instruments that sends low-frequency ripples into
the air. Is it the fastest bass Ive heard? No, but
its very good, especially for a bass-reflex design
of this magnitude. The Liutos treble region has
the knack of balancing articulation and refulgent
harmonics while steering clear of raw edginess.
The brass ensemble from Holly Coles The Briar
and the Rose [Alert] is one of my favorite tests. It
can and has sounded horribly synthetic, but the
Liuto conveys the specific natural timbre of each
player, all superbly delineated.
Dynamics could be the biggest story here. At
micro and macro levels, the Liuto really turns
up the heat on many fine two-ways, 2.5-ways,
and even some three-ways. Lively would be an
understatementcall Liuto, Sonus Unchained.
For example the massive arrays of percussion
and tympani during Fanfare swept across the
soundspace like cascading howitzers evincing
an utter lack of smearing during the full-bore
brass passages. Likewise, string-section layering,
microdynamic interplay, and depth cues were
vividly and authentically rendered.
Almost as impressive is an all-encompassing
soundfield that moves energy into every corner
of the soundstage. Orchestral depth is simply
stunning. Even in my small room I could hear
the mass of chorus and horns layered along
the wall behind the speakers as I listened to the
final movement of Beethovens Ninth in the Solti/
Chicago version [Decca]. I dont hear a Jekyll and
Hyde split between on-axis and off-axis behavior
that tends to lock heads in a single position. Id
guess its power response measurement is likely
type: three-way vented box
Drivers: 1 fabric dome tweeter, polypropylene/textile
6 mid, 9 aluminum/magnesium alloy woofer
Sensitivity: 89db
Impedance: 8 ohm
Dimensions: 40.6 x 9.3 x 16.25
Weight: 66 lbs.
SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
price: $5998/pr
SUMIKO AUDIO
2431 Fifth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
(510) 843-4500
sumikoaudio.net
U.K.
price: 3,371/pr
ABSOLUTE SOUNDS
58 Durham Road,
London, SW20 0TW
+44 (0)20 8971 3909
absolutesounds.com
this is the speaker your mother warned you about.
the one that will get you blacklisted by that stuffy
homeowners condo association.
EQUIPMENT rEvIEw - Sonus faber Liuto Tower loudspeaker
excellent.
Its a matter of taste whether one will object
to the soothing quality that the Liuto applies to
vocalists. Its a subtle inflection but as I listened
to Tom Waits perform Georgia Lee and Take
It With Me from his Mule Variations LP [Anti/
Epitaph] I came to the conclusion that a portion
of his throaty near-guttural presence was slightly
weakened. It was indeed the same voice, but
through the Liuto it sounded as if Waits had just
downed a hot tea with honey and lemon; the pointy
shards of vocal grit and gravel had been smoothed
over. For female singers, however, this tonal
equation resolved somewhat differently. During
Jennifer Warnes The Ballad of the Runaway
Horse from Famous Blue Raincoat [Shout/
Cisco], the Liuto pulled a bit more articulation and
transient information from her voice, which lent
the track a slightly drier, tighter character. In the
upper mids there was brief dry patch as if a bit of
energizing air had escaped the soundstage. In my
view, more a small subtraction than a weakness,
but unlike the Waits, which maintained an overall
warmer tonality, the Warnes cooled the sound
slightly. Ultimately I found that I could improve this
coloration somewhat (not entirely) by reducing
the lateral spread of the speakers in my room
and distancing the sidewall reflection point a few
inches. It improved the body and the centering
of the vocal and pulled the singer into stronger
focus.
Since the Liuto was designed to bring much of
the performance of the Cremona M to a less lofty
price point, comparisons to that vaunted speaker
are inevitable. The Liuto fares well even though it
is a different animal. The Cremona M is a bit flatter
tonally across the octaves, goes a bit deeper, and
commands greater control. It also exhibits a more
exacting top end. However, it may not be quite as
viscerally exciting. Like I said the Liuto has this
effusive and unabashed party animal signature
whereas the Cremona M seems a bit more
buttoned down and thoughtful about each note it
reproduces. And its pretty much a dead heat on
transients. The Liutos interdriver coherence is very
good for its price, but depending on the recording
there isnt quite the same of-a-piece quality as the
superbly integrated Cremona M. And neither has
the point-source single-driver-style coherence of
a great two-way like my reference ATCs. Fact is,
for less than half the cost of the Cremona M, youll
be getting a speaker that comes mighty close to
the Cremonas stomping grounds, which is very
good news for the prospective Liuto buyer.
The Liuto may not possess the last scintilla of
nuance or the haughty finishing school behavior
of the Cremona and the Homage Series flagships
but its a high-voltage performer, both infinitely
entertaining and musical. Its also a flat-out great
valuenot a virtue always associated with Sonus
faber. In fact during these hard luck times for
everyones beaten-down 401(k), the Liuto might
be just the stimulus weve been waiting for. Pound
for pound, dollar for dollar, its the best speaker in
the proud Sonus family.
The Liuto may not possess the last scintilla
of nuance or the haughty finishing school
behavior of the Cremona and the Homage Series
flagships, but its a high-voltage performer.
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEWS
Loudspeakers $10k-$40k
THIS SECTION
BROUGHT
TO YOU BY
QUAD
T
here something reassuringly European about the Audio Physic range. Elegantly
designed, subtle and very well thought out, the range is well-built, priced
intelligently and manages to be popular both with the flat-earth crowd (after a bit of
quality away-from-the-wall speaker action) and collectors of high-end Americana wanting
a loudspeaker that fits in with our European design sensitivities.
The Cardeas is second from top in the Audio
Physic range, but the Kronos flagship is long in
the tooth now. And for once, Audio Physic trickles
technology up, not down. The key stories in recent
tales of Audio Physic centre around the companys
Hyper Holographic Cone Technology, which first
appeared in the Avanti and Virgo 5 models further
down the line. Then came Cardeas, which takes the
technology up a notch or six. In Greek mythology,
Cardea was the goddess of protecting the home,
but at 55kg, its probably your spine (rather than the
door hinges) that needs protecting.
Cardeas is a sealed box loudspeaker, medium-
large by European standards and it requires a
relatively large room in Eurozone terms too. This is
in part because the Cardeas is a deep loudspeaker
that needs to be a metre or so away from side and
rear walls and needs to be a good 2.25 metres apart.
But the old Audio Physic recipe of firing across the
width of the room, with speakers set far wider than
usual is not required here. Its more conventional in
layout and room design.
What hasnt changed is the narrow front baffle
that made Audio Physic so ground-breaking in the
first place. The slimmer the front of the speaker the
better the imaging, but with that imaging comes
increased diffraction effects causing unwanted
peaks and dips in the frequency response (this is
usually perceived as increased coloration instead
of obvious frequency anomalies). There are many
ways around this (horn-loaded drivers, stick-on cork
or foam surrounds, and the rest). Audio Physics
plan has been to use incredibly careful drive unit
placement to minimise diffraction, but ensure the
drivers are doing their level best to prevent diffraction
effects in the first place.
Part of that is the use of the new Hyper
Holographic Cone driver technology; yes, Audio
Physic takes the rare and difficult path of designing
its own drivers. In the woofer, this custom driver
uses an aluminium frame with a plastic inner basket
(most designs use plastic or metal, not the two
together) allowing the heat dissipation properties of
the former to blend with the improved damping of
Audio physic Cardeas
Welcome to the new Europe!
Alan Sircom
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - audio physic cardeas loudspeaker
the latter. In the tweeter, Audio Physic went right
back to the foundation stones of box speaker
design and has just reinvented the cone tweeter
for the high-end, albeit a cone tweeter with a
dome sealing element presenting to the listener.
Cone tweeters went out of fashion years ago,
because they were either too stiff or too heavy,
resulting in a tweeter that quacked like a duck
or rolled off not long after the top registers of a
bass guitar. Much of those problems were due to
the relatively limited materials on offer some time
ago and new low-mass, soft materials effectively
solve those problems. The result is effectively the
elimination of the ringing effects that can plague
dome tweeter designs. A foam surround aids the
reduction of diffraction effects and Audio Physics
neat Active Cone Damping system (a silicone/
rubber ring on the outer ring of the cone pushing
back on the cone during its excursion) helps cut
down ringing still further. All the drive units are
ceramic-coated aluminium designs.
The result is a big, passive three and a half-way
design with a 260mm side-firing bass unit, two
150mm mid/bass units, another 150mm unit as
midrange and a 39mm dome on cone tweeter.
Isolation is a key part of the Cardeas ethos. The
inside of the cabinet is multi-chambered to isolate
the individual speaker ways. The tweeter, mid,
mid-bass and each individual WBT binding post
are independently mounted on what Audio Physic
calls its String Suspension Concept, while the
tweeters crossover is directly wired, eliminating
the need for potentially resonant PCBs in the
high-frequency region. The WBT posts already
rest in the companys Vibration Control Terminal;
to then further isolate them from the surroundings
is either gilding the lily or taking vibration control
very seriously. Either way, its impressive from a
taking things seriously point of view.
This is one of the most character changing
speakers out there. Out of the box, youll get on
the phone and start moaning because the speaker
sounds pony (Cockney rhyming slang Pony
and Trap...). A week of through playing later, a
magical transformation happens and everything
beds in nicely. We used the Cardeas in a system
comprising Oracles sweet-looking, top-loading
integrated CD player into a Belles VT-01 pre and
200 watt mono power amps. This made a perfect
match for the loudspeakers, and fits nicely into
the 40-350W amp recommendations Audio
Physic suggests for the Cardeas. From a bit of
experimentation, when it comes to power amps,
transistors are your friends but tubes should be
approached with caution. Its not a tough load,
but those bass drivers could go all plummy when
used with an amplifier that thinks damping factor
is something to do with a barometer.
The Cardeas does everything Audio Physic
traditionally does well, great imaging, clean and
detailed presentation, crystal clear midrange
tonality, but with more, and more bass to boot.
This was perhaps one of the stumbling blocks of
previous Audio Physic products like the classic
Step; the cheaper models were ideal for small
rooms, but the bass was either MIA or slightly out
of, ahem, step with the rest of the performance.
The Cardeas has a clever and revelatory bass.
Its not there until you need it, then it kicks in
perfectly well, perfectly accurately, perfectly
Audio physic Cardeas
three and a half way floorstanding loudspeaker
Infinite baffle design
Driver complement: 39mm HHct cone tweeter
150mm HHcm midrange
2x 150mm HHcm mid/bass units
260mm bass driver
frequency response: 25Hz-40kHz
Sensitivity: 89db
Impedance: 4 ohms
Dimensions (WxHxD): 30.5x119x59.5cm
Weight: 55kg
SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
price: $30,000/pr
(regular finish)
$32,500/pr (special
finishes)
DIMEXS INC.
9692 Trans-Canada Hwy
Montreal, Qc, H4S 1V9
888-384-1555
dimexs.com
U.K.
price: 16,500/pr
(depending on finish)
AUDIO pHYSIC
audiophysic.de
Distributed by
C-TECH AUDIO
+44 (0)7738 714 619
c-techaudio.co.uk
deeply. Theres a very slight warmth to
the upper mids; mild enough to pass
unnoticed on any normal speaker, but
the clarity of the rest of the Cardeas is so
remarkable that its mild warmth (it makes
a dreadnought acoustic guitar sound
more like a jumbo acoustic guitar) is
apparent. The fact that its only noticeable
on specific instruments and really
likely only noticeable to someone who
gets the difference in tonality between a
dreadnought and a jumbo paints it as
really mild. Like so mild, youd forgive it
on a speaker costing twice as much.
Ray LaMontagnes Trouble exemplifies
precisely what is good about this
loudspeaker. The loudspeaker is
perfectly good at processing his unique
blend of alt.folk and alt.country, making
the presentation musically enticing and
articulate. What it also does is act like
your inner musicologist. The level of detail
in the mix makes you pick out not just all
his performance, but the performance
of those who influenced him. One track
sounds like hes singing with the Band,
another sounds like hes standing in
for Van Morrison and so on. The same
applied to the excellent eponymous XX
album all those Nico sings while Joy
Division meets the Cure dismissals on
tracks like VCR are valid, but behind
that is a new band that actually has
something of a bass-line. Thats crystal
clear here.
These are some of the cleanest, driest
sounding loudspeakers Ive heard, but in
an entirely correct way. They will make
almost any other loudspeaker sound
like its got a righteous overhang and a
bass boom. Dont take that dry sound
for light... this is a deep, powerful and
dynamic sounding loudspeaker, just not
one that adds any sense of excess fat to
the sound. This might be disconcerting
for people more used to the box joining in
with the musical celebration, but it makes
things like Little Feats Dixie Chicken (on
Mobile Fidelity) sound more like you are
in the studio than in the listening room.
And out of the listening room, too. Its
one of the secret acid tests of any good
speaker system. If it sounds good outside
the room, its often doing something
right. By removing your direct attention
to the sound and listening to it at one
remove, you hear almost unconsciously
how the system sounds in terms of
musical cohesiveness and dynamic
drive. Its here that these speakers
sound pretty damn fantastic. Kenny
Burrells Midnight Blue is a fine example
of this. Cool guitar, sax and percussion
jazz from the late 1960s, its not that
difficult to get this to sound good in the
listening room, but walk out of the room
and it often sounds remarkably flat. Not
here, the sound is like the guys hanging
out in your living room. Short of donning
an Austin Powers outfit, calling people
hep cats and having drummers called
Clem on speed-dial, this is as close as
you can get to recreating the event in the
home. Niiiiice.
One of the things Ive always admired
about Audio Physic is their inability to
shout music at you. In this respect, they
are very much like the best BBC designs,
only without the sense of restraint some
of those thin-walled loudspeakers bring
to the party. But where the BBC designs
are almost frozen in time (thanks to that
part of the corporation being closed
down), this is the speaker for those
who want to take that classic line of
development a step further from a sonic
standing. This loudspeaker raises that
power exponentially. The tweeter is the
sort of understated player that never
gets in the way of anything, and its
only when you go back to other brash,
tinny, tizzy, hard, soft, bright or dull
sounding tweeters, do you realise what
Audio Physic is doing is so very right in
this speaker. That extends further down
the audio band than usual, too, with
remarkably honest sounding midrange
and bass.
This helps make sense of
they will make almost any other
loudspeaker sound like its got a
righteous overhang and a bass boom.
Shostakovichs Trio for Piano, Violin and
Violoncello, which is one of those strange pieces
of music that often sounds more musically
coherent the smaller the system is. It sounds
fantastic and entirely understandable when you
play it in a car, but often full-range systems focus
your attention on the fireworks at the expense of
the musical themes going on behind that. This still
gives the weight to the music, but adds in a lot
of the musical information that is left behind by
many more flashy systems.
Imagery is an interesting issue with the
Cardeas. Like much of the overall performance,
it doesnt grab you, but gently impresses you
with its unforced, natural soundscapes. At first,
it takes some getting used to, because so many
products try to paint so obvious an imagery
picture that they could make mono sound like
surround sound. Put on something rich and deep
like Ali Farke Toures last album and the
soundstage fills out. Instruments and voices hang
in the space between the speakers like they were
nailed there. Then replace it with something more
close miked and lacking in air like the Vampire
Weekend album and the soundstaging goes
away. But not the fun this poorly recorded
album is the polar opposite of what constitutes
good audiophile recording, but is full of the sort of
energy that the modern music scene is so good
at. Many high-end speakers will reduce this to the
unlistenable pile; the Cardeas doesnt pretty up
the sound, but it makes it sound enjoyable.
If theres a drawback to this, its that many who
are in the market for a big statement loudspeaker
are after big statement sounds. This is like the
best two-way loudspeaker grown tall, with none
of the problems you can sometimes get with
a too-large two-way. Thats a recipe for tightly
focused sound and real-world instruments, but
if you are wanting 200 tall pianos and piccolos
with added 64 organ pipes, look elsewhere. Im
exaggerating somewhat, but those who equate
high-end with big audio will find these speakers
wanting... for all the reasons that make them a
world-class design.
Audio Physics latest docks alongside some
serious players in the high-end world . all the
big high-end loudspeaker names have products
at this price point, although some of these brands
consider the Cardeas price to be an entry point.
This was a concern, because it would be so easy
to come up with a loudspeaker that adds nothing
that wasnt covered by the rivals. Instead, the
Cardeas manages to add to the pantheon of high-
end. If you are tired of large-scale loudspeakers
sounding big and fat and boomy in the bass, and
want something that delivers big speaker scale
with all the fast, precise and detailed performance
of a neat little two-way loudspeaker, this is
arguably the best of the bunch. +
I
recently realised that I have reviewed no fewer than six Focal speakers for Hi-Fi+
over the years, so I cant hide my general admiration for them. For me the most
interesting have always been those designated Be, as that suffix denotes the
speakers that use their famous Beryllium tweeter, first seen in the second generation
Utopia collection more than six years ago. To my ears this inverse-domed unit not
only instantly set a new standard but also made many other speakers sound dull and
dated. Initially it was only seen in the flagship Utopia models, but variations were soon
available in the more affordable Electra range. The units high frequency extension has
never been in doubt, but in more recent versions, Focal has extended its working range
downward, further into that territory usually covered in two-way stand mounts by the
bass/mid driver. There was a lucidity and tonal illumination to the balance of those new
speaker models; one that I felt sure would soon carry over into a new Utopia range, as
and when it appeared.
The Micro-Utopia Be has been my personal
loudspeaker choice for several years, employed
in countless reviews. It is a testament to Focal
that, until recently, I hadnt found any other
stand-mount speaker that could match its unique
balance of attributes. I have heard other superb
HF units of course. The ribbon in the Eben C1, the
twin-ribbon in the JAS Orsa, Piegas extraordinary
magnetostatic mid/hf driver in the TC 10X and the
Scanspeak ring radiator in the Wilson Duette are
all excellent in themselves, but it is their design
implementation that really counts. Both the Wilson
and the Eben are so successful because they are
superbly integrated with their respective cabinets
and with the very different bass/mid drivers they
sit above.
Fast-forward to summer 2008, thirteen years
after the very first Utopia series appeared and
the rumours that Focal have been working on
the third generation range are confirmed as the
Focal Diablo Utopia
Future Perfect...
Chris Thomas
Grande EM, Scala and Diablo are announced.
Focals design team believe that they have
a tremendous advantage over most of their
competitors, in that they manufacturer just about
the whole loudspeaker in-house. Apart from a
drivers chassis and magnets they control every
other facet of production, allowing them to start at
the top by designing the flagshipmodel and then
incorporate what they have learned through their
extensive research into the models lower down
the range. Having spent a couple of days recently
being shown around both the driver manufacturing
facility and the separate cabinet workshop, I
must say that the whole set-up is enormously
impressive. As well as retaining control over all
aspects of production, a situation that frees them
from reliance on sub-contractors, this level of
integrated manufacturing also allows them to react
quickly and decisively to changes in technology or
the market. For example, few manufacturers these
days actually build their own cabinets and many
high-profile speaker brands out-source the work.
Which approach is best depends on the individual
business concerned and the technology and
materials involved. The investment in machinery
required to create the boat-backed, multi-ply
cabinets used by B&W (amongst others) would
clearly be beyond a single speaker company, the
manufacturer in this instance off-setting the cost
across multiple markets, products and customers.
But more traditional methods dont require such
heavy investment, and there is also the cultural
aspect to be considered, something that I believe
is very important to Focal.
The Cabinet
The cabinets are made in the Burgundy region
of France, at Bourbon-Lancy in a factory that
looks and smells like the studio of an instrument
maker, though MDF and interesting veneers are
their materials of choice, as opposed to exotic
hardwoods. The whiff of wood, glue and lacquers
permeates the various sections of this old artisan
shop that started life building fine furniture in
1939. I watched the cabinets for the Diablo take
shape and pass through complex cutting, gluing,
sealing and sanding stations before finally being
ready for painting and final finishing, prior to being
shipped two hours south to St Etienne for driver
installation. Focals design goal is to ensure that
all of the magnets power should drive the cone
rather than moving the cabinet. Where the
first Utopia range featured lead-lined
cabinets to add mass, the second
series saw the lead removed in
favour of what they call Gamma
construction. This aimed at
providing enough stiffness
to resist internal vibration
by using massive cabinet
walls. The third generation
though, takes these
concepts much further.
Now the whole structure
has been re-thought with
the aid of resonance analysis
and vibration cartography that shows a three
dimensional representation of the cabinets
movement under load. Take a closer look at that
bass enclosure and you will see that the Diablo
has a far more complex, tapering
shape than the Micro. Sheer mass
though is not the only answer,
despite having a 50mm baffle. The
cartography data analysis also
allowed them to strategically
locate internal bracing to keep
the cabinet walls as inert as
possible without having to
resort to panels of absurd
thicknesses. The result is a
significantly more effective
and an altogether more elegant
solution. The reflex system survives
but has moved and is now a laminar
slot port on the front of the cabinet,
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - focal Diablo Utopia loudspeaker
the rather striking pair of red Diablos you see
in the photographs were not the actual pair
I reviewed. Due to schedules, logistics and
rGs (thankful) insistence that I was supplied
with a fully run-in speaker, I used a black pair
for the listening. these, as I understand it,
had been soundly and continuously thrashed
for some considerable time, so they would
be ready to go when I first plugged them in.
as you see from the review, I loved them. but
then I took delivery of the red ones and heard
just how bad a pair of brand new Diablos can
really sound. the difference between the two
versions was simply staggering. So, on no
account audition a pair of these speakers that
have not already had extensive use, because
if you do then you will certainly wonder what
all the fuss is about and that would be a real
shame.
rUnnInG-In anD
a rEaDEr HEaLtH
WarnInG
beneath the larger driver rather than between it
and the tweeter.
The Drivers
The W-sandwich driver was one of the key
elements of the original Utopia line. This laminate
cone is based around a foam core, of varying
thickness according to application, and ultra-thin
glass coats layered front and rear, from one to three
deep. In this way Focal can shape the response
curves of the drivers and choose the damping
levels, whether it is to be used as a midrange or
bass driver. The new Utopia range still employ
this construction but, critically, the cone edge is
now precision laser cut with the exact edge profile
required, before being glued to the roll surround.
This is a key factor in improving driver performance
and consistency, as the accuracy of this join is
absolutely crucial to the drivers behaviour and
Focal are extremely keen to point out the huge
performance gains this expensive procedure has
bought about. The arrangement of Power Flower
magnets on the rear of the Diablos 165mm woofer
remain, but these have also been modified, along
with the chassis, spider and voice-coil, aimed at
reducing magnetic leakage and increasing driver
efficiency.
The Electra Be range was the first time Focal
introduced the IAL (Infinite Acoustic Loading)
tweeter. The objective was to operate the
driver loaded in a tuned cavity. For the IAL 2nd
generation, installed throughout the new Utopia
line, the concept has been further developed. This
necessitated opening the rear of the tweeter by
redesigning the whole magnetic assembly and
shifting it from the back to the sides of the unit. The
inverted Beryllium dome enabled them to maintain
an extremely low moving mass (Beryllium is two
and a half times lighter and seven times more rigid
than Titanium for the same mass) and push the
response down to achieve both low frequency
extension and reduce the resonant frequency. By
operating the rear of the driver into free air Focals
approach seems to be conceptually similar to
Eben, who went to enormous lengths to remove
the magnet system and general superstructure
from the rear of their bass/mid driver, to startling
effect. The lack of reflected energy and thermal
compression are just as obvious here. The
Neodymium magnet arrangement is now a five-
section encased design, looking rather like a jet
engine, extending lengthways backward from the
dome circumference. The dome size itself has
increased slightly to 27mm and the new Poron
surround is also considered by Focal to be vital
to the units stellar performance. The range now
covered by the tweeter is from 2.2kHz to 40 kHz
and this means that the critical area between 2
and 5kHz is now handled by an ultra responsive
light dome rather than a bigger, midrange driver
and therein lies one of the key reasons why the
Diablo does what it does to such startling effect.
The tweeter sits in its own enclosure with the same
profile as the bass cabinet, the cavity behind the
unit tuned to act as a Helmholtz Resonator at
the resonant frequency of the tweeter itself, thus
damping the impedance peak. Damping this
resonance with the Helmholtz reduces distortion
considerably and its effect is felt throughout the
bandwidth.
The build quality and finish is exemplary. The
Diablo bolts directly onto the steel top-plate of
what is unquestionably the best stand that Focal
have ever supplied. Its solid 40mm MDF base
mirrors the shape of the speaker cabinet as does
the sand-filled aluminium pedestal and the angle
of the speakers time-aligned baffle is continued
through the rake of the stand. If you have a wooden
floor I would suggest that you use the heavy-duty
spikes provided, with floor protectors, as the
alternative of rubber inserts softens the speakers
The Focal Diablo Utopia
type: Two-way, stand-mount reflex-loaded speaker
Drivers: 1x 165mmW Cone Power Flower Woofer
1x 27mm IAL 2 inverted Beryllium dome Tweeter
bandwidth: 44Hz-40kHz 3dB
Sensitivity: 89dB
nominal impedance: 8 Ohms
minimal impedance: 4 Ohms
crossover frequency: 2.2kHz
Dimensions (WxHxD): 258 x 431x 427mm
Weight: 20kg
Lacquered finishes: Warm Grey, Piano Black,
Imperial Red
SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
price: $13,990/pr (with
stands)
AUDIO pLUS SERvICES
156 Lawrence Paquette
Industrial Drive
Champlain, NY 12919
(800) 663-9352
audioplusservices.com
U.K.
price: 7,899/pr
including stands
FOCAL UK
0845 660260
focal-uk.com
FOCAL
www.focal-fr.com
remarkable leading edge clarity. When it comes
to positioning, room layout will obviously be a
consideration, but generally the advice must be to
operate them in as much free air as space affords
to allow them room to breathe and certainly keep
them as far from sidewalls as possible.
Like all high quality speakers, the Diablo puts
a magnifying glass to the rest of the system that
comes before it and believe me, this particular
speaker throws things into pin sharp focus as it is
as revealing as a stand mount gets. It cant really
be looked upon as a Micro Utopia Be replacement
as about the only thing they share is the single pair
of WBT connectors. Cabinet, drivers, crossover,
stand and price are all way too different to make
any comparison meaningful. But the Micro can
certainly serve as a point of reference. System
requirements are simple because the Diablo has
so much potential that it will respond to the very
best your audio electronics have to offer. There is
no performance wall to come up against. If you
have a large room and want more bandwidth and
scale, then look at the Scala. If you have a massive
room with bottomless pockets to match, then the
Grande has to be on your list, but for small to mid-
sized rooms the Diablo is a perfect fit. The system
requirements though are essentially the same. I
have always been intrigued by ultra high quality
electronics and cables driving the simple purity of
the best two-way stand-mount speakers and the
Diablo fits that particular bill perfectly. So, I used
two systems.
First I employed a Burmester CD 001 CD player
and a Vitus SS-010 integrated 25 Watt, Class
A amplifier with a full loom of Vitus cables. The
second and more expensive was an Esoteric
P-03/D-03 SACD player and DAC feeding either
an Ayre KX-R or a Lyra Connoisseur 4.2L SE
line stage, driving a pair of Ayre MX-R mono-
bloc power amplifiers. All the electronics, for
both systems, were sat on a Stillpoints ESS rack
with Level-3 shelving, including both Thor and
Quantum Qx4 power conditioners, while this time
the cabling was Nordost Valhalla mains leads and
Odin interconnects and speaker cables. The Vitus
system is a beautifully integrated, free-flowing
set-up that is subtle, sweet and open in nature.
It is a real music-lovers system (with less boxes).
The second set up is certainly a no-compromise,
musically powerful, super high-resolution package,
but the Diablo has all the potential to make an
entirely viable system. This Utopia is absolutely not
one of those speakers where you should consider
what is the least in accompanying electronics that
you can get away with. Its not that it is particularly
difficult to drive. It just cries out for and deserves
real quality. Get it wrong and it will sound tilted
toward the treble because that tweeter installation
will provide a forensic examination of everything
that goes before it.
As a long term Micro UtopiaBe user, I was very
aware of their particular qualities when I sat to
listen to the Diablo for the first time. I know their
strengths and weaknesses as well as any speaker,
but it only took about 30 seconds for me to realise
just how different the new baby Utopia is. Through
the bass, the feeling of control and fluid movement
combines with a speed and pitch clarity that is
infectious. Where the Micro was growing vague
and soft around the edges, the Diablo is sharply
focussed with more efficient use of bass energy
and that opens the ear to a world of expression
and technique. There is no bunching or sense that
articulation begins to suffer as the frequency drops.
It has power and weight, but it is supremely agile
and never holds the flow and musical progression
back. Like all good speakers the Diablo only shows
you its real bass extension when the music calls
for it and it is often surprising just how low it can
reach. Focal have been cute too, I think, by not
trying to extract the last ounce of bass from that
cabinet. It doesnt have that compressive punch
that can fool you into overestimating a speakers
true ability, but it is still taut and at ease under
rigorous pressure. With a solo upright acoustic
bass or a couple of bowed cellos to deal with, it
is clean, explicit and tonally superb. Whether the
strings are being picked or bowed, the Diablo is
comfortable. This is of course, in no small way,
a reflection of the system electronics but the
message is that if you give it some serious low
frequency work to do, it will show you just how
much grip it really has. You can hear that the
cabinet is not storing energy when you ask it to
show you the transient power of a kick-drum or
the intricacies of a slapped bass riff. Even so, I can
still imagine some people complaining that there
isnt enough bass, so Ill disagree before they even
say it and suggest that they improve the signal
quality and listen again.
I was struck by how beautifully balanced and
poised the music remained up through the broad
mid-band. But the thing that really grabs you (and
never lets go) is just how bright the instruments
are. When I use the term bright, I dont mean it
in any way detrimentally or as a comment on the
speakers overall balance. That new tweeters
influence is really being felt here and it increases
driver coherence enormously. I spend a lot of
my time around real instruments, played by
people who know their way around them and
I understand just how much high frequency
information they produce. Even an electric bass
guitar has a brightness and energy about it that
comes from the playing action and pickups. Most
audio systems have a tendency to damp and mute
everything that passes through and resolve them
as loose representations of instruments that you
could never really mistake for reality, if you know
just how raw the real thing actually sounds. This is
where the Diablo absolutely excels. That tweeter
reaches down into areas where big, damped
cones usually operate and shows how it should
be done, simply by articulating the voices, speed,
delicacy and tonal character of each instrument
more accurately. Its life, subtlety and textural range
are remarkable and makes the bitter, squeezed
astringency of many other hf units sound like
sucking a lemon through a tennis racket. So,
everything sounds brighter and crisper and this
has repercussions in terms of pure note control.
Leading edge articulation is fantastic. From the
high impact of the first energy input, there is no
compression and no sense that the speaker is
muting the development at that single point in time
and it carries on right through the note and into
the longest and purest decay that I have heard.
But it is also a speaker with remarkable density
and the glowing luminescence it throws onto the
instruments is not remotely thin or diluted as a
result. The difference this makes to the stability
of piano alone is enormous. It has a quite striking
transparency in its presentation and a sense that
you can reach out and touch the music and is
equally at home on simple recordings as it is on the
most complex of multi-track mixes. Closely miked
vocals can sound spellbindingly real, as does
the range of colourful harmonics that you hear in
cymbals. Its as if you can see the whole thing from
front to back shimmering with metallic energy, like
the cymbal itself is operating in free air in front of
you and this high frequency dynamic detailing is
so clear and uncompressed that when a drummer
is really working the top end of his kit you have
complete focus on every explosive, resonating
element with no smearing, or harshness. A
drummer friend even told me he could identify
different makes of cymbal through the Diablo. As
I mentioned before, this speaker has a sense of
reality that is extremely rare and it is also loose
and supple when it comes to rhythm. Any time
signature is opened up with superb control and
this gives insights into phrasing and timing within
that framework that is the equal of any speaker I
have heard. The way they are totally responsive to
rhythmic emphasis and ultra sensitive to pushes
where the tempo gets an accentuation of the beat
means that their portrayal of the subtleties of
movement within a piece is also totally addictive.
The Diablo creates a soundstage that is so broad
and deep that you can practically walk in and look
around, reflecting the their transparency and see-
through character. This is not a conservatively
voiced speaker. When you are listening in the
near-field, as I do, the mid-band and high-end is
a little forward, but I wouldnt change a decibel of
it because its intimacy, immediacy and stunning
clarity draw you deeper and deeper, delivering a
very close physical relationship to the musicians and
their performance. With this tweeter installation in
their armoury it would have been so easy for Focal
to have come up with a speaker, full of resolution
and micro detail, that was in some way clinical or
even academic to listen to, but they havent. What
they have made is unquestionably one of the great
high-end stand mount speakers available today.
Some will think it is the best, but I have heard some
of the competition and they too are very good,
underlining just how meaningless the notion of
best really is. There are always considerations of
personal taste and system electronics, individual
demands and circumstances. I love listening to
music through the Diablo because its musical
potential is virtually unlimited. It works equally well
with all musical styles and genres and I believe
that, at its price, it is a bit of a steal. Achieving all of
these things means that it is certainly demanding
when it comes to matching electronics and it will
absolutely reward the sort of care taken in system
building and installation that RG and I have been
writing about for a while now. But the payback is
pure musical involvement and enjoyment and there
is no substitute for that, regardless of cost.
K
EFs long-running Reference series has seen many incarnations over the 30
or so years of its existence, some sonically and commercially more successful
than others. But experience with both the flagship 207/2 and the smallest
model in the range, the threeway standmounted 203/2 suggest that the current
incarnation is a (if not the) highpoint in that illustrious history. So impressive and
musically fundamental were the improvements in the 207/2 over the original version,
that the sub-woofer, which had made such a difference to that earlier iteration, was
rendered totally unnecessary. Improvements across the board to all the drive-units,
but especially the latest evolution of the Uni-Q mid/treble driver, brought significant
benefits in terms of weight, scale, coherence and resolution. They also obviated the
need for the hyper-tweeter employed in the previous model, making for greater visual
coherence too. Add in a range of flawless lacquered finishes and really well sorted
accessories, combined with a more transparent but also more forgiving presentation,
and the significant hike in price between the original and /2 versions of the speaker
was more than justified.
KEF Reference 205/2
The Middle-Weight Contender
Roy gregory
But theres no escaping the fact that at 12,000, the
207/2 is beyond many peoples pocket, while its
imposing bulk and considerable depth mean that
fewer still be able to comfortably accommodate
it. Look no further than the success of B&Ws 802
and 802D models to appreciate just how critical
speaker footprint is to market penetration. Which
is what makes KEFs Reference 205/2 such an
intriguing prospect. In many respects, it bears
exactly the same relationship to the 207/2 that
the 802s bear to their larger 800 and 801 cousins.
The smaller cabinet contains the same mid and
treble technology, mechanical construction, finish
options and quality of crossover components
as the flagship speaker, but coupled to a pair
of smaller diameter bass units without quite the
same thunderous reach.
You can read a detailed description of the
technology in the 207/2 review, back in Issue
53, but here are the highlights. The Uni-Q cone
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - kEf reference 205/2 loudspeaker
speaker like the 105/3 was way to critical for its
own good, telling you altogether too much about
the system feeding it, with the result that it was a
seriously underrated performer.
KEF learnt that lesson well, and over the years
theyve managed to dial back the destructive
tendencies while retaining still astonishing levels
of musical insight. Its a path thats achieved an
apex in the 207/2 and a quality thats only slightly
diminished in this model. Which means that while
the 205/2 will rarely sound unpleasant, no matter
the system indignities heaped on its back, the
requisite care and attention to setup and matching
will reap rich rewards.
They dont require anything fancy, just good
practice done properly, when it comes to
placement, leveling and wiring them up. One
thing that really needs to go is the tri-wire links
provided, which might be better than the average
bent metal plate, but are readily improved upon,
with obvious sonic benefits. Indeed, rather than
tri-wiring the speaker, Id use the best cable I
could afford to single-wire them, and then have
two sets of straps made from the same wire.
Chord Co. cables do seem to offer a particularly
happy match to the KEFs, and they already offer
links of this type.
Having said all that, the 205s role as almost
207s but easier to live with is perhaps the biggest
obstacle to realizing their potential performance
in the real world. Paradoxically, the very cost
and expense of the 207 makes people give it
the space and respect it demands. The more
benign and manageable exterior of the 205 might
encourage the taking of liberties which would be
a huge mistake, for if anything, the performance
of the smaller speaker is even more placement
critical than the bigger model. Good practice
done properly means exactly what it says with
heavy emphasis on the good and the properly.
Why? Just like the 207s, the glory of the 205 is
in the continuity and unexaggerated coherence
has been re-shaped, a shallower profile and
flat surround improving dispersion, while
developments in the nature and disposition
of the cone material itself have also improved
its mechanical behavior. Simultaneously, a
new dome profile, arched former and more
powerful magnet assembly have allowed
venting of the co-axial tweeter as well as a
considerable increase in high-frequency
extension. The result is a more natural
balance, lower colouration and increased
dynamic range across the output from 350Hz
upwards to a claimed 3dB point of 60kHz.
The Uni-Q driver peeps from the top of a
slim, boat backed cabinet whose curved walls
and extensive bracing create an extremely
rigid cabinet without resorting to sheer mass,
with all its associated problems. The two, 8
bass drivers are each housed in their own,
separate, front ported enclosure, the whole
system being tri-wirable. In addition, sockets
in the top of the terminal panel allow the
listen to trim the treble output level in four
discrete steps between +0.75 and 1.5dB,
and align the bass contour for free-space or
near-wall siting. Together these adjustments
provide a useful and usable degree of room
compensation. Spikes are large M8 types,
with even larger locking discs that also serve
as visual feet, but the narrow footprint of
the 205/2 does mean that overall stability
is compromised somewhat, so bear that in
mind if boisterous children or large dogs play
a central role in your life.
One of the things that separates the
different ranges of KEF Reference speakers,
is just how critically revealing they are. A
type: three-way refex loaded loudspeaker
Driver complement: 1x 25mm titanium dome
Uni-Q tweeter
1x 165mm Uni-Q midrange
2x 200mm pulp cone bass
bandwidth: 45Hz 60kHz 3db
35Hz 6db
Sensitivity: 90db
Impedance: 8 ohms nominal
3.2 ohms minimum
Dimensions (WxHxD): 285 x 1105 x 433mm
Weight: 33kg
finishes: High gloss black, walnut or cherry. Satin black,
walnut, cherry or sycamore
SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
prices: $13,999/pr
gp ACOUSTICS (US)
10 Timber Lane
Marlboro, New Jersey
07746
(732) 683-2356
kef.com/us
U.K.
prices:
High Gloss 7,999/pr
Satin 5,999/pr
KEF AUDIO LTD
Eccleston Road
Tovil, Maidstone
Kent ME15 6QP
+44(0)1622 672261
kef.com
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - kEf reference 205/2 loudspeaker
it brings to reproducing music. But whereas the
207s easy extension provides a natural balance
to the seamless extension of the Uni-Q driver,
the 205 doesnt reach as deep and as a result,
its bottom end has been carefully tailored to
deliver (the impression if not the reality of) a little
extra weight. Half an inch too far back and the
bass goes soft, rounded and disjointed. Half an
inch too far forward and it becomes lean and
musically disconnected, robbing the music of
drive and purpose, structure and foundation.
But get it in the right place Get it in the right
place and the 205 rewards you with a measure
of coherence and communication, a rhythmic and
structural integrity that anchors the performance
and allows the performers to breathe over that
secure footing.
Play something as sparse and starkly unadorned
as Keith Jarretts Koln Concert (rendered starker
still by the ECM recording) and the 205s are
utterly unobtrusive, allowing the protracted and
convoluted musical developments to shift and
evolve through each theme, each rhythmic and
melodic pattern, in a single, continuous line, never
wavering, never losing its way, never stumbling
at the transition. The focus is on the playing,
with Jarretts masterful command of shape and
tempo, melody and development holding the
music together and conjuring an evershifting
emotional landscape. Its only when the disc ends
that you realise that you never even noticed the
system playing it. Yet solo piano, with its range
and percussive qualities is one of the hardest
instruments to reproduce. The 205s do so without
leaving their mark, and thats impressive indeed.
Of course, it would be unreasonable to expect
the 205 to match the remarkable performance
of the 207. The junior model cant match the
effortless scale and sheer dynamic range of the
flagship. It doesnt conjure the acoustic space
with such natural transparency, or deliver images
with quite the focus or dimensionality but it gets
close; surprisingly close. Close enough that, if you
hadnt heard the bigger speaker, you wouldnt feel
the lack. So, comparing and contrasting different
performances of the Dvorak Cello Concerto,
the Starker reading on Mercury is satisfyingly,
almost bombastically explosive through its
opening, the Piatigorsky on RCA is warmer,
more rounded and more lyrical, less purposeful
or pointed in its playing, but smoother and more
seductive in character. The KEFs effortlessly
differentiate the styles and strengths of these two
musical masters. But perhaps their most telling
contribution is on the recent Queyras reading for
Harmonia Mundi, a performance that maybe lacks
the sheer authority of the others through the first
movement, but is achingly beautiful in the Adagio
ma no troppo that follows. Here the 205s deliver
all the grace in the solo playing, but underpin it
with a sweeping orchestral majesty that dials up
the romance without adding a layer of schmaltze.
Its a stunning performance from everyone (and
everything) involved.
That easy flow and natural tonal warmth is
equally evident across the vocal palette, with
voices as disparate as Zinka Milanov and Lyle
Lovett feeling the benefit. Subtle inflexions and the
catch of a breath bring singers to life, again leading
your attention into the music and its making and
away from the system reproducing it. This ability
to step away from the performance is what marks
the KEFs apart from so many speakers that fall
into the trap of desperately trying to impress. Work
with them and youll discover hidden depths when
it comes to musical expression and involvement. I
loathe the kind of mathematical formulae that try to
express performance as a function of price; 90%
of the sound for 60% of the cost always struck
me as overly simplistic and way too pat, but in
the case of the 205 it really is that straightforward.
Its not just shared DNA were talking about. So
much of the technology, so many of the parts in
this speaker are shared with the 207, that realizing
the benefits comes down to the engineering
implementation (and a bit of care). KEF have done
their part spectacularly well the rest is down to
you+
T
he Magico V2 sells for $18,000 a pairnot an insubstantial amount by any means.
But thats not really the newsthere are already a surprising number of components
that bump up against the $20k level. The real news is that this two-and-a-half-
way floorstanderactually the bottom of the lineup in Magicos Murderers Row of
Loudspeakersis Magicos answer to the question of whether it can successfully translate
the R&D that inspired its statement products like the V3, the Mini II, and the remarkable M5
to an entry-level offering. Can magic strike twice (or thrice)? Is the V2 a true Magico?
Magico v2
Explosive Eloquence
Neil gader
The best way to think of the V2 is as a slightly
condensed and concentrated version of its Magico
stablemates. But it is not stripped down. Similarities
rather than differences abound. In construction,
it most closely resembles the larger three-way,
four-driver V3 (reviewed in Issue 179), with the
notable difference that the V2 drops the 6 Nano-
Tec midrange of the V3 and retains the pair of 7
Nano-Tec mid/bass drivers. Unlike the V3 however,
the V2 uses the proprietary Magico 1 ring-radiator
tweeter also found on the vaunted M5. Impedance
mirrors the V3 at 4 ohms; sensitivity is 89dB, also
roughly the same as the V3. The drivers are back-
mounted to the aircraft-grade 6061-T aluminum
faceplate, which is itself mounted to the front baffle
via internal tensioning rods. The mounting screws
only see aluminum, not softer wood contact points,
thus ensuring a tight fit even after years of playing.
Interestingly the V2 and V3 match each other in
height at 42, but the V2 is considerably shallower
and narrower making it a much more room-friendly
speaker. The sophisticated crossover is a masterpiece
to admire, with a parts list that rivals the entire cost of
many loudspeakers!
The V2, like all Magico speakers, is an acoustic-
suspension design in a seventeen-ply vertically
stacked Baltic birch enclosure that almost
imperceptibly angles back a few degrees to align the
drivers for phase coherence. The heavily damped
interior employs the aforementioned tension-coupling
mechanism, where a trio of aluminum rods and rear-
panel fasteners draws the aluminum baffle against
the enclosure in the way a cylinder head is torqued
into the block of an engine. The result is a cabinet of
such rigidity and aversion to flex it borders on overkill.
A final comparisonthe V2 weighs in at 120 pounds,
the V3 at 160 poundslike a super-bantamweight
to a middleweight. To put things in full pugilistic
perspective, the M5 at 360 pounds and Model 6
at 650 pounds would be the super- and unlimited
heavyweights of the stable. But clearly, Alon Wolf
and his team are not slumming with the V2.
From the moment the needle hits the groove, its
plain to hear that their intentions are as serious as a
heart attack. But the key word to describe the V2s
overall performance envelope is discipline. There
was no single piece of music that could derail it or
upset its composure (mirroring the demeanor of
Magicos unflappable creator, Alon Wolf). Its also
a paradigm of balance, striking a sweet blend of
tonality, dynamics, imaging, transparency, where no
single criteria attempts to grab more of the attention
than another.
Tonal balance in the lower octaves is rich and fully
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - magico v2 Loudspeaker
realized although not plummy and overbearing.
The mids are full-bodied, the treble region
smooth and airy with just a hint of brilliance in the
sibilance range. The character of the V2 steers
clear of overt romanticism yet it never crosses
the line into sonic sterility. Soundstage depth
is excellent and on a par with its broad lateral
spread of images. As dynamic as the V2 is, it
doesnt convey an overtly forward balance. In
fact on some vocal recordings it almost seems
to pocket the singer a row to two further back
than Im accustomed to. If its not dead-bang flat,
it never deviates very far from neutrality. Inter-
driver transitions are seamless and there is little
indication that floor cancellations are sucking
out upper-bass energy. The Magico team
places great stock in ameliorating these issues
in its crossover design, but most particularly
the infamous baffle-stepthe 6dB difference in
gain due to baffle reinforcement in the midrange
followed by a comparable gain deficit as the
longer bass wavelengths lose that reinforcement.
Observationally, my in-room experience validates
Magicos approach, as transitions from roughly
200 Hz and below were essentially flat by listening
tests and test tones, except for some typical
room gain in the 4050Hz range.
This is all a way of describing how the V2 drills
deeper into the sonic picture, nibbling past the
thin gauze and glaze that obscure transparency.
Its sensitivity to low-level secondary details is, in
a word, dogged. It sifts through an orchestra and
suddenly a harp or triangle seemingly buried alive
in a far corner of the stage snaps into view. Or the
fluttering skin sound off a drum head reveals itself.
Zils on a distant tambourine no longer blur or, in
the case of Linda Ronstadts angelic harmony
during Under African Skies from Graceland
[Warner], her iconic voiceas deep in the mix as
it isappears luminescent. The same held true
with large assemblages of voices, each individual
distinctively reproduced within the penumbra of
a multi-layered chorale. On Rutters Requiem
[Reference Recordings], the V2 captures the dual
sensation of music vaulting heavenward into the
church, as the anchor of a deep organ descends
into the earth.
As I reflected on its resolving power, transient
speed, and fidelity-to-timbre, I found the V2
became less identifiable as a cone-driver system.
It began resembling an imaginary hybrid, reflecting
the distortion-free speed and transparency of an
electrostat panel with the turbocharger-ready
thrust of a dynamic driver. Although its coherence
can give even dedicated two-ways a run for the
money, the V2 truly begins to shine when you
start throwing complexities its way. The full-bore
Atlanta Brass Ensemble and percussion section
blasting out Coplands Fanfare for the Common
Man, for example. Like a juggler who is tossed
one bowling pin after another from an offstage
assistant, the V2 is acrobatically gifted in the way
it manages to keep so much information in the air
without dropping a note.
The V2 forces one to reconsider the entire
micro-dynamic relationship. Even during familiar
recordings, like Dire Straits Love Over Gold, the
most pin-drop quiet passages are quieter still,
more fully revealing the unique tactile inflections
of the nylon-string guitar during Private
Investigations and the cascading toms of
Telegraph Road. And the loudest cacophonous
instances aremercylouder still. During Mars
from Previns performance of The Planets [EMI], I
found myself riding the volume control more than
normal, a result of the outside of the dynamic
envelope having been pushed just a bit more.
Quick story: Back in the 70s I became addicted
to early Linda Ronstadt records, particularly her
Simple Man, Simple Dreams and Hasten Down
the Wind albums which featured hits like Warren
Zevonss Poor, Poor Pitiful Me and loads of Karla
Bonoff. The players were the cream of the crop of
the acoustic singer-songwriter era, JD Souther,
Danny Kortchmar, Russ Kunkel, and Leland
Sklar. When I replayed those discs, the Magicos
brought a low-level focus to details that I thought
were hopelessly indistinct, either because of the
pressing or the records engineering or mastering.
Not true. The V2 depicted every instrument in a
uniquely layered perspective. No instrument
seemed to exist at the exact same depth in the
soundspace. Each was unique. But nothing was
as breathtaking as the articulation the Magicos
expressed with background singers. These
voices, from Don Henley to JD Souther, were
each so distinctive and identifiable that it was as
if I were hearing these old recordings for the first
time.
Weaknesses? No Achilles heel here. Okay,
the bottom half of the lowest octave is absenta
minor deficit that certainly doesnt hold the V2
back much. At a strong lower limit of 30Hz organ
devotees could be thinking subwoofer (forget it,
Magico aint making one), but good luck keeping
pace with those tight-fisted Nano-Tec drivers.
Also, bass timbre could be characterized as dry,
even overly controlled, and lacking the rush of
resonant content more typically encountered
in bass-reflex designs. Admittedly, Im an
acoustic-suspension fan and thus prefer the V2
presentation, but neither iteration touches all the
bases in quite a fully realized naturalistic way.
Dipole bass, like the Jamo R909, still strikes me
as more authentic, but when rock-level dynamics
and output are required dipoles tend to run out of
steam. At the other end of the spectrum, the V2
possesses a slow upward tilt in the lower treble
that hones leading-edge information somewhat.
Most prominently strings and brass. Its not a
peaky coloration by any means and the added
energy actually flatters most music. Unless youre
Magico v2 Loudspeaker
type: two-and-a-half-way foorstanding dynamic
loudspeaker
Driver complement: two 7 nano-tec woofers, one 1
mr-1 ring-radiator tweeter
Sensitivity: 89db
Impedance: 4 ohms
recommended amplifer power: 50300 watts
Weight: 120 lbs. (each)
SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
price: $18,000/pr
MAgICO LLC
932 Parker Street, #2
Berkeley, CA 94710
(510) 653-8802
magico.net
U.K.
price: 18,901/pr
ABSOLUTE SOUNDS
58 Durham Road,
London, SW20 0TW
+44 (0)20 8971 3909
absolutesounds.com
Go to: contents | flannel panel | on the Horizon | feature articles |
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - magico v2 Loudspeaker
deeply sensitive to such matters, youll be too
consumed by the tweeters musicality to notice.
Note also that if there is something amiss with
the chain of electronics upstream, the V2 will be
happy to let you know. Suddenly that special amp
that you once had so much faith in cant keep up
with the broader demands and athleticism of the
V2. It has a palette for highly refined power, and
even a hundred high-resolution watts will barely
elicit a wink from the V2. At around two-hundred
it finally grumbles to life. Give it 250 or, better
yet, 300Wpc, and the V2 jumps off the launch
pad like its name implies it should. (A quick call
out to the Sumiko Palo Santos Presentation
cartridgereview to comeand Plinius Hiato
integrated [Issue 201]. Their performance with
the V2 contributed to the finest resolution Ive yet
attained in my listening room.)
Returning to the question posed at the
outset of this articleyes, the V2 is pure
Magico through and through. In many ways its
everything an audiophile could hope for from the
high-end experience. The totality of execution is
superb. Its performance echoes the musicality
of the companys no-holds-barred efforts. Its
reasonable size cant quite match the sheer
majesty of Magicos heavies, but on so many
levels there are few speakers Ive reviewed that
have ever been as satisfying. The V2 may be the
speaker to beat in the under-$20k bracket.
NEXT pAgE
I
t was just a few months ago (in Issue 186) that I reviewed the $13k Quad ESL-2905
electrostatic loudspeakerthe best stat Id yet heard, the highest resolution transducer
Id heard, and the speaker that I told you I would buy if I were in the market for a speaker.
MartinLogan CLX
A New Standard of Transparency
Jonathan valin
Comes now the $22.6k MartinLogan CLX, the long-awaited
successor to the long-defunct CLS, MartinLogans one-and-
only full-range electrostat, and though it doesnt unequivocally
push the considerably less expensive ESL-2905 out of my
shopping cart, it has certainly made me reconsider what Id
buy if I were buying, electrostatically speaking.
To spare you the suspense, the MartinLogan CLX trumps
the Quad ESL-2905 in every area of performance save for bass
and sheer density of tone color. Not only is it higher in low-level
resolution than the Quad ESL-2905, it sets a new standard for
midrange resolution, resolving low-level timbral and dynamic
details that I have literally never heard before on disc after
disc and that, in and of themselves, make the instruments
and vocalists on these discs sound much more realistic. It is
also considerably more neutral in balance than the somewhat
darker and unquestionably more voluptuous Quad ESL-2905;
it will play a good deal louder than the Quad ESL-2905 without
distortion; it is far and away more transparent to sources than
the ESL-2905, which tends to turn everything you put on a
turntable or in a CD player some alluring shade of gorgeous;
its soundstage is (depending on the disc, of course) wider than
that of the Quad ESL-2905 (though Im not sure its typically
quite as deep, due to the way the Quads output is contoured
in the bass, midband, and treble); and it disappears as a
sound source more completely than any other electrostat Ive
heard and (with a couple of signal exceptions that I will get to)
than any other loudspeaker Ive heard, save for the MBL 101
X-Treme.
This is the good news. Now, heres the not-so-good. First,
though nothing like the bright, thin, overly aggressive CLS
of yore, the CLX is not an inherently warm or beautifying
loudspeaker. In fact, it has no perceivable color of its own
(bespeaking very low levels of distortion); it sounds as see-
through as it looks. As a result, the CLX seems to reproduce
whats actually on records with exceptionally high fidelity.
Practically, what this means is that, from the midbass on
up, you will heareverything. Good recording technique,
bad recording technique, mediocre recording technique,
spotlighting, overdubs, tape editsyoull hear them all without
editorialization. If a record is bright and aggressive it will sound
bright and aggressive; if a record is dull, dark, or muddy it will
sound dull, dark, or muddy.
I know Ive talked about transparency to sources in the
past. But, honestly, Ive never heard a loudspeaker thats as
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - martinLogan cLX full-range Electrostatic Loudspeaker
transparent as this one. It even registers changes
and tweaks in source-hardware to a degree Ive
never come across before. For instance, I fiddled
with the magnetic anti-skating on the superb
Da Vinci Grandeeza tonearm many times when
the AAS Gabriel/Da Vinci table was upstairs in
my big system room. I could hear differences,
of course. But, save for when I made relatively
large adjustments, they were tough to quantify.
Downstairs, in the CLX system, an eighth of
a turn of the anti-skate in either direction is
instantly recognizable as a step forward or a step
back. Or take a record Ive heard countless times
in the past, Joni Mitchells Blue (in the superior
Steve Hoffmann reissue from Warner). Pick any
cut where Joni backs herself up on multiple
potted-in tracks, each with various amounts of
potted-in echo. On an average stereo, even on a
very good stereo, this artifice isnt supposed to
draw too much attention to itselfthose voices
arent supposed to sound artificially potted in,
even though they are. Through the CLXes, the
overdub is unmistakable. You can almost hear the
difference in tape hiss on the laid-in tracks, and
you can certainly hear the difference in miking
and echo and venue. Jonis voice, doubled and
tripled, pops up like a separate pocket of time
and spacea different soundstage within the
larger soundstage. Or consider the voices of Amy
Helm and Theresa Williams backing up Levon
Helm in real time on his zesty (with a thank-you to
Maude Le-bowski) cover of A. P. Carters Single
Girl, Married Girl (from Dirt Farmer). This is high-
lonesome accompanimentsometimes shouted
as much as sungbut despite the loudness of
the womens roughhewn voices it isnt that easy
to hear what theyre actually singing on other
speakers. It is through the CLXes. Every word,
every breath, every intonation, every crescendo.
Or de-crescendo. Speaking of which (and as
long as were talking high lonesome), on Ian and
Sylvias rendition of that sad old ballad Blue
from their eponymous first album on Vanguard,
Sylvia sings unusually high-pitched, sweet,
and very soft harmony on the refrain. In fact, I
didnt even realize she was singing on some of
the verses and certainly couldnt make out the
words, pitches, and timbres of these true pppps.
Here, as if by magic, all is revealed.
Folks, Ive had some mighty discerning
speakers come through my listening room over
the past few years. Save for the Symposium
Acoustics Panoramas, not a one of them holds
one of the things that has always set
martinLogan electrostats apart is their
transparency. I mean this literally: you can see
through them. other stats and planars come
with dustcovers to keep prying fingers and
airborne contaminants away from the drivers
and stators. How come martinLogans dont?
Well, for one thing, the more objects
between you and any driver the more veiled
its presentation. most of us routinely take the
dustcovers off dynamic speakers when we play
them. following this same logic, martinLogan
has done the job for us. the cLX, like the cLS
before it, is only covered by its perforated
grilles, which also function as its stators. What
youre looking at, if you look through the holes
in these grille/stators, is the electrostatically
charged pEt membrane itself.
but if the charged stators are exposed,
why dont they pose a hazard if you brush up
against them? for two reasons. first, though
the diaphgragm is charged with high voltage,
current is low. Second, the grille/stators are
coated on all sides with a proprietary nylon
insulation. as far as I know, no one has ever
been shockedmuch less hurtby a cLS or a
cLX.
With no dust covers and virtually no box
(just a narrow wooden frame on three sides),
the cLXes put very few material objects
between you and them. Undoubtedly, part of
their legendary acoustic transparency results
from their boxless, dustcover-less physical
transparency.
the cLXes do have one added bit of structure
that the cLSes didnta sidepiece made from a
material called EcoSound extending back from
the outside rear edge of the woofer panel. you
might think this sidepiece adds rigidity to the
frame, but thats not its primary purpose. It
is there to decrease low-frequency rear-wave
cancellation,a problem common to all dipole
loudspeakers,by increasing the air path length
behind the cLX and delaying the out-of-phase
back wave. the consequent reduction in front-
wave cancellation boosts overall low-frequency
output. Jv
HoW comE yoU can SEE tHroUGH cLXes?
a candle to this one with it comes to recording
the slightest acoustic tremor. From mezzoforte to
the softest pianissimo an LP or CD is capable of
reproducing, these are the most revealing, least
colored, lowest distortion transducers Ive had in
my home.
Now, this transparency to sources is swell for
a record/equipment reviewer, but for an ordinary
listener it may be a somewhat mixed bag. Because
of their incredible ability to clearly preserve the
lowest-level timbral and dynamic detailswhat
acousticians call jitter (not to be confused with
the digital timing errors also called jitter)the
CLXes can make many instruments, particularly
strings and voices, sound more real than virtually
anything else Ive auditioned. To hear the clarity
with which they reproduce the tiniest nuances
of the way, say, Ian Tyson brushes or plucks
the strings of his guitar on the aforementioned
Ian and Sylvia album is to hear something so
much closer to the way guitars sound in life
that it makes virtually every other stereophonic
presentation sound smeared in time, congealed
and opaque. It also tends to make you thinkwith
reasonthat youve never truly heard whats on
certain records before. Discs that you may have
thought sounded great or, at least, more-than-
acceptably-good through other transducers
(even other terrific transducers) may come out
of the wash an entirely different color than they
went in. Highly manipulated studio recordings,
for example, simply and unmistakably sound
highly manipulated and canned (moving from
the two-or-three mike simplicity of Ian and
Sylvia to something like the multitracked, multi-
overdubbed Joni Mitchell album Heijira is an
unforgettable little lesson in how much studio-
recording aesthetics changed from 1961 to
1976). Some of youmaybe most of youmay
not want to hear records reproduced with this
kind of honesty. Its a bit like watching a play
while simultaneously seeing through the sets to
the people behind the flats who are running the
lights and sound, and dressing the actors. It is
only the rarest recordsand the very bestthat
wont show their artifices much more clearly than
youve heard them before.
And then there is the CLXes bass.
Though a major improvement in the mid-
to-upper bass (and everywhere else) over the
original, way-too-lean-and-hence-too-bright-and-
piercing CLSes, the CLXes are not world-beaters
in the bottommost octaves. Its not that they dont
bring the same clarity to the bass that they do to
the midrange and treble. They just dont bring the
same power (and their power in the mids and the
treble is, as you will shortly be apprised, somewhat
limited to begin with). Also, they dont have great
extension on the bottom. Or, at least, they dont in
my room as it is currently configured.
I have to be careful here because Im not
entirely satisfied with my newly converted
second listening room at this point, particularly
in the bass, and other listeners whose judgment I
respect claim to have gotten deeper low end than
Im getting. So take what Im about to say with
a grain of salt. (I will report again on the CLXes
bottom octaves when Ive set the room up more
to my liking.)
As it stands, the CLXes go down more or less
flat to about 5560Hz or so. (MartinLogan, to its
credit, doesnt promise you a rose garden here. It
rates the CLX as down 3dB at 56Hz, which is just
plain honest. In MLs view, if you want really low
bass, you need to add a couple of its Descent
i subs, which come equipped with a special
crossover specifically tailored for the CLX. I will
report at a later date on how well these subs
blendbut, until then, dont get your hopes up.)
Now 55 or so cycles isnt very deep bass, and
because the CLXes mid-to-upper bass is so
MartinLogan CLX Full-Range Electrostatic
Loudspeaker
type: full-range electrostatic loudspeaker
High-frequency transducers: 57 cLS (curvilinear line
source) XStat electrostatic
Low-frequency transducer: 57 (145cm) Dualforce
double-diaphragm, triple-stator dipole low-frequency
electrostatic
crossover frequency: 360Hz
frequency response: 5623,000Hz +/-3db
Sensitivity: 90db/2.8v/1m
Impedance: 6 ohms (0.7 ohms at 20kHz)
power handling: 225W (continuous)
Dimensions: 70.3 x 25.75 x 14.69
Weight: 110 lbs.
SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
price: $22,699/pr
MARTINLOgAN
2101 Delaware
Lawrence, KS 66046
(785) 749-0133
martinlogan.com
U.K.
price: 20,432/pr
ABSOLUTE SOUNDS
58 Durham Road,
London, SW20 0TW
+44 (0)20 8971 3909
absolutesounds.com
In part because they combine a large
curvilinear panel with a large flat panel, the
cLXes are rather tricky to set up. Happily,
the manual that accompanies them is easy
to understand and gives you explicit and
reliable set-up instructions. to begin, you will
want to situate these speakers at least four
feet from backwalls and at least three feet
from sidewalls and at least five-to-six feet
apart (measured from the center of one cLX
panel to the center of the other cLX panel
seating distance will, of course, dictate how
much separation you need, although locating
any planar speaker too far from its mate can
result in suckout in the midbass). I prefer
the Xes on their excellent (supplied) spikes,
although dont put them on spikes until they
are properly placed. assuming youve got
them about where you want them, youll now
face the questions of toe-in and tilt.
the amount of toe-in you use with cLXes
is critical to their imaging and soundstaging
and overall frequency balance. martinLogan
has a method you should use (which involves
shining a flashlight toward the curvilinear
panel from the sweet spot and making
sure the reflected light is shining back from a
specific spot on the speakerthe outer third
of the cLS panel). this will get you precisely
where you want to be with toe-in, which, in
practice, isnt very much (just a few degrees
SEttInG Up tHE
cLXes
flat and neutral, it doesnt sound as deep, full, or
powerful as, say, the bass of the Quad ESL-2905,
which is deliberately elevated through the mid-to-
upper bass, from about 60Hz200Hz. I could live
uncomplainingly with the greater timbral honesty
of the CLXes in the bass if they didnt seem to
progressively lose dynamic range and scale as
well as frequency extension as they descend in
pitch. Oh, theyre quite marvelous down to, say,
the low C of the cello (about 65Hz), but below
that they seem to peter out a bit. This means
once again, as things now standthat power
instruments like bass drums or bottom-octave
piano, though clear as the proverbial, are also a
bit short-changed in impact and pitch. Turning
the volume up helps a little, but not enough, in
my opinion. Things that I know should sound very
deep-reaching and thunderously dynamic, like
the drum strikes that dot the Allegro con brio of
Roberto Gerhards Third Symphony [Angel] or the
piano on Zsolt Durks Schoenbergian Fire Music
[Hungaroton], arent. They are a little too laid-
back and are literally laid-back in the soundstage.
They dont leap to the fore, as they should, when
they are sounded with explosive power.
I dont want to overdo this. The CLXes bass
is leagues ahead of that of the CLSes, but it is
(as Martin Logan admits) limited in a way that
the rest of this marvelous speaker is not, and
because it lacks some dynamism and extension
it makes the rest of the speaker seem a little
lacking in foundation, a little lacking in large-scale
clout. Once again, this isnt the CLS; this isnt an
X-ray machine. But it could use a bit more power
delivery at the very bottom.
Some of the CLXes problem in the bass is simply
the lack of body that plagues all electrostats.
They just dont have the weight of cones (or
Radialstrahlers), and it isnt just in the bass. You
hear it everywherea slight two-dimensionality
that makes voices and instruments sound as if
they are projected on a screen (as opposed to
the freestanding statuary of an MBL 101 X-Treme
or a Magico Mini II). To be fair, there is less of
this effect with the CLXes than with other stats
(including the Quad ESL-2905).
There is also none of the sense that Ive gotten
with every other electrostat of listening through
windows, of the physical presence of the
speakers.
Putting aside their tonal balance and congenital
lack of weight, as I said earlier the CLXes disappear
better as sound sources than any planar dipole
Ive heard. For all intents and purposes, they just
arent there.
Perhaps this exceptional disappearing act is
because they arent like other stats or planars in
certain key respects. As those of you familiar with
the original CLS or any of MLs hybrid electrostats
already know, MartinLogan electrostatic panels
are curved (CLS stands for curvilinear line
source). There were and are several good
reasons for making the mid/treble stat panel belly
out. First, this increases horizontal dispersion
and lowers beaming in the treble, reducing the
head in the vise effect endemic to large planars.
Second, it makes the speaker sound more like a
columnar line source whose sound originates a
bit behind the panel. This was the theory behind
the CLS, at least. In practice, the CLS was less
beamy and far more open and neutral than
flat panels, but because it was sucked out in the
upper bass/lower midrange and tipped up in the
upper mids, it was also thinner and brighter and
markedly more aggressive than many flat panels.
That was then. As I noted in my review of the
nifty little MartinLogan Source in Issue 180,
MartinLogan has since completely redesigned its
electrostatic panelsimproving everything from
the density of perforations in the stators (which,
ML claims, now expose twice as much panel
surface as traditional stats) to the suspension
of the electrostatic diaphragm (which is now far
more rigid) to the membranes themselves (which
are now made of super-lightweight, plasma-
deposited PET) to the ultra-transparent Votjko
crossovers (yes, Virginia, there is a Votjkohes
the guy who designs all of MLs crossovers). In
addition to these improvements, ML has tried
something that I dont think has been tried before
in the lower midrange and bass. Below 360Hz
the CLXes cross over from the curvilinear mid/
away from parallel-to-the-seating-position).
Some folks seem to like the speakers tilted back
a slight bit. I prefer them straight up and down,
although the height of your listening chair
and room acoustics will play key roles in this
decision.
Speaking of room acoustics, remember that
the cLXes have a different dispersion pattern
that other stats. columnar line sources with
curved drivers, they will reflect off sidewalls to
a certain extent and you may want to damp the
point of first reflection on your sidewalls. you
may also want to damp the walls immediately
behind these stats, though I do not recommend
overdamping. If youre getting too much
midbass, corner traps can fix it. Everything
depends on the size and shape and relative
liveness or deadness of the room.
I dont know whether I ought to mention
this or notfor fear that some of you will start
fiddling where you shouldntbut you (or,
preferably, your martinLogan dealer) can adjust
the upper-bass/lower midrange balance of the
cLX. Inside the crossover/transformer box
on the back of the speaker are two groups of
switches that, properly set, can boost output in
the power range from the factory-default flat
setting. Imo, they should be left alone!
as for driving the cLXes, though they are
relatively sensitive for electrostats (90db) with
a nominal impedance of 6 ohms, they are not as
easy a load as this may suggest, since they dip
in impedance to 0.7 ohms at 20kHz. assuming
that you care about (and can hear) the topmost
treble, youll need an amp capable of handling
such a very low impedance load. this means
solid stateand really good solid state, at that.
Ive had tremendous luck with the Swiss-
made Soulution 710, which has got to be the
most finely detailed and neutral solid-state
amplifier Ive ever heard. Unfortunately, its
quite expensive. you could make do quite well,
I would think, with something in the 200-400
watt range from bryston or parasound or, for a
bit more money, pass. you can also use tubes,
albeit at a very small price in high-frequency
extension (although a bit of added tube
plumpness in the low end might be a good thing
with these speakers). Jv
treble panels to large, flat, triple-stator, dual-
membrane bass panels, physically located
just outside the curved mid/tweets. (The Quad
ESL-2905 also uses separate flat bass panels,
in addition to its twin concentric time-delayed
panels, to bolster the bass, although Quads
flat bass panels are not double-layered like
MartinLogans.)
As I explained in my Quad review, all
electrostats suspend a featherweight membrane
coated with an electro-conductive material and
charged with very-high-voltage bias current
between two stators that are alternately fed the
positive and negative signals from the amplifier.
The push and pull that these signals exercise
on the electostatically charged membrane cause
it to vibrate, producing sound. MartinLogans
triple-stator, dual-membrane bass panels go
this one better. Instead of a single membrane
suspended between two stators, MLs triple-
stator setup suspends two membranes between
three stators, doubling the force with which bass
notes are sounded.
There is no question that the CLX is much,
much stronger and flatter and fuller and more
natural in the so-called power region between
100-400Hz than the CLS was. It is one of the
most obvious and welcome differences between
the X and the S, and one has to think that
MartinLogans ingenious bass panels are the
reasons why. This said, doubling up on bass
drivers doesnt seem to have extended the very
low end as much as one might have thought.
What it has done, however, is allow the CLX to
play considerably louder (Id guesstimate 5 or so
dB louder) without crashing into its own stators
than the Quad ESL-2905 does. Oh, you can still
clip the CLXes by overdriving them, although
they wont distort with a crackling noise (like the
Quads do); instead, they brighten and soften
up when they are overstressed, losing dynamic
impact and gaining upper-midrange brilliance.
If dynamics are getting softer and rounder and
the upper mids more piercing as the sound get
louder, then its time to turn the volume down.
While were on the subject of dynamics, let me
add a word or two about the CLXes range and
scale. As Ive already noted, you cannot (or, at
least, I cannot) find a more discerning loudspeaker
than this one from pppp to mf. From whisper soft
to moderately loud, dynamic range is audibly
expanded, with sensational revelation of low-level
details that go unregistered via other transducers.
The CLX is incredibly fast and supernaturally
clear, and yet it never sounds etched or analytical
as the CLS could, largely, I think, because while
it is reproducing subtle changes in dynamics
fully and realistically, it is also reproducing subtle
changes of tone color just as fully and realistically.
Here speed is accompanied by dense lifelike
timbre (assuming the recording has dense lifelike
timbre, of course). In a peculiar way this makes
the CLX less sensationally showy than the CLS,
because its not constantly spotlighting detail
(shouting out how transparent it is) but blending
raw detail with pigment. The CLS used to show
you the bones of music; the CLX also gives you
the rosy flesh.
At mezzoforte to ffff levels, the CLX is as good
as electrostats get. Which is to say, pretty good.
Once again, lacking the full weight and body of
cones or Radialstrahlers, stats are softer and
less hard-hitting, less three-dimensional, less
knock-you-on-your-butt powerful than dynamic
speakers (or than music is in life) at loud to very
loud levels. This simply comes with the territory
and is not to be counted as a major demerit
(unless, of course, you habitually listen to music at
loud to very loud levels). The CLXes will still thrill
you with the sweep of a full orchestra in full cry;
they just wont thrill you as much as something
like the incomparable MBL 101 X-Tremes do.
Finally, a word on that most crucial of subjects:
realism. Because of their speed, their coherence,
their low levels of distortion, electrostats make
certain aspects of the sound of instruments and
vocalistsfor instance, tone colors, the low-
level details that describe the kind of instrument
youre listening to and the way it is being played,
transientssound more lifelike than virtually
any other type of transducer, save perhaps
for the finest ribbons. The CLXes go this one
betterand paradoxically one worse. Because
they are so neutral in balance, so not there
as sound sources, so low in distortion and high
in transparency, they make my better and best
recordings, particularly of smaller-scale music,
sound more realistic than any other speaker Ive
had in my home (at low to medium-loud volumes).
At the same time, because they are so neutral, so
not there as sound sources, so low in distortion
and high in transparency, they also make my
less-than-great recordings sound exactly like
what they are.
If you can live with this kind of honesty, then,
IMO, you cannot find a better speaker for any
amount of money, provided that you dont also
demand crashing dynamics at 100dB+ SPLs. If
you want many of these same virtues in a more
gemtlich package with the bonus of more
powerful and extended low bass, then by all
means go for the Quad ESL-2905. As for meIll
give up that bottom octave for this unparalleled
level of midbass-to-top-treble neutrality and
transparency and realism. The CLXes are my
new dipole references.
B
efore I begin to heap praise on Quads new ESL-2905 electrostat, which, if there
were a Platonic realm of loudspeakers, would come as close to the electrostatic
ideal as any stat Ive yet heard (and Ive heard and owned a few), let me say a
few words about what a Quad ESL-2905 wont do.
Quad ESL-2905
Heavenly
Jonathan valin
First and perhaps foremost for many of you, it
wont play real loud. And I dont just mean this
in an average-SPL sense (although I mean that,
too). If a record contains a hard-enough transient,
like, say, the gunshot-snaps of the strings on
J.W. Warrens guitar near the beginning of Have
You Seen Corinna? from Mark Levinsons truly
great coastal-blues compilation Came So Far
[MusicMakers], the 2905 will literally make you
wince trying to cope with them, even if youre
playing back the cut at relatively moderate
average levels. Because the Quad is so fast and
faithful and willing to go, it doesnt compress
or round off hard transients; it tries, instead, to
reproduce their full dynamic scale but ends up
flying at full speed smack into the plate glass
window of its own diaphragm-excursion limits,
distorting with a literal shattering sound (and
if you persist, shutting itself down via its panel-
protection circuits before any permanent damage
can be done). In other words, though it is well
nigh incomparable in transient speed and clarity,
the 2905 is also restricted (at the loud end) in
dynamic range to peaks of about 95dB SPL. I
believe that Quads Peter Walker, the patriarch of
electrostatic loudspeaker design, once said that
every record has its own correct volume level.
What he failed to add was, Particularly when you
use a dynamically handicapped speaker like an
electrostat.
Second (and for the same reason), it wont play
real loud in the bass. Some reviewers (who should
know better) have declared the Quad 2905 to be
the last word in low-end high fidelity, even on
heavy-duty rock n roll. While it is exceptionally
fast, standard-settingly clear, and (up to a point)
naturally full and surprisingly powerful and robust
in the bottom, it most certainly isnt the last word
in low-end extension, flatness, or dynamics.
Like a lot of British speakers, the 2905 has been
designed to fool you into thinking it has deeper
bass than it really does. To this end, its otherwise
excellent frequency response is bumped up a tad
in the 4080Hz range before it begins to plummet
(down ten or twelve dB by the time it hits 30Hz).
The neat thing about this psychoacoustic trick is
that because the dipole Quads are so fast and
clear, relatively low in distortion (though not,
according to a report in Hi-Fi News, quite as low
as some of the best dynamic competition), and
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - Quad ESL-2905 Electrostatic Loudspeaker
well-controlled in dispersion, you dont really
notice this small rise the way you would you would
with a cone speaker in a resonant box. Save for
a teeny recording-dependent bit of plumminess
on instruments that happen to be playing right
where the Quads low-end peaks (around 60Hz),
the thing sounds so beautifully balanced, so full,
fast, rich, and natural in the basswith a clarity
of line that, as noted, sets a new standard in low-
end resolutionyou might easily think that you
were hearing all the way down into the bottom
octave (although you arent). Up to a point, the
2905 delivers things like hard timp or bass drum
strikes, cello and doublebass played legato or
staccato, low-pitched winds or brass, and even
electric bass guitar and Hammond organ with
exceptionally lifelike timbre and dynamics. (Part
of the Quads little secret in the bass is that the
transients of these instruments are not in the bass
but in the midrange, where the Quads speed and
low distortion are superlative; another part is that,
since many bass-range instruments dont have
the narrower directionality, steeper transients,
and wider dynamic envelope of higher-pitched
instruments, they inherently sound softer, more
billowy, less focused and, hence, less explosively
dynamic, even when theyre being played loud.)
Buttry turning the volume up (above mid-90dB
peaks) on Kodo drums or the synth on Paula Coles
Tiger Lily or the big pipe organ on the Sheffield
recording of Mendelssohns Organ Sonatas, and
youll hit that same plate-glass window in the bass
you hit in the midband.
Third, the Quad 2905 wont play real loud in
the top treble, although here the problem isnt an
electrostats inevitable struggle with diaphragm-
excursion limits. It would be if the Quad played
with equal power all the way out to 20kHz, but it
doesnt. It rolls off (once again, I think, by design)
above 1516kHz and, though it measures quite
respectably flat up this point, it actually sounds
more rolled-off on top than it is (just the opposite
of its bass). Oh, it will reproduce top-octave piano
with the kind of natural sparkle that people pay
big bucks for in a ribbon-based transducer, and if
there is a better speaker in all this wide world on
violins, solo or massed, I havent heard it. Strings
are ravishingly beautiful, even when played with
energy in their upper octaves. Whether its the roll-
off on the very top (or the roll in combination with
the slight rise on the bottom), the Quad simply
takes almost all the edge off recordings that can
(and often do) sound edgy on other speakers, and
yet it does this without robbing most instruments of
their authentic tonal and dynamic character. Most,
I say, but not all. The Quad 2905 will reproduce
something like a thumb roll on a tambourine with
a clarity that lets you hear the skin and every zil.
Unfortunately, it also sometimes makes things like
cymbal crashes and bells sound a bit tambourine-
likea little like theyre being shaken or brushed
rather than struck. There is a softness up on top
an airlessness and darkness and reduction of size
and power deliverythat is a little reminiscent
of CD (which, you may recall, is also bandwidth
limited in the treble).
Fourth, the vocal and instrumental images
projected by the Quad ESL-2905 dont have as
much three-dimensional body as they do through
great dynamic speakers. They sound a bit the
way medieval art looksexquisitely detailed
and gorgeous, almost gold-leafed, in color, but
somewhat flattened in perspective. By this, I dont
mean that the soundstage of the Quads lack for
It is often said that dipoles are easier to set up
than directional speakers. this has always been
both true and untrue. While dipoles dont have
the sidewall-reflection problems that wide-
dispersion cone speakers have, you still have
to deal with backwall and backwall-to-sidewall
reflections (and, in the ESL-2905s case, the
slight rise in the midbass), which means youre
going to want pull these things out into the
room by about three or four feet and keep them
a few feet (at least) from sidewalls. youre also
going to want to tune toe-in and speaker-to-
speaker-to-listening-position distance by ear.
(at least in my modestly sized listening room,
I think the ESL-2905s did better with a small
amount of toe-in, rather than being parallel
to backwalls and at right angles to sidewalls.)
there arent any hard-and-fast rules here, as
everything depends on the size and shape and
relative aliveness of your listening room,
although I do think that the ESL-2905s will
generally require less room treatment than
other speakers. (Unless you live in a glassed-in
condo, be wary of overdamping your digs.)
youre going to want to attach the weight
that Quad supplies to the bottom of each
speakers transformer box to add a little extra
mass to the frame, and youre also going to
want to attach the supplied spikes. When doing
both of these things, be sure to gently lower
the speaker face-forward onto a clean rug
by grasping it at its sides. never lift or lower
or move the ESL-2905s by grabbing its rear
support-strut. (youre going to need at least
two people, btW, to get the ESL-2905s out of
their shipping cartons, and a room with very tall
ceilings, as the outside box needs to be lifted
straight up and off to gain access to the inner
packing and the speakers themselves.) Like all
electrostats, the ESL-2905s high-voltage power
supplies need to be plugged into the wall. (Quad
supplies the power cords, although you may
want to experiment with aftermarket brands.)
the speakers also need to charge up for a day
or so before you play them (or, at least, before
you listen to them critically).
as for driving the Quads, Im sure that many
amps, tube and solid-state in the 50-200W
range will fit the bill. However, I can strongly
recommend one particular combination: the
air tight atm-3 monoblocksbeautifully made,
one-hundred-watt, 6ca7-based, ultralinear/
triode-mode-switchable tube amplifiers that are
simply a marriage made in heaven with these
speakers. (So, for that matter, is the amps
superb matching preamplifier, the atc-2.) also
great (for a good deal more dough) are Emotive
audios 50W, 6550-based vita monoblocks
(and matching Epifania preamplifier). Jv
SEttInG Up anD DrIvInG
tHE QUaD ESL-2905
depth or width or that the images within it are
crowded into a single plane, as in a painting by
Cimabue. On the contrary, the ESL-2905s have
excellent lateral spread (though not as good as,
say, a Magico Mini II), very good depth (ditto),
outstanding clarity, astonishingly fine retrieval of
ambient cues and of instrumental decay, and tight
image focus. Rather, it is the individual images
themselves that seem a bit flat in volume. All
stats typically sound as if they miss some of the
natural weight, body, and three-dimensionality
that cones (and certain planar-magnetics) have,
and the ESL-2905s arent exceptions, although
they are better than some in this regard.
Which brings me to two important qualifications
to the reservations Ive listed above. No, the
Quad ESL-2905 could not be called a completely
characterless loudspeaker. With its dynamic-
range limitations above certain peak levels, its
slight softness in the treble, its slight rise in the
midbass and precipitous drop in the very low
bass, and its slight flattening of three-dimensional
body, it has a definite personality that will not suit
all music equally well at all playback levels. But
and here is the first qualificationalthough this
particular combination of weaknesses is unique
to the ESL-2905s, the weaknesses themselves
arent; they are, in fact, inherent in electrostatic
loudspeakers, every one of which suffers from
them to varying degrees. Indeed, the ESL-2905
will play louder before breaking down, play lower
before giving out, and play wider and deeper and
with tighter focus and more dimensionality than
almost all of its formidable competitorsand all
of its Quad predecessors. Plusand here is the
second qualification to my reservationsthe ESL-
2905s merits (including the improvements I just
mentioned in areas of electrostatic weakness) far
outweigh its demerits.
First and foremost, the Quad 2905s (played
within its dynamic-range limits) is among the
most beautiful-sounding transducers money can
buy. Timbres are, if not purely right in the sense
of being dead-center audiophile-neutral, as close
to right as you can get in a pleasantly forgiving,
naturally sweet transducer. Minus a smidge of
top-end air, instruments sound almost exactly the
way they sound from a middle-row seat in a big,
rich, warmish hall like the Berliner Philharmonie.
Strings, top to bottom, are, as noted, ravishingly
beautiful; piano, also as noted, has the sparkle in
the treble and the dark complex density of tone
color and dynamic in the middle and bass octaves
that it has in life (and simply incredible articulation
throughout); winds are sweet and silvery on top,
woody and resonant on bottom; brasses are
golden (and very powerful on fortissimoswatch
those SPL levels!). Voices, from Mario Lanzas
powerful tenor on the Cilea aria Lamento di
Federico on Mario Lanza Live in London [RCA]
and, no, when overall volume is set properly, his
voice does not break up on crescendos on this,
one of the single most consistently powerful and
challenging vocal CDs I know ofto Maria Blacks
sad, dreamy soprano on I Dream of Columbus
from Looking Back [Curb Records] sound as
natural in color and texture as stereo systems can
make them sound.
Which brings me to the second of the Quad
ESL-2905s sterling qualities, and one of the other
chief reasons that voices and instruments sound
so real, so immediate, so therethe speakers
truly phenomenal low-level resolution. Outside the
top treble and at the right volume levels, the ESL-
although the theory behind electrostatic
loudspeakers dates back to the nineteenth
century, it took the invention of mylar (in
1949) and, later, other plastic films to make
the theory practical. prior to this, what
electrostaticians had lacked was an extremely
lightweight, suitably flexible material capable
of holding a constant charge to serve as the
loudspeakers diaphragm.
In a stat that diaphragm is impregnated
with an electro-conductive material and then
connected to a very-high-voltage power
supply that keeps it at a constant charge.
this charged, freestanding diaphragm is then
sandwiched between two fixed perforated
grids called stators, with air gaps (and usually
some sort of additional protective spacers)
between it and either grid of sufficient width
to allow the diaphragm to move freely without
actually contacting the stators (this would
cause sparking or arcing and leave burn
holes in the plastic membrane). the stators
are fed the audio signal from your amplifier
one stator getting the positive half of the
signal, the other the negative halfgenerating
a varying electrostatic field between them.
this field causes the charged diaphragm to
vibrate like the cone of a dynamic speaker,
moving forward and back in response to the
fluctuating polarity of the audio signal.
the advantages of electrostatic drive are
many. being extremely low in mass (often
lower than the air that helps support it) and
charged equally throughout its entire area,
a stats diaphragm moves very quickly and
uniformly, increasing perceived transient
speed and low-level resolution, and lowering
harmonic distortion to the levels of some
preamplifiers. In addition, since it doesnt
need to be back-loaded by a sealed or ported
enclosure, a stat doesnt have box coloration
(or much of same); it doesnt need elaborate
crossovers, either, since it is driven full-range.
However, there are also downsides to
electrostatic drive. for one thing, electrotats
are typically limited in bass response by
low-frequency phase cancellation (due to
their dipolar dispersion) and by the limited
excursion of their diaphragms (see arcing,
above), which also reduces their dynamic
range and scale. In addition, they are prone
to beaming in the treble. (this highly
directional projection of high frequencies is
due to the large size of the driver relative to
the small wavelengths it is attempting to
reproduce.) treble-beaming mandates that the
listener sit in one spot, directly on axis with
the stat panel (the so-called head-in-a-vise
effect), and makes off-axis listening generally
much less satisfactory.
although americas arthur Janzsen
designed and marketed the first widely
HoW ELEctroStatS Work
(anD HoW QUaD 2905S Work)
2905 is perhaps the clearest, most finely detailed
loudspeaker Ive ever heard. When you can hear,
without straining in the slightest whether the
speaker is being played soft or loud, the timbre
and dynamic of every string of Galvin Gallaghers
string bass on the aforementioned Mary Black
recording, when you can follow the line of that
chunky, squawking, mostly-buried-in-the-mix
guitar or synth-guitar (equipped with what sounds
like a wah-wah pedal), on the Alabama 3s Woke
Up This Morning from Exile on Coldharbour Lane
[One Little Indian], when you are startled by that
little mic pop as Dr. John clears this throat at the
very start of On a Roll or by the utter lucidity of
the bass guitar and purling organ on Irma Thomas
There Must Be A Better World Somewhere from
Till The Night Is Gone: A Tribute to Doc Pomus
[Rhino], when you catch the reverb of every
instrument on Marc Cohns Ghost Train from
his eponymous album on Rhino, you know youre
in the presence of loudspeaker greatness. Even
something as incredibly finely detailed as the
Magico Mini II sounds a bit less discerning next
to the ESL-2905.
The Mini II also sounds just a bit slower. Up to
the limits of its diaphragms excursion, the ESL-
2905 is among the fastest loudspeakers Ive
heard, with transient speed that makes even the
very best cones (and the Mini IIs are the very best)
sound a bit sluggish. Of course, with their very
low mass and very low inertia drivers, all stats
sound fast, but they also sometimes sound
wildly uncontrolled due to ringing. Thanks in
part to the rigidity of their frames and their point-
source configuration, the ESL-2905s are both fast
and focused, both hard-hitting and under control.
No, they dont have all the lifelike weight and body
of Mini IIsits almost as if stats are so fast that
they leave these things behind, like bags forgotten
on the platform in a race to catch a train. Still, they
will reproduce a timp or bass drum with genuine
room-shaking power (and the kind of speed on
the mallet-strike that only statsand the real
thingseem to own). Theyll just reproduce them
with a slightly reduced sense of instrumental size
and dynamic scale, as they do with instruments or
instrumental overtones in the top treble.
The Quad ESL-2905s soundstaging is also
excellent, though, once again, not as panoramic
as, say, that of the Magico Mini II. As sound
available electrostat in 1953an add-on
tweeter often used in combination with
acoustic researchs ar-1 acoustic-suspension
loudspeakerit was Quads own peter Walker
(founder of that british company) and his
colleague David Williamson who developed
and marketed the first full-range electrostat,
the fabled (and still highly esteemed) Quad
Electrostatic Loudspeaker, popularly known as
the Quad 57.
for his next speaker, the ESL-63, Walker
devised what is arguably the most ingenious
modification of electrostatic technology since
he virtually invented the full-range electrostat
with the Quad 57. to help solve the treble and
bass problems of stats, he attempted to turn
the electrostat from a line source (with a line
sources beaming and phase cancellation) into
a point source. by splitting the stators into
concentric rings, each fed by a slightly more
time-delayed signal, he made the speakers
react to an input signal like a proverbial stone
dropped into a pond, rippling their energy out
in concentric waves from a theoretical point
in space just about a foot behind the planes of
the diaphragms. the result was a less beamy
treble, a wider sweet spot (less of a head-in-
the-vise effect), more controlled dispersion
top-to-bottom, and somewhat better low-
frequency response, although the 63s
annular rings and delay line didnt really do
much to solve the diaphragm excursion (and,
hence, dynamic range) problems endemic to
all electrostats.
Quads next efforts, the ESL-988/989, were
more evolutionary than the revolutionary ESL-
63 and Quad 57. both speakers added extra
bass panels (a misnomer, since all stats
play full-range) to the ESL-63s ingenious
concentric-ring panels, augmenting output in
the low end and improving dynamic range by
adding sheer radiating surface-area.
the speaker under review, the Quad ESL-
2905, goes even further in the direction
that the ESL-988/989 pioneered, as well as
taking off in its own directions. almost five
feet tall (with its tiptoes attached) and almost
one hundred pounds per side (with weights
attached), the ESL-2905 is far and away the
largest and brawniest electrostat Quad has
yet marketed. at the center of each speaker
are two of Walkers concentric-ring stators,
surrounded top and bottom by six flat bass
panels (three above, three below) that operate
linearly (as opposed to the time-delayed
concentric panels), adding, as per the ESL-
988/989, even more radiating area to further
improve bass and dynamics.
Save for the number of panels, none of this
is very different than the ESL-988/989. Where
the ESL-2905 steps off into the ether is in the
sheer solidity of its construction. Influenced
apparently by the way SmEs late alistair
robertson-aikman had beefed up his Quad
ESL-63s by adding mass and rigidity to their
frames, Quad decided to do a bit of the same.
the ESL-2905s are the most massive and
rigid Quads yet, using stainless-steel frames
coupled to aluminum extrusions and wooden
trim (finished, in the models I auditioned, in
Quad ESL-2905 Electrostatic Loudspeaker
frequency response: 32Hz-21kHz (-6dB)
Impedance: 8 ohm nominal
maximum continuous input voltage: 10V
program peak (for undistorted output): 40V
Dimensions: 1430 x 695 x 385mm (add 25-55mm
for feet)
Weight: 76.5 lbs.
SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
price: $12,000/pr
TAIgA LLC (U.S.
DISTRIBUTOR)
310 Tosca Drive
Stoughton, MA 02072
(781) 341-1234
info@taigallc.com
U.K.
price: 7,000/pr
QUAD
ELECTROACOUSTICS
Huntingdon, Cambs
PE29 6XU
+44(0)1480 447700
quad-hifi.co.uk
sources, they dont (because of their tonal balance,
combination of dispersion characteristics, and
dynamic strengths and weaknesses) disappear as
completely as a Mini II (or, as you will see in a few
months, an MBL 101 X-Treme, which simply owns
this territory). You dont exactly hear a box with
the ESL-2905s; its more like hearing a window
as if youre hearing through them to an incredibly
detailed soundstage peopled with incredibly
realistic, slightly miniaturized instruments and
vocalists, rather than as if theyre completely
disappearing and leaving a soundstage and its
inhabitants behind. In this regard, the Quad ESL-
2905s arent as transparent as the original
MartinLogan CLSes were.
Bottom line. If you understand and can live
with the inevitable limitations of an electrostatic
speaker, the ESL-2905 offers virtues that no other
kind of speaker does. Given certain significant
dynamic limitations, it will carry you closer to
the absolute sound in truth of timbre, fineness of
texture, clarity of line and detail, transient speed,
and lifelike presence than most cone loudspeakers
(Mini IIs excepted). It is not the ideal speaker for
stadium rock, for electronica, for drum-and-
bass, or for power music of any kind played at
true concert-hall or rock/jazz-club levels. But for
the smaller-scale acoustic music that I favorfor
chamber, small combo jazz, folk, blues, and
much rockand even for the larger-scale music
that I often listen to (albeit played back short of
concert-hall volumes on fortissississimos), it is
superb. Nothing else plays more realistically at
low-to-moderate volumes, regardless of music.
Though not without character of their own,
the Quad ESL-2905s are the best electrostatic
loudspeakers Ive yet heard. They immediately
join the very small rank of truly great transducers
that Ive auditioned. They are to electrostatic
technology what the Magico Mini IIs are to cone
technology, the Symposium Acoustics Panoramas
to planar-magnetic technology, and the MBL 101
X-Tremes to omni technologybenchmarks.
Much as Id like to own the $30k Mini IIs, the $100k
Symposium Pans, or the $200k 101 X-Tremes,
unless I start knocking over gas stations again Ill
never be able to afford either. I could afford the
$12k Quad ESL-2905s and can honestly say that,
as of this writing, they are the speakers I would
buy if I were buying a high-end loudspeaker. For
those of you with taste in gear and music like
mine, they are must-hears.
a glossy piano-black) for enclosures and
adding, at the back of the panel, a heavy-
duty aluminum strut that runs from the top
rear of the speaker to the box which houses
its transformers and crossovers at its base
and acts as a brace. (there is an additional
sizable weight that can be attached, with
some difficulty as no instructions are
included, to the bottom of the transformer
box. Intended primarily to satisfy the anti-
tipping requirements of the british audio
industry, these weights serve the further
function of adding mass to the entire
frameworkand I recommend their use.)
for the indubitable sonic improvements
these extra drivers and the more rigid
and massive and heavily braced support
structure have made, see the review. Jv
R
aidhos Eben C1, with its quirky, wobbly stand is one of my all time favourite
loudspeakers. Its voice is one of musical eloquence, subtlety and cohesion
way beyond what its diminutive size would initially suggest. It is a hungry
device though and will gobble up and respond to just about all the quality you care to
pour into it and this certainly helps in making it, to my ears, a landmark product. Its
elegance and economy of design typifies everything a small, high-cost stand-mount
should be. But it then goes way beyond that by plugging you straight into the realm
of pure musicianship and expression. Hi-Fiwise, thats where I want to be. But it is
very small and although it produces quite surprising extension and clarity at lower
frequencies it will never have the scale and bandwidth that some situations and tastes
demand and this is where the C2 comes into the equation. It could be thought of as
a C1, with an extra driver, in a floor standing cabinet and certainly has Eben DNA
running right through it. That much is obvious when you first hear it. The caveat here
is that it is another one of those speakers that takes an age to run-in and it can sound
quite ordinary straight from the box. So great are the improvements that come as the
weeks and months pass, that this warning bears repeating as often as possible.
Raidho Eben C2
Beauty can be more than skin deep
Chris Thomas
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - raidho Eben c2 Loudspeaker
This is an elegantly proportioned and quite
beautifully constructed speaker. It incorporates
a pair of 115mm custom-built drivers, like the
one found in the C1, in a two and a half way
design where the lower unit is employed as a
subwoofer. Raidhos approach with this driver
was to remove the magnet from its conventional
position at the rear of the speaker and replace
it with an array of 10 Neodymium rod magnets,
isolated from the minimal chassis by soft iron
spacers and sited around the circumference, fore
and aft of the voice coil in a patented push/pull
design. The chassis is replaced by stand-offs
that attach the driver to the 20 mm aluminium
baffle sections and the entire superstructure
of the unit has been greatly minimised with the
area behind the cone being left open. Designer
Michael Boerresen wanted no clutter here to
eliminate both reflection back into the driver and
any thermal or mechanical compression. This
thinking has been carried through to the cabinet
design where each driver section is rear-vented
and these holes in the aluminium rear plate should
not be thought of as conventional ports but rather
as an extension of the breathing-driver design
aims. The cones themselves are an ingenious
sandwich construction formed by immersing an
ultra-lightweight aluminium cone into a bath and
subjecting it to a plasma/electrolysis process that
converts two thirds of the surface into ceramic.
This is a patented procedure that eliminates the
associated problems of consistency of cooling
that bedevils all-ceramic cone designs. The result
is an extremely accurate shape that provides
Eben with the true pistonic driver they envisaged,
able to take full advantage of the lack of reflection
that the radical rear end shape provides.
Each of these units is mounted on its own baffle/
module and slotted into the cabinet. The top driver
is essentially a midrange unit while the lower one
handles everything below 140Hz, down to about
40 Hz. The large enclosure beneath this is used
to load the driver through a series of strategically
positioned vents and also contains the crossover.
As with other Eben speakers, all internal wiring
is Nordost and a single pair of gold-plated WBT
terminals provides amplifier connection. The
Raidho-built ribbon tweeter is also the same as that
found in the C1 and is an edge-constrained sealed
unit with an ultra-lightweight membrane weighing
only 0.01 gram. This is another exceptional
performer with the speed and transparency that
typifies good ribbons, but is also notable for a
lack of HF beaming that is so endemic in such
designs. You will not find yourself locked into a
narrow sweet-spot listening position in an effort
to hear the speakers full bandwidth.
Superbly finished in a deep, highly polished
burr-walnut veneer for the review pair, the cabinet,
sits on the same base as the C1 stand and this
means that there is resonance-control technology
in the shape of a decoupling bearing system fitted
within. The weight of the C2 means that it doesnt
sway through the alarming angles that the C1
does when pushed, but there is still compliance
in the installation and this is very much a part
of the design concept of the Eben C-range. The
slim aluminium baffle is 200mm across at the
front and the cabinet tapers to the back where
it measures a mere 85mm. The manufacturers
claim that at 89db efficiency and with impedance
curve that does not fall below 4.5 ohms the C2
is technically an easier proposition for amplifiers
than its baby brother. When you first install them
they sound more like 87-88 db but it seems that
efficiency increases with use and although the
impedance may be somewhat benign, this is
another one of those speakers that will punish
mediocrity in partnering equipment. They reward
excellence and the results, when you provide it,
are absolutely stunning. But there is a meticulous
installation process to be gone through first that
involves three phases to be undertaken with music
and perhaps supplemented with a good test disc.
Rear wall spacing, as they like to operate in free
air, distance apart and then toe-in are all critical
and should be progressively measured. Dont be
surprised if the listening angles take a few days
to finalise. A word of advice is to start with them
facing directly forward and introduce just a degree
or so at a time.
Initially you are struck with both the lack of any
cabinet in the sound and the finely etched sonic
picture of the soundstage. Michael Boerresens
ambition to free the drivers from reflection and
internal energy storage is surely the reason for the
way the music has so much vitality and refuses to
be constrained within the boxes. Close your eyes
and point to where the instruments are located
and you will be amazed at how broad, free and full-
scaled the view of the music is. Each instrument
or voice has a palpable sense of dynamic
freedom about it and this gives them a really solid
and exciting sense of vitality and movement. But
this is not a speaker that adds any superfluous
flesh throughout its bandwidth. Overall it shares
certain leanness with the C1 and you can feel
this, especially in the bass. An upright string bass
or cello will never have the full, rich and weighty
presence that you would get with the big paper
cone of say, a Wilson Duette. The bandwidth is
there but the Eben concentrates its energies on
speed, focus and clarity. This makes them one
of the few floor-standing speakers I have heard
that will sit quite happily in smaller rooms where
a high quality stand mount might be the initial
and obvious consideration. Having mentioned
the word speed in relation to the C2 I think that it
is at the heart of much that they do so well. Not
only do they gain energy quickly but they lose it
just as impressively, leaving no sonic trace. The
backgrounds against which the music plays is
remarkable for its blackness, bringing an added
feeling of dramatic contrast. But there are also the
rhythmic benefits that such sensitivity allows and
there are few speakers as to the point where
tempo is concerned, as the Ebens. I was listening
to The New Bossa Nova by Luciana Souza when
I started to think more deeply about the whole
flavour and nature of Bossa Nova music. The
combination of the swaying rhythms, counter-
pointed by gently suggested offbeat chord shifts
from the guitar were all so subtle and understated
that it intrigued me. That distinctive vocal style,
free of big dynamic swings and overt expression,
sat just above the brushed snare and washing
cymbals and the more I listened the more I became
aware that the Ebens were superb at revealing an
incredibly complex collaboration of elements. Her
lyrical approach, which I had heard sound so flat
on other systems, now felt full of expression and
were sung with a care and precision that I hadnt
fully appreciated before. She uses her approach
to long and short phrasing as a link in time that
spans the tempo and with subtlety and colour
changes she pushes gently at the lyric, sitting
its emphasis in different places on and around
the beat. This New Bossa Nova is a sensibility
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - raidho Eben c2 Loudspeaker
with a communicative edge that is completely
dependent on the brilliance of her performance.
With some speakers, you just sit back and watch
the music happening in front of you. The Eben,
when pumped full of potential, is an open window
that lets you walk right into the middle of the mix
to have a look around and explore.
Like the C1, their top to bottom coherence is
strikingly good and they really have no obvious
preference when it comes to musical genre. Those
who are looking for serious chest-cavity rattling
levels of bass energy will certainly notice the
lack of ultimate low frequency weight and power,
though personally, I never found it a problem at all.
And while I am looking under stones for criticisms,
I might also mention that perhaps they could do
with a little more air at high frequencies and a
touch more obvious presence up here might be
nice too. But these are also remarks that I made
about the C1 and are more to do with personal
taste. At the risk of labouring another point I
must also say that the requirements to push the
speakers to the heights they can achieve means
that the electronics must be of notable quality
but, perhaps even more importantly, so must
the quality of installation and set-up and this is
something I hope to return to in issues to come.
When I get involved in a very fine and explicit
recording like A Remark You Made by Jerry
Douglas from his The Best Kept Secret album I
cant help but think that the Eben C2 is one of
the most engaging small floor-standing designs
I have heard. They have a near perfect tonal
balance, so the bite and fabulous tonal warmth
of the slide guitar alongside the violin, played
together in unison over a string bass, feel like
voices speaking to you. Three textural, fretless
instruments brimming with harmonics and
shimmering overtones, all superbly controlled in
space and time by the C2 are just one of one of
the joys of this speaker. They have a realisation
and resolution of playing technique and ambient
instrumental detail that makes the music more
meaningful and emotional and for me form such
an integral part of the Eben appeal.
Since I have been using the C2 exclusively
for 3 or 4 months now, they have improved, as
has my appreciation of what they do so well.
Their freedom of presentation and extremely
fine resolution, coupled with enough bandwidth
to give them a real sense of scale and presence
mean that, except for very small rooms, they are
going to fit in many of the situations that a C1
would. Dont forget that they take up the same
amount of floor space. But they are also happy in
larger rooms. Their feeling of intimacy, response
to micro-dynamic shifts and the explicit nature of
their voice brings you close to the performance
and the more you use them, the more delighted
you will be at how much of the music and what lies
behind it, they are showing you. The C2 is an agile
conjuror of a speaker, able to keep all the balls
the air at the same time. It is often an education
to live with and I can do nothing but thoroughly
recommend it. +
Raidho Eben C2 Loudspeakers
type: 2.5-way floor standing.
Drivers: 2 x 115mm raidho aluminium/ceramic driver, 1
x raidho sealed ribbon
freq resp: 40Hz-50kHz
Sensitivity: 89db
Dimensions: 1160x200x520mm (HxWxD)
Weight: 50.5kg (2)
finishes available: piano black, Walnut burr and all
possible paint colours (to order)
SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
price: $24,000/pr
SpECIALTY SOUND
AND vISION
210 Summit Avenue,
Suite A16
Montvale, NJ 07645
(201) 690-9006
U.K.
price: 13,995/pr
RAIDHO ACOUSTICS
raidho.dk
HIgHEND CABLES
+44-1775761880
djenvirogroup@
btconnect.com
T
he more I review speakers, the more cautious I get about calling one a
breakthrough. Speaker design has advanced to the point where dramatic
qualitative differences are rare, where the personal taste of the audiophile
is highly relevant, and where room-interaction problems can do as much to shape
the sound as many aspects of engineering.
That said, the Thiel CS3.7 does more than
demonstrate how good the current generation
of speakers has become. It represents decades
of effort by Jim Thiel, who has long been one
of the worlds top designers, and I do feel it is a
breakthrough in sonic accuracy and resolution at
its price of $12,900. At a time when the high end
seems to be drifting towards reference-quality
speakers that cost as much as a good car, the
CS3.7 delivers an extraordinarily advanced set of
new driver technologies, integrated into what is
about as close to a true point source as any
full-range dynamic transducer. It is a remarkably
coherent speaker in any halfway realistic listening
position, and one that offers truly exceptional
detail and resolution.
Dont misunderstand what I am saying: The
Thiel CS3.7 does have many rivals in overall
performance, and it is not a no-holds-barred
assault on the state of the art that ignores cost
considerations. The race between dynamic,
ribbon, planar, and electrostatic loudspeaker
technology is still wide open, with excellent
examples of each in the running. There is
also no one right configuration for dynamic
loudspeakers in driver type or in the choice
between line-source or point-source arrays. You
can find outstanding speakers regardless of the
mix of technologies involved.
I have, however, found that development of
integrated-tweeter-and-midrange drivers that
provide coherent dispersion and imaging at a
minimal cost in distortion and coloration is leading
to major advances in speaker quality. I have heard
such advances in KEF and TAD designs, and
the Thiel CS3.7 pushes this aspect of the state
of the art to new levels of sonic performance
particularly at anything like its price point. It
Thiel CS3.7
A New Standard of Musical Accuracy
Anthony H. Cordesman
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - thiel cS3.7 Loudspeaker
may well represent the most accurate dynamic
speaker now available at anything close to twice
its price or more, at least from the lower midrange
to beyond the range of human hearing.
Rethinking Dynamic Driver Technology
I dont want to bore you with too much techno-
babble, and the Thiel Web site provides far more
detail than I can fit into a review. At the same
time, you cannot understand this product, how
it achieves its sound quality, or why I can use the
term breakthrough without knowing some key
facts about its design.
The Thiel CS3.7 is the result of years of effort
by Jim Thielone of the worlds leading speaker
designersto make a major advance in the
coherence of the treble and midrange signal and
to reduce levels of distortion. I quote from the
Web site:
Thiel uses two techniques, singly or in
combination, to achieve time coherence in all our
products. One is to mount the drivers on a sloping
baffle and adjust the angle of the slope and the
driver spacing to achieve coherence. This can
work well for floorstanding speakers, especially
at lower frequencies. But it cannot work for
non-floorstanding speakers where the location
of the speaker is unknown, and in any case
the accuracy of the results at high frequencies
becomes somewhat dependent on the listeners
position.
For this reason, a better technique for time
coherence at higher frequencies is to mount
the tweeter coincidently (both coaxially and
coplanarly) with the midrange driver. Such
mounting ensures that the sound from both
drivers always reaches the listener at exactly the
same time, regardless of where the speaker is
placed or where the listener is. Such mounting
also completely eliminates any lobing in the
speakers radiation pattern.
The CS3.7 also represents the result of a similar
effort to develop a far more rigid midrange driver
material that is breakup-free. Thiel states:
The CS3.7 has a midrange diaphragm that
is ten times as stiff per weight as [our] previous
extremely stiff composite diaphragm while also
being flat rather than cone-shaped. But these
requirements work against each other. The flatter
the diaphragms shape the weaker it becomes
[so] an undulating, radially ribbed contour is used
for the diaphragm which provides light weight
and great stiffness in the radial direction while
still maintaining a basically flat shape.
I should stress that the CS3.7 also makes
important refinements in bass driver, crossover,
and enclosure design. For example, all of the
drivers in the CS3.7 use copper-stabilized, short-
coil motor systems that Thiel claims produce only
one-tenth the distortion of conventional motor
systems and have a much larger magnet and
much longer magnetic gap.
The crossover is a true first-order type that Thiel
claims provides complete accuracy of amplitude,
phase, time, and energy and, therefore, does
not distort the musical waveform. The cabinet
is carefully shaped to minimize standing-wave
problem and interference with the radiation of
the drivers, and its front baffle is machined from
aluminum, which Thiel states is more than thirty
times as strong as the usual MDF baffle, reduces
unwanted vibrations, and provides a rigid
mounting for the drivers so they cannot move,
even a miniscule amount, as they recoil from the
forces they generate.
Dynamic loudspeakers may now be older than
any living audiophile, but Thiel and other cutting-
edge high-end manufacturers are showing that it
is still possible to make technical advances that
are at least as important as any I have seen in
electrostatic, ribbon, and planar design, and to do
so without plunging into the costs and problems
associated with beryllium and diamond drivers.
A Speaker You Can Actually Live With
The CS3.7 is also a practical speakerat least
by high-end standards. It does not require exotic
amplifiers and a snake pit of expensive speaker
cables. It does not require (and cannot use) bi-
wiring. It has a relatively smooth impedance
curve that does not dip below 2.8 ohms (it carries
a 4-ohm nominal rating), and its sensitivity is
rated at a relatively high 90dB.
Bass speed and detail do improve with
amplifiers with high damping factors, and the
CS3.7 has the dynamic range to benefit from
amplifiers with high power. At the same time,
even moderately priced tube amplifiers in the 50-
watt-and-above range, such as from Cayin and
PrimaLuna, provide enough control and power to
produce very high sound quality; thus, choosing
between the cost-benefits of tube and solid-state
does not require a massive investment in either
type of power amp.
No speaker is free of room-interaction effects,
but the Thiel CS3.7 proved to be the easiest
speaker to place I have encountered in several
years for getting the proper balance of bass
response and power relative to the rest of the
sonic spectrum. If you read the instruction manual,
and follow its recommendationsa principle
that Plato once gave the acronym RTFMyou
can count on getting truly good sound from this
speaker in any room large enough to minimize
major sidewall reflections and that gives you
enough space to produce a decent soundstage
and avoid serious standing-wave problems.
The CS3.7s visual profile is curved and
sculptured, not just a big box; its height is good
in terms of vertical dispersion, and moving it
does not involve a weight-lifting contest. (I am still
waiting for a speaker to be called the Hernia.)
There is a low-profile outrigger that attaches to
the bases of the enclosures and ensures excellent
stability in spite of the CS3.7s small footprint.
This is a speaker that you and your partner can
easily live with, although I suspect most wives
and design-sensitive roommates will want a want
a finish a little less bland than the normal walnut.
Sound Quality: The Strengths
The key strength of the Thiel CS3.7, however, is
its sound quality. We all listen for different things
and we all have our own personal image of what
the absolute sound should be in reproduced
music. This came through clearly when I started
to evaluate the CS3.7.
Having read the technical literature, I initially
listened to see if I could hear the level of
midrange-to-treble clarity and coherence that
Thiel promised. When I asked one of my sons
to provide a blind comment on the speaker,
however, he had no idea of the speakers
design goals or background. He didnt focus on
transparency and coherence. Instead, he said
that the CS3.7s provided the best soundstage he
had ever heard from a stereo setup.
My other son focused on something different.
EQUIPMENt rEvIEw - thiel CS3.7 Loudspeaker
He praised the quality of bass guitar and deep
bass, and the CS3.7s ability to get deep room-
exciting bass out of Jennifer Warnes staples
like Way Down Deep [Private Music] and The
Well [Musicforce], as well as its exceptional
combination of deep bass energy and complex
musical detail on the Ray Brown recording
Superbass [Telarc].
My sons are more rock and pop oriented than
I am, but they are also right. The soundstaging is
truly excellent with classical music, with a very
realistic mix of imaging size, width, and depth.
The illusion of a realistic soundstage is also
reinforced by exceptional detail, transparency,
and lifelike dynamics. For example, you can
clearly hear the differences in both soundstaging
and imaging when you compare two versions of
Mozarts Clarinet Concerto in A Majorthe Martin
Frost/Amsterdam Sinfonietta version [BIS] and
the Antony Michaelson/Michaelangelo version
[MFS]. The CS3.7 reveals all too clearly that Frost
is spotlighted in ways which make his clarinet
seem incredibly large, while Antony Michaelsons
instrument is recorded in ways that are far more
realistic, as is the hall in which he plays. At the
same time, no instrument on either recording
had an unrealistic timbre, and the orchestra was
remarkably clean and detailed even in comparison
to excellent competing speakers.
This same mixture of excellent detail, dynamics,
life, musically natural timbre, and realistic imaging
comes through in a very demanding, all-Strad
recording of Mendelssohns Octet for Four Violins,
Two Violas, and Two Violincellos [Sony]. Resolving
inner detail on music this complex is not easy, and
the music can sound slightly hard if the midrange
and tweeter are not exceptionally transparent.
This same high resolution, incidentally, was
audible with the radically different music and
mix of instruments on both the LP and CD of the
Modern Jazz Quartets Blues at Carnegie Hall
[Mobile Fidelity]. I thought I had long listened this
recording to death. The CS3.7 provided enough
new insight to give it a new life.
The CS3.7 is not the kind of speaker that
produces the big sound that large column or
line-source configurations do, but its point-source
configuration does provide a very convincing
rendition of orchestral, large-scale choral, and
operatic works. Wagnerians will be more than
happy with the imaging, detail, dynamics, and life
of the better Ring recordings (and the rest of us
will find it harder to nod off out of sheer boredom).
Telarcs wide range of really good choral music
recordings comes through with remarkable detail
and realism.
Equally important, the CS3.7s combination
of accurate timbre, low- and high-level dynamic
contrasts, detail, and extended frequency
response makes ordinary recordings more
pleasant to listen to. The Eugene Ormandy,
Philadelphia Orchestra rendition of Carl Orffs
Carmina Burana is not a great recording, but
it sounds far better when the male and female
voices are reproduced in full detail and have
more lifelike timbre and image size. You will find
the same to be true with any good Mahler disc,
particularly in complex orchestral and vocal
passages. Close your eyes as you listen, and you
may find it difficult to believe that the CS3.7 is not
a far larger speaker.
In short, I soon realized from the reactions
of other listeners that the CS3.7 does more
than make advances in midrange and treble
performance. It provides the best overall sound
I have ever heard from a Thiel speakerserious
praise for a manufacturer with such an established
history of success.
paying attention to the Trade-offs
and Limits
Are there limits to the CS3.7s performance?
Of course! This is not a big speaker with an
enclosure so solid and vibration-free that it takes
ten men to move it into the house. It can play as
loudly with rock, jazz, and symphonic music as
I care to go, but Im sure that its distortion rises
with listening levelsthe laws of physics almost
ensure thisalthough this is not as apparent up
to 100dB SPL as it is with other speakers in this
price range. Push it to the levels that are likely to
damage your hearing, however, and you will find
that the bass is not equal to that of much larger
and more expensive speakers.
Thiel Cs3.7 Loudspeaker
Driver complement: One 10 woofer with wave-
shaped aluminum diaphragm, one 10 wave-shaped
passive diaphragm, one 4.5 midrange with wave-
shaped aluminum diaphragm, one 1 aluminum dome
tweeter coincidently mounted with midrange
Frequency response: 33Hz26kHz +/-2dB
Sensitivity: 90dB (2.8v/1m, true anechoic)
Impedance: 4 ohm (2.8 ohm min)
recommended power: 100600 watts
Dimensions: 45 x 12.5 x 21
weight: 91 lbs.
speCs & priCiNg
u.s.
Price: $12,900/pr
THieL auDio
1026 Nandino Boulevard
Lexington, Kentucky
40511
thielaudio.com
u.K.
Price: 9,495/pr
symmeTry LTD
17 Holywell Hill
St. Albans Herts AL1 1DT
+44(0)1727 865488
symmetry-systems.co.uk
CLICK HERE TO COMMENT IN THE FORUM AT avguiDe.Com
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - thiel cS3.7 Loudspeaker
This is not the ultimate speaker for the audiophile
who likes sitting next to the Marshall stacks at
rock concerts, whose idea of organ music is a half
hour of 32Hz notes at extremely high volumes, or
who wont go to a club where the sound levels
dont constantly produced physical pain. Dont
get me wrong: This is not a bass-shy transducer;
it is easier to place than most speakers to get
good bass, and it can produce furniture-vibrating
deep bass you can clearly feel. But it is a speaker
for demanding but rational listeners.
The point source character of the CS3.7
provides all of the soundstage merits that I have
described, but its stage is not as big as that of
columnar dynamic designs or tall ribbons and
electrostatics. Some other speakers can be
placed wider apart without centerfill problems,
although at a cost in soundstage detail and,
usually, depth. Every speaker ever made makes
real sonic trade-offs in soundstage performance,
and you may prefer a different mix of qualities.
The wide dispersion of the midrange and
treble do produce potential reflections from an
undamped floor, close-by untreated sidewalls,
and a live or reflective area around the listening
position that are much less problematical with
a speaker with more focused dispersion like
the Vandersteen 5A. You really do need to read
the manual to place this speaker properly, use a
carpet to damp the floor, avoid putting reflective
objects between you and the CS3.7, and pay
attention to room surfaces and reflections.
Most importantly, this speaker is unabashedly
designed to meet Jim Thiels definition of flat
frequency response. His definition is scarcely
unique, although I do not know of another
manufacturer providing more demanding
specifications and frequency-response data.
The timbre of the CS3.7, however, is not in any
sense romantic or forgiving, and there are no
adjustments as to treble and midrange levels.
The end result is intensely realistic with good
recordings, where there are no tell-tale signs of
hardness or excessive upper-midrange energy
on female voice, violin, flute, or woodwinds.
But if you want forgiving or romantic frequency
response, or a softer or warmer sound, the CS3.7
wont provide it.
Close-miked digital recordings can present
problems, particularly classical recordings with
a great deal of upper-midrange energy. If you
are into rock or jazz, you probably dont need to
worry. The most you may hear with a female singer
with poor breath control is how she aspirates into
the microphone. The same is true for most pop
music, although I was struck by how clearly the
CS3.7s reproduced the hardness in the voice and
sibilants on some poorly mastered Judy Collins
recordings.
The story can be different, however, with
spotlighted acoustic instruments where the
recording engineer did not give a damn about
natural timbre. The advantage of the CS3.7 is
that its exceptional clean and detailed midrange
and treble do not add to the hardness of such
recordings or their peculiar where the hell
could the musician be standing if this were a live
performance quality. At the same time, you will
hear the hardness and excessive upper-octave
energy that is actually present on far too many
classical recordings of piano, flute, clarinet,
violin, etc. You will hear the bad moments on
recordings of tenor and, particularly, soprano
voice. Accuracy has its costs, especially in an era
where tone controls, equalization, and any form
of correction in the preamp can get you publicly
burned at the stake by large segments of the
high-end cult in the U.S. and Europe.
This is not the speaker for hard front ends,
electronics, interconnects, and speaker cables.
It works fine with a wide range of equally
accurate solid-state electronicsBoulder, Pass
Labs, Parasound, Mark Levinson, etc. It also
worked very well with my reference Kimber and
Audioquest interconnects and speaker cables,
and older Straightwire, Transparent Audio, and
Discovery Cable designs. But you do need to
show some caution in blending the CS3.7 into a
system.
Summing Up
No speaker is all things to all men and women.
The CS3.7 has clear sonic limits, and accuracy
sometimes comes at a price, given the problems
in far too many modern recordings. This is more
than a truly good speaker, however; it is an
important one. It makes advances in coherence,
transparency, and sonic detail, and in providing the
advantages of true point-source soundstaging. I
have not heard anything like it at its price.
You may well prefer other sonic qualities in
your search for the absolute sound, but you
owe it yourself to audition this speaker with
your music and learn just what it can do. Highly
recommended and a real challenge to other
designers and manufacturers.
L
arge, full-range, multi-driver loudspeaker systems can be thrilling and a lot
of fun, yet in my experience, they frequently suffer from a lack of coherence
between at least some of their drivers. My former Infinity Beta and RS1B
speaker systems, with their separate woofer towers, generated plenty of goosebumps,
yet their lack of coherence ultimately destroyed the illusion of a live performance for
me. Modifications to the external crossovers, cabinets, and drivers helped, but not
enough to keep me from parting with them. Indeed, getting woofers or subwoofers
which plumb the depths to mate seamlessly with smaller quicker drivers is a major
design challenge. Full-range electrostatics, as well as some highly regarded two-
way dynamic systems, solve the coherence problem at the expense of bottom-end
extension and weight, and most limit dynamic output. Ive typically accepted these
trade-offs and voted in favor of coherence over goosebumps.
vienna Acoustics
The Music
Redefining the art of the loudspeaker
Jim Hannon
However, as subwoofer advocates can attest, that
bottom octave not only gives the performance
a solid foundation and dynamic impact, but
additional spatial cues which help soundstaging
and musical realism. When I heard Vienna
Acoustics new The Music loudspeaker for the
first time at CES 2008, I was mightily impressed
that here was a full-range, multi-driver speaker
system that provided plenty of goosebumps
without sacrificing coherence, plus it also had an
extraordinarily expansive and deep soundstage.
Having lived with The Music for many months, and
then again for several more after it returned from
an appearance at a trade show, my appreciation
for this brilliant loudspeaker has grown on many
levels.
The Music occupies the uppermost rung
in Vienna Acoustics new Klimt Series of
loudspeakers, named for the Viennese artist,
Gustav Klimt. The connection between art and
music is intentional, as The Music advances the
art of loudspeaker design, while also being quite
an artistic statement, in both physical appearance
and performance, staying true to the music
and, in many respects, preserving the illusion of
attending a live concert. It is a beautifully finished
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - vienna acoustics the music Loudspeaker
speaker, with a relatively small footprint that does
not dominate the listening or living room, but
also breaks new ground for Vienna Acoustics,
propelling the company with great velocity into
the reference loudspeaker ranks. Its remarkable
flat, concentric, Spider-Cone midrange driver
with a coincident silk dome tweeter is a stunning
technical achievement (see sidebar), providing
The Music (and presumably other speakers in
the Klimt Series) with an absolutely breathtaking
soundstage and the core of a level of coherence
difficult to match by any full-range, multi-driver
system. The Music is thrilling, dynamic, eminently
musical, and truly full-range, with deep-bass
extension and weight, as well as highs that go
out to the stratosphere.
In my experience, if a transducer can reproduce
the human voice coherently over its entire range,
from lyric soprano to bass, limitations elsewhere
in the frequency spectrum can be more easily
tolerated. Full-range electrostatic speakers from
SoundLab, Quad, and MartinLogan pass this
vocal coherence test with flying colors, and so
does The Musicit is very close to being of one
cloth. What makes The Music different from most
fine multi-driver systems is that voices come from
a single point source in a phase-coherent time
plane that is devoid of a crossover throughout
this critical range. The Vienna Acoustics flat,
concentric midrange driver alone covers an
amazing seven octaves of music, which closely
approximates the bandwidth of the human voice.
It is skillfully coupled with a handcrafted silk dome
tweeter at its center that extends beyond 20kHz.
This remarkable coincident planar midrange/
tweeter array, housed in a separate, enclosed
cabinet that Vienna Acoustics calls the Music
Center, is a major sonic breakthrough.
Indeed, these Vienna Acoustics speakers
certainly have an engaging, almost irresistible
way with both male and female voices. I love to
listen to vocal recordings to test loudspeakers,
because its so easy to detect coherence
problems and frequency anomalies. To help aid
in this evaluation, I listened to several vocalists,
including: Holly Cole on I Can See Clearly Now,
Peggy Lee on her signature tune Fever from
The Best of Peggy Lee [Capitol], Mirella Freni on
French and Italian Opera [EMI], Ella Fitzgerald
on Let No Man Write My Epitaph [Verve/Classic
Imagine a dynamic loudspeaker employing a
revolutionary flat midrange driver that covers
the entire range of the human voice and works
seamlessly with a handcrafted, coincident
silk dome tweeter without producing any
objectionable frequency anomalies. What youd
have is a time-accurate and phase-coherent
point source covering the range where most
music lives, resulting in a presentation with
truth of timbre, an incredibly broad and deep
soundstage, and an ultra-wide sweet zone. It
certainly sounds too good to be true, but peter
Gansterer and his team at vienna acoustics
have achieved it with their klimt Series
loudspeakers, and the results are stunning!
Driver arrays that replace the dust cap of
the midrange cone with a tweeter and align the
centers of both units coincidently have been
around for decades. perhaps the best known
is the Uni-Q tweeter/midrange array from kEf,
now in its tenth generation, according to the
kEf Web site. two speakers utilizing coincident
driver arrays, the kEf model 207/2 and taD
reference one, have been highly praised
recently in these pages by aHc, and I have been
impressed by their respective performances,
along with that of the taD compact reference
one monitor, at trade-shows. along with vienna
acoustics klimt series, these concentric-
array speakers share a lot of compelling sonic
attributes, most notably in projecting an
expansive soundstage with subtle spatial cues
across a wide listening area, in time alignment,
in enhanced coherence, and in better matching
of directivity, when compared to their more
traditional, separated driver counterparts.
the heart of vienna acoustics remarkable
the music loudspeaker is a patented 7 flat
concentric midrange driver that is both an
engineering and sonic breakthrough. this is not
just marketing speak, but a major achievement,
aided by advances in materials science and
the skillful application of computerized finite
Element analysis (a numerical modeling
technique using calculus to obtain approximate
solutions to vibration systems, and typically
used to solve complex elasticity and structural-
analysis problems). combined with its first-
order crossover, for greater phase coherency,
this flat midrange with coincident tweeter
is housed in a separate sealed enclosure,
which not only helps to extend the midrange
drivers range but completely decouples it
from the bass cabinet to preserve clarity and
natural musical timbre. moreover, it can be
swiveled both horizontally and vertically via
an ingenious pivoting mechanism, allowing
minute adjustments for both rake and toe-in.
the ability to aim this top cabinet separately
from its lower one, housing three nine-inch bass
drivers and a murata super-tweeter, gives the
music a lot of flexibility, helping to lock-in the
vIEnna acoUStIcS rEvoLUtIonary
DrIvErtHE IDEaL rEaLIZED?
Records], Nick Drakes Pink Moon [Universal
Japan], James Taylor on the recent Sweet
Baby James reissue [Warner Bros.], as well as
several operas including Verdis Aida [Decca]
and Puccinis La Bohme [ London]. On each
and every recording, I noted that the voices
were precisely focused and continuous across
their respective ranges, without any chestiness
or bloat in the upper ranges of male vocals, or
excess sibilance on female ones. Better still,
voices had a musical realism and natural tonal
balance that avoided being either too clinical or
too warm. Mirella Frenis and Ella Fitzgeralds
voices were to die for, beautifully portrayed with
no stridency even during wide dynamic swings,
and both Holly Coles and Peggy Lees had an
engaging openness, clarity, and sense of life. On
the Aida recording, both male and female soloists
were distinct while still being nicely integrated
with the whole, and the layering of massed voices
with the full orchestra was stunning.
Yet, making the most of its superb coincident
midrange/tweeter array doesnt begin to tell
this loudspeakers whole story. Many promising
hybrid designs have been undone by the mating
of a stat or some exotic wide-bandwidth driver
with dynamic woofers that just cant keep up
with it, impinging on the purity of the midrange
and/or changing the timbre of instruments as the
sound moves from one type of driver to another.
However, the transition from the deep bass to the
midrange in The Music was also quite seamless
far better that I have been able to achieve over
decades of trying to match subwoofers with
either stats or mini-monitors. Paul Torteliers
cello on the Brahms Double Concerto [EMI/
Testament], Ray Browns string bass on Ben
Webster Meets Oscar Peterson [Verve], and Joe
Mondragons bass fiddle on Peggy Lees Fever
were first-rate and eerily realistic, maintaining
timbral coherence throughout their ranges (and
in the Brahms from the highest notes of the violin
to the lowest of the cello) with wonderful transient
quickness. Indeed, the overall speed of its bass
vienna Acoustics The Music Loudspeaker
type: 3-way loudspeaker system employing integrated
sub-woofers plus super-tweeter
Sensitivity: 91 db
Impedance: 4 ohms
power requirement: 50W minimum, 500W maximum
Driver complement: one midrange/treble coincident
driver (7 vienna acoustic flat-Spider-cone with 1
vented neodymium-magnet silk dome); one murata
0.5 super-tweeter; three 9 vienna acoustics spider-
cone bass drivers
Dimensions: 10.75 x 50.98 x 24.80
SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
price: $27,000/pr
SUMIKO
2431 Fifth Street
Berkeley, California
94710
(510) 234-0182
sumikoaudio.net
U.K.
price: 19,750/pr
AUDYUS LTD
Unit 5, Ermine Business
Park, Huntingdon,
Cambridge PE29 6XY
+44(0)1480 270550
audyus.co.uk
soundstage and achieve better tonal balance
and coherence.
While mounting a tweeter coincidently
within the midrange driver produces numerous
sonic benefits, it does present other design
problems that need to be overcome. With the
tweeter placed at the throat of the cone, time
alignment suffers and horn loading results,
which can produce cupped-hands highs or
squawks. another problem is that the addition
of the tweeter to the midrange driver increases
its overall mass, which can affect transient
quickness. over time, designers of coincident
arrays have used lighter materials for both
the midrange and tweeter drivers; they have
also shortened the depth of the midrange
cone and flattened its surround. However,
unless the midrange driver is completely
flat, phase distortion occurs, as the output
of the cone pumps the highs unevenly at the
listener, resulting in a somewhat ragged on-axis
frequency response. While a crossover can
correct the irregularities in frequency response,
it also alters the character and natural launch
of the sound, thus affecting the purity of the
midrange.
So why havent designers of coincident
midrange/tweeter arrays just flattened out the
midrange driver to eliminate these somewhat
deleterious cone effects? the primary reason
is that the conical shape of most conventional
drivers provides the stiffness needed to
generate sufficient output and frequency
response; flat drivers are, by comparison, too
soft and pliable. the cone also acts as a wave-
guide for the coincident tweeter. However,
peter Gansterer saw the design challenges
associated with a flat midrange cone as
opportunities. Indeed, some would suggest
that he has been evolving his reinforced-cone
driver technology towards this goal since the
introduction of his first musi speaker in 1991.
to stiffen its flat midrange driver, he used fEa
to determine where to place its Spider-cone
webessentially a lightweight net to reinforce
the driver and increase its stiffness. He also
employed vienna acoustics proprietary X3p
self-quieting driver material, which provides
soft inner damping but adds glass fibers in the
molding process, for even more rigidity without
increased mass. adding a self-quieting silk
dome coincident tweeter ensured that acoustic
energy would be effectively dissipated across
the entire surface of the array.
voil, problems solved! Well, not so fast.
peter and his team spent several years
honing at least five successive pre-production
models trying to get everything right, even
changing seemingly small related materials
elements like glues to improve the sound. With
such a sophisticated driver, there were also
considerable production problems that had
to be solved, but eventually these were too
overcome, and the flat midrange/tweeter array
became a reality.
because of the extended low-frequency
response achieved with the flat midrange unit,
Gansterer was able to use a relatively low
crossover point (approximately 100Hz) between
it and the three new 9 Spider-cone woofers.
was matched by the amazing transient speed of
The Music throughout its entire range, giving the
speaker tremendous rhythmic drive and a sense
of aliveness. Reaching down even further, the
low bass notes on Hans Zimmers scores on the
soundtrack recordings for Black Hawk Down and
Gladiator [Decca], had weight, dynamic punch,
and control, producing a spaciousness that was
awe-inspiring, while also validating the speakers
rated 22Hz low-frequency extension.
Even more stunning than The Musics remarkable
coherence was its enormous, focused, deep, and
layered soundstage with well recorded source
material like Mikls Rzsas score to Ben Hur
[Decca Phase Four], Gil Evans Out of the Blue
[Impulse/Alto], and Mozarts Requiem [Deutsche
Grammophon/Speakers Corner]. Performers
were precisely arrayed across the stage, giving
the music a wonderful sense of spaciousness.
Instruments like woodwinds floated in space
and were stable as they descended the scale
and moved back up again. Mass voices had an
engaging layered depth that one experiences in a
live performance and were literally wall-to-wall on
the Rzsa. With The Music, I was able to see the
entire stage, from left-to-right and front-to-back.
This level of soundstaging and imaging
performance is what one would predict with a
coincident driver array approximating a perfect
point source, and The Musics soundstaging is
as good as it gets from the plane of the speakers
to the back wall. In contrast to many fine
loudspeakers, the soundstage is not truncated at
the back of the stage, nor is there a narrow sweet
spot where only one person can experience
this spectacular imaging. Like other top models
featuring coincident driver arrays, most notably
from TAD and KEF, The Music accommodates
and encourages a broad range of listening
positions, like a great concert hall. Soundstaging
is even quite respectable while one is standing,
which youre likely to do, as the rhythmic drive
and snap of The Music often make listeners want
to get up and dance.
Another outstanding sonic attribute of The
Music was its ability to realistically reproduce the
leading edge of transients. Rim-shots, cymbal
crashes, strummed guitars, plucked stringed
instruments, and double-and-triple tongued
brass had lightning quickness without overhang.
I felt as if some tympani strikes on power
orchestral music might have knocked me down
had I been standing and certainly provided plenty
of goosebumps. On the Gill Evans recording, the
three trombones had that initial ping, blat,
and spit that made them feel as if they were in
the room.
In addition to its reference-quality soundstaging
and superb coherence and transient quickness,
The Music delivered the sonic goods in many
other areas. It extracted micro-fine layers of inner
detail, like Martha Argerichs fingernails clicking on
the ivories, Oscar Peterson talking to himself and
singing along while playing, audience whispers
on live recordings, and Xuefei Yangs finger
movements on the neck of her classical guitar. Its
ability to accurately replicate the natural timbre of
instruments and voices was also uncanny. This
Vienna Acoustics flagship was equally at home
with all types of music, from small-scale, intimate
works to power orchestral, big band jazz music,
and electronica. It convincingly conveyed the
weight, dynamic range, tonal balance and power
of the piano, as well as its ability to seduce with a
thus, he was also able to avoid a crossover
throughout the entire practical range of the
human voice. Like the flat midrange driver
(sans some glass), these low mass, but
incredibly stiff, bass drivers are composed
of a similar, yet stronger, X3p material, and
benefit from a similar lightweight reinforcing
web, developed and positioned on the
underside of the drivers using fEa. While all
three woofers work in parallel, the first has
its own chamber within the bass cabinet, and
its primary job is to match the performance
of the flat midrange driver. the other two
woofers, which are ported out the back of
the speaker, add bass weight and reach down
below the 20Hz range.
this design approachutilizing a wide
bandwidth, flat midrange/coincident tweeter
array, first-order crossovers, Spider-cone
technology, and very similar low-mass,
self-quieting driver materialshelps give
the music its outstanding coherence,
soundstaging, clarity, transient quickness,
and timbral accuracy. add to this a murata
super-tweeter, and the music enjoys
seemingly unlimited high-frequency
extension and a more life-like presence. JH
the music is priced in an increasingly competitive
segment of the market, yet it also compares favorably
with reference speakers costing far more
gorgeous singing tone.
The formidable strengths of this remarkable
speaker were even more evident when compared
to a live performance. During the review period,
I had the considerable good fortune to be given
tickets to the best seats in the house at a San
Francisco Symphony performance of Mahlers
Eighth Symphony conducted by Michael Tilson
Thomas, arguably this countrys greatest
conductor today. I listened to the famous Solti
Decca recording on The Music, both prior to
and right after the concert, and subsequently
using more powerful electronics in an even larger
listening room. Whereas the live performance
was a musical peak experience, the speakers
were able to replicate so many of the attributes of
the live performance that I was shockedmost
notably the natural timbre of instruments and
voices, along with the width, depth, and height
of the entire soundstage. The Music accurately
reproduced the top end shimmer of the violins,
along with their feathery delicacy and bite. It
handled all the complex interactions among
choruses, orchestra, and soloists without getting
confused. The mallet strikes against the tympani
were well preserved and nearly as thrilling as
in life. The soprano soloist and the piccolo cut
through the mass of performers in the recording,
much as they did in the live performance.
While the speakers could hardly be expected
to move the amount of air these hundreds of
voices and instruments generated during the
live performance, particularly the pressure one
feels against the breastbone on fortissimos, The
Music conveyed the large dynamic swings of the
Symphony of a Thousand (well, in this case, about
400) much better than I expected. In the larger
listening room, with far beefier amplifiers, the
gap between the recorded and live performance
was closed still further, most notably improving
the sense of scale, drama, and ease, as well
as adding a cushion of air behind the massed
strings. As in the live performance, the sound
through The Music was big, bold, dynamic, and
supremely musical, with plenty of goosebump
moments, as when the sudden chime-strikes
sent shivers down my spine.
Given its superlative performance across the
board, it was difficult to find fault with The Music.
This speaker was like a chameleonminor flaws
I thought were in The Music were ameliorated
by changes in electronics, listening room, or
recordings. Although it was quite revealing, and
did not mask problems elsewhere in the system,
The Music sounded marvelous with a wide variety
of recordings, not just a treasured few. Admittedly,
I was aware of more surface noise on some of
my more well-worn analog recordings, but I
also heard a lot more of what was buried deep
in their groves. With its Murata super-tweeter,
The Music has seemingly unlimited upper-end
extension and air but also more lifelike presence.
It is less warm than what might be characterized
as Vienna Acoustics house sound, but its neutral
tonal balance is more like the real thing. Lastly,
while the speakers seemed to just disappear, I
was occasionally reminded I was listening to a
box enclosure.
A few caveats are also in order. With The Musics
ingenious dual-pivoting mechanism for its top
enclosure, you can really lock in the soundstage
and achieve a neutral tonal balance. However,
dont think you can plop this loudspeaker down
where youve placed others in your listening room
and extract all the performance this loudspeaker
is capable of producing. A dealer trained in
Sumikos technique of loudspeaker placement,
where the bass from the left speaker is optimized
first, is invaluable here. In my listening room, the
speakers were pulled farther forward and apart
than what one would expect using the rule of
thirds. The top modules were pointed right at my
ears, whereas the bottom cabinet, housing the
woofers and Murata super-tweeter, were directed
at my shoulders.
Also, dont judge these speakers until the flat
midrange driver with its coincident soft dome
tweeter has had considerable time to break in.
Until then it will sound a bit too thin with a slight
plastic coloration in the upper midrange, but given
time to settle down, The Music begins to bloom.
With its relatively high sensitivity (91dB) and
4-ohm impedance, the system can be powered to
great effect by lower-powered amplifiers. I used
the stellar 45-watt per channel Pathos Inpol2
integrated amplifier for most of my listening, and
it was a wonderful match. Certainly, in a room
larger than my 22 by 16 space, Id go for more
amplifier power. Driven by the Pass Labs X600
amplifiers in a big room, the speakers were really
able to breathe, the soundstage was even more
expansive, and the sense of scale and dynamic
range increased.
The Music is priced in an increasingly
competitive segment of the market, yet it also
compares favorably with reference speakers
costing far more. If you feel you should have
to spend more on a reference speaker, I might
suggest adding a REL Studio III subwoofer
(with a cross-over point at 22Hz so you dont
impinge on The Musics coherence) for even
more concussive impact and a greater sense
of the hall from the plane of the speakers to the
listening position. Given how musically satisfying
The Music is by itself, this might appear to be
wretched excess, but the overall performance of
this Vienna Acoustics/REL combo is even more
amazing.
Vienna Acoustics The Music loudspeaker
system is aptly named, because it is so true to the
music. With its extended, flat midrange driver with
coincident tweeter, it pushes the performance
envelope on multiple fronts. Heres a thrilling
full-range loudspeaker of reference quality that
supplies plenty of goosebumps, but also has
stat-like coherence, superb time and phase
accuracy, and breathtaking soundstaging. It is an
accurate, yet musical speaker with fast transients,
precise layered imaging, and articulate, extended
bass. You may have noted that I frequently used
the phrase, just like in a live performance, when
describing the sonic prowess of this Vienna
Acoustics flagship loudspeaker. And thats just
it. The Music compares surprisingly well to a live
performance, and thats very high praise.
www.theabsolutesound.com
NEXT pAgE
A
s I said in my review of the Magico M5s (in Issue 196), the first obligation of a loudspeakeror,
for that matter, any piece of audio gearis to vanish as a sound source. Thanks to its heroic
aluminum-and-birch enclosures, its ultra-low-distortion NanoTec carbon-fiber-sandwich drivers,
and its extraordinary (and extraordinarily expensive) elliptical symmetry crossovers, the $89k M5 does
just that better than any large multiway dynamic loudspeaker Ive heard.
von Schweikert UniField Three
First-Class One-Way Ticket
Jonathan valin
Of course, there are all sorts of ways to make a loudspeaker
disappear. For instance, rather than trying to force five or six
cones and five or six crossovers housed in a large expensive
cabinet to pull a Houdini, why not greatly reduce the number
of drivers and crossovers and shrink the size of the cabinet?
Magico did this very thing with its two-way stand-mount
Mini and Mini IIthe speakers that made the companys
reputation. With the UniField Model Three, venerable speaker
designer Albert von Schweikert has (quite literally) tried to go
Magico and his other two-way competition one better.
Although each Model Three looks like a miniaturized WATT/
Puppy-style three-way, the UniField is what Von Schweikert
calls an augmented one-way loudspeakeraugmented
below 100Hz by a 7 woofer housed in its own compact,
tapered, quasi-transmission-line enclosure and above 8kHz
by a 3 ribbon that shares a tiny, separate, tapered cabinet
with the UniFields midrange cone. To reproduce everything
between woofer and tweet, from 100Hz through 8kHza
range of 6+ octaves that encompasses the fundamentals
and most of the harmonics from nearly the lowest note of
a basso (G2) to well above the highest note of a piccolo
(D8)the Model Three depends entirely on a hand-built 5
driver, an impregnated paper cone coated with a layer of salt-
crystal-sized ceramic spheres and synthetic dampeners. As
fans of planar and electrostatic loudspeakers can attest, one
of the chief ways of making a loudspeaker disappear is not
to cut the audio bandwidth up into little slices reproduced
by different cones but to reproduce the entire gamut via a
single, extremely low-distortion, extremely high-resolution,
crossoverless driver. Throughout most of the musical
spectrum, the UniField Three does precisely that.
Of course, the trouble with any single-driver dynamic
speaker, even one as extraordinarily full-range as the
UniField Threes marvelous 5 cone, has always been the
low bass and top treble. Generally, with a one-way there isnt
enough of either. Without the bottom octaves, larger-scale
86 Guide to Loudspeakers
pREvIOUS pAgE
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - von Schweikert audio Unifield model three Loudspeaker
music unquestionably lacks foundation; without
treble, music lacks sparkle and life. This is where
Von Schweikerts augmentation comes in. In
the mid-to-low bass, the UniFields transmission-
line-loaded, long-throw, magnesium-coned
woofer gives the speaker low end that no one-
way I know of, and few two- or three-ways, can
rival. (The UniFields 7 transmission-line woofer
is claimed to achieve 20Hz extension, down 6dB
at 25Hz in free-field measurements. My own
measurementswhich we will come toshow
it to be down about 12dB at 20Hz referenced to
1kHz, which is quite a bit better than respectable
bottom-octave performance for a 7 driver in a
22 high, 10 wide, 14 deep enclosure!) On top,
the UniFields 3 aluminum-foil ribbon extends
treble performance well past 50kHz.
Playing music back primarily through a single
driver augmented by a deep-reaching woofer and
high-flying tweeter at crossover points so low and
high they are virtually inaudible isnt the only
disappearing trick that the Model Three has up
its sleeve. Von Schweikert claims that his UniField
design also has a carefully controlled dispersion
pattern, said to be restricted to +/-30 degrees
horizontally in the midband and treble. Achieved
by driver selection, crossover topology, and other
proprietary methods, the UniFields narrower
dispersion reduces the boundary effects of
typical wide-dispersion loudspeakers, making the
Model Three ideal for smaller rooms in which wall
reflections tend to color timbres and play havoc
with imaging. (The UniFields controlled dispersion
does not make it suitable for smaller rooms only,
BTW; it does just swell in medium-sized ones like
mine and, according to Von S, in larger ones too,
although its smallish drivers may ultimately limit
its ability to fill really large spaces at loud levels.)
With its front-ported transmission-line bass driver
(the damping of which is user-adjustable), the
Three can also be placed much closer to back
walls than conventional wide-dispersion speakers,
including most stand-mounted monitors.
All right. Weve got a virtual single driver
speaker, and weve made provisions to take the
imaging-and-timbre-degrading early reflections
of that driver out of the question; now how about
the enclosure it is housed in? As you may recall
from my M5 review, building a neutral enclosure
involves artfully juggling three parameters:
stiffness (to push the boxs resonant frequency
as high as possible), mass (to damp this high-
frequency resonance and reduce its Q), and
damping (to further reduce the amplitude of the
resonance and kill or, in the case of a transmission
line, filter the backwave of the drivers). Wolf chose
to build a sealed system with an aluminum baffle
(which boasts extremely high stiffness) coupled to
an airtight birch-ply box (which boasts extremely
high mass and damping). But Von Schweikert
feels that aluminum or Corian or other hard
materials are precisely the wrong stuff to use
for speaker baffles and boxes because, says he,
the drivers will ring against such hard surfaces.
Instead, he builds the walls of his boxes using
a tri-laminate constrained-layer sandwich of
molded resin-impregnated MDF (for stiffness),
artificial stone (for mass), and sheets of viscous
material (for damping), bracing them internally
with a honeycomb of MDF and more viscous
damping, and stuffing them with three different
kinds of absorptive materials to eliminate cavity
resonances (what Von S calls Gradient Density
Damping). Where Magico uses an ingenious
tension-coupling mechanism to ensure that the
cones are the only parts of the drivers that vibrate,
Von Schweikert employs a gasket of the same
synthetic clay used to damp the hulls of nuclear
submarines to keep his driver frames from rattling
against baffles and resonating against cabinet
walls. He claims that his constrained layer,
honeycomb-braced, gradient-density-damped
boxes with clay-damped driver-frames reduce
enclosure vibration by 300% in comparison to
conventional enclosures, while the cabinets
small size and tapered shape ensure low levels of
diffraction and reflection.
Before we discuss the UniFields sound, lets
look at one other direct challenge to Magico and
Wilsonthe Threes hybrid transmission-line bass.
According to Von Schweikert (and hes certainly
not alone in saying this), acoustic-suspension
bass sounds strangled due to the high, energy-
robbing pressures and huge impedance peaks
of sealed enclosures, while ported bass sounds
slow, chesty, and one-note due to the
resonances of their hollow ported boxes, the
ringing of their under-damped cones, and the
mistuning of the ports themselves. His solution is
a transmission linea tunnel of four, stuffed (with
Dacron), interconnected chambers, each tuned
to a different frequency, which, together, spread
and smooth out the bass-range resonances of
the woofers backwave. There is nothing new
the model three isnt particularly difficult to
set up. the tiny midrange/tweeter cabinet
sits on top of the woofer cabinet at a distance
from the woofers front baffle that ensures
correct time and phase alignment. (the
instruction pamphlet explains how to determine
this distance.) the woofer cabinet rests on a
supplied, short, spiked, t-shaped stand. there
is no attachment between the woofer enclosure
and this stand, and the stand itself is a bit
flimsy, Imo (especially for a $15k speaker).
be sure that the crossbar of the t is facing
toward the listening seat when you mount the
woofers, or the whole thing can be tipped over.
Depending on your room and your seating
distance from the speakers, the model threes
may need a little toe-in. the threes must be
bi-wired. von Schweikert audio makes two very
good sets of dedicated bi-wire cables for the
Unifield, although their price ($2.5k and $5k)
is steep. the speaker comes with extra stuffing
for the transmission line, which you can use
(or remove) to tailor the bass to room size and
speaker placement. I tried the model threes
with a variety of amps in two different listening
spaces and at various distances from backwalls.
at shows, von Schweikert demonstrates the
model threes with tubes, perhaps because their
slightly brighter, livelier treble complements
the model threes slightly recessive upper-
midrange/lower treble. I liked the treble
marginally better with tubes, and I liked the
bass marginally better with solid-state. Jv
SEttInG Up tHE UnIfIELD moDEL tHrEES
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - von Schweikert audio Unifield model three Loudspeaker
about transmission-line bassIMF and KEF were
using it back in the sixties and seventies. But
Von Schweikert has spiffed it up with Chebychev
alignment and that nifty magnesium driver.
Sohow does Albert Von Schweikerts
challenge to the Magico Mini II and Wilson Sophia
2 and YG Acoustics Kipod Studio sound? Well,
the short answer is lovely, just as it did at the
RMAF and CES shows where Robert Harley and
I initially heard it. Indeed, on the very first cuts I
played through the UniField ThreeAlison Krauss
and Union Stations live recording of Forget
About It (on MoFi vinyl) I was immediately struck
by how realistically the Model Three reproduced
Krauss lead soprano and Dan Tyminskis baritone
backup. Both voices were wonderfully well focused
(though not at all miniaturized), completely freed-
up from the little midrange driver and its tiny
enclosure, extremely well resolved in color and
texture (Krausss slight characteristic tremolo was
as audible through the UniFields as it was through
the Magico M5s or those paragons of low-level
resolution, the MartinLogan CLXes), and quite
persuasively there in the room with me. Violin,
guitar, and dobro were also extraordinarily free
from driver/enclosure coloration as if, like the
two voices, they werent being projected from a
loudspeaker but hanging mobile-like in open air,
although each was hanging a little further back
in the soundfield than what I was used to hearing
through other transducers and, while sweet
as sugar in timbre, each was a bit less present
and brilliant than it usually sounds. It wasnt until
the electric bass came in midway through the
number that I began to feel like I was hearing
a driver in a box. Though deep-reaching and
shockingly well-defined in the bottom octave, the
UniFields transmission line was adding a bit of
woolliness to the midbass, making certain notes
of the Fender sound slightly louder, less crisply
defined, and more forward in the mix. The effect
wasnt unpleasant or unnaturalthe bass still
sounded like a bass, but the instrument was a
tad louder and plummier than it sounded through
the M5s or the CLXes or other systems on which
Ive auditioned this LP. On the tiptop, cymbals
were every bit as clear and sweet and delicately
detailed as guitars and dobro but, like both, a little
recessed in perspective, softened in dynamic,
and less scintillant in texture.
After listening to several other cutslike Reiner
Bredemeyers cantata for voice and percussion
Synchronisiert:Asynchron [Nova], the Prokofiev
First Violin Sonata with Nadia Salerno-Sonnenberg
and Sondra Rivers [Music Masters], and a variety
of larger-scale musicI began to form a clear
picture of the UniFields sound, which stayed
remarkably consistent on every LP or CD: A little
dark in overall balance (rather like the beautiful,
liquid-sounding BAlabo electronics), with a
gorgeous, boxless, natural midrange, superb
midrange transient response, great soundstaging
and imaging (as good as it gets, in fact), excellent
very deep bass (at moderate to moderately loud
playback levels), but a little thicker, louder, and
boxier in the midbass than in the midband, and a
little softer, less brilliant, and more laidback in the
upper mids and treble than in either the midband
or the bass. Where it was playing, that single 5
driver in Von Schweikerts enclosure was superb.
The trouble (if you want to call it that) was that
I could clearly hear where it stopped playingin
the midbass and the upper mids/lower treble
and where the augmenting drivers were picking
up the baton.
At this point I decided to do an RTA (a series
of them, actually) and, sure enough, the speakers
measured exactly the way they soundedvery
slightly humped up in the midbass and very
slightly sucked out in the presence/brilliance
range (see above).
This is actually excellent frequency response for
a quasi-one-way loudspeakerexceptionally
flat in the heart of the midrange, from 100Hz to
von Schweikert Audio UniField Model Three
Loudspeaker
frequency range: 32Hz to 40kHz (-3db down points
are 25Hz and 50kHz)
Sensitivity: 88db @ one watt/one meter in anechoic
conditions, 91db in-room
Distortion: Less than 0.8% at normal listening level (5
watts)
Impedance: 8 ohms nominal (4 ohms minimum)
power rating: 300 watts peak, 100 watts rmS
(minimum of 20 watts)
Weight: 190 lbs./pr. (including stands)
Dimension: 10 x 40 x 14
SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
price: $15,000/pr
(including stands)
vON SCHWEIKERT
AUDIO
41110 Sandalwood Circle,
Unit #122
Murrieta, California,
92562
(951) 696-3662
vonschweikert.com
U.K.
price: Price on
application
AUDIOpLAY
Highbury New Park
London N5
+44(0) 207 359 6962
audioplay.co.uk
85dB
80
20 1k 2k 5k 10k 50 100 200 500
75
70
65
60
55
50
45
40
35
Loudspeaker Frequency Response
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - von Schweikert audio Unifield model three
2kHz where it appears as if the 5 driver begins to
slowly roll off. I imagine that Von Schweikert could
have brought the tweeter in at a slightly lower
frequency to fill up this slight dip in the presence
and brilliance range, but didnt want to risk drawing
attention to the ribbon, as so many ribbon/cone
hybrid speakers do, by ladling excess top-end
energy onto his smooth-as-silk one-way sound.
So he settled quite sensibly on this highly musical
compromise. It isnt much of a compromise in
the listening. Instruments that reach up this high
are just a little more laid-back in the soundstage,
totally devoid of sibilance or aggressiveness (even
when they are sibilant or aggressive), and a bit less
naturally brilliant, airy, and harmonically complex.
Oh, their harmonics are still there, but theyre
being resolved at a slightly lower volume level that
makes the overtones of high-pitched instruments
sound very sweet but a little concentrated, like
the taste of condensed milk.
The smallish hump in the midbass, where
the woofer takes over from the 5 driver, is also
relatively benign. As noted, you hear it as a bit
more loudness and prominence on kettle or bass
drum (where it very attractively accentuates the
resonant bodies of the instruments) or on certain
notes in ostinatos of piano, doublebass, and bass
guitarlike the effects of a minor room resonance.
It doesnt greatly change the pitches or colors of
the notes themselves, just amplifies and thickens
them a little, slightly reducing their crispness of
definition. Until you play the UniField Threes
very loudand the whole soundfield begins to
compress and congestthis little midbass hump
certainly doesnt obscure the upper bass or the
bottom bass, which, as noted, is shockingly
deep and articulate for such a tiny driver in such
a tiny enclosure, adding genuinely lifelike finish
to truly deep bass notes. (The uncanny clarity
the UniField Threes bring to the deep bullroarer
rumble of the bowed bass drums in Cages
Third Construction [New World], not to mention
the phenomenally large, wide, freed-up-from-
drivers-and-enclosures soundstage they throw
on this cut and so many others, has to be heard
to be believed from such a small transducer and
cabinet.)
Albert Von Schweikert set out to produce a
tiny, full-range, single-voiced speaker for small
rooms that, unlike so many speakers for small
rooms, would not rob you of the deep bass,
imaging precision, and dynamic scale of big
speakers. The design he settled on is very nearly
uniquean augmented one-way. That you can
occasionally hear the augmentation (or its effects)
doesnt change the fact that throughout most of
its range the UniField really does speak with one
beautiful and persuasively lifelike voice. Though
the Three is not a speaker for really big spaces or
for rock concerts played back at stadium levels
and at $15k the pair has a good deal of serious
competition, it certainly fills a niche for apartment
and condo dwellers who hanker for full-range
sound in a small svelte package. Though I
wouldnt call the UniField a completely neutral
loudspeakerit has, by design, a voice of its own
that is robust but meltingly beautiful, superbly
focused but never edgy, supremely quick but
never aggressive, highly detailed but highly
forgivingit is a constant pleasure to listen to and
never less than musically convincing.
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T
he king is dead, long live the king! Wilson Audios introductory tag-line to its
new Sasha (technically, Sasha W/P) loudspeaker could be viewed as supreme
arrogance or high hubris. One problem though, it happens to be true.
Wilson Audio Specialties
Sasha W/p loudspeaker
Its Good to be King
Alan Sircom
The Sasha is the replacement to the Wilson
WATT/Puppy, a product that above all others
has earned the right to be called king among
audiophile loudspeakers. First sold back in 1986,
the Wilson Audio Tiny Tot (soon joined by its
woofin Puppy partner) went on to become the
most successful $10,000+ loudspeaker in history,
and became a fixed point in the audiophile
firmament. It set the tone for other Wilson
designs, bigger and smaller. Recently though, the
direction-finder in Wilson Audio sound came from
elsewhere in the range. Each successive change
made the W/P sound more integrated and lively
and brought it more in line with the sort of sound
made by other Wilsons, but the bright star of the
Wilson line cannot spend its life playing catch-up
to products like the Sophia or the MAXX.
In the Sasha, what could have been just another
iteration of the WATT/Puppy concept (it would
have been System 9) has undergone a root-and-
branch reworking. The human brains ability to
form associations and patterns is a remarkable
thing, but it can be prone to failure (optical illusions
are a perfect example of this). A quick glance at
the Sasha in isolation will see similarities between
this new speaker and the WATT/Puppy products it
replaces and we will naturally make associations
between the two that simply arent there. Because
there are so many changes between the Sasha
and what went before, its almost easier to point
out the bits that arent changed rather than list
whats been swapped: the cones in the bass
drivers, the range of Wilsongloss finishes (our
ones were finished in an almost black midnight
blue) and I think the rear port and spikes
are held over from what went before. Pretty much
everything else is a new speaker.
A fair chunk of Sasha the 25.4mm inverted
titanium-foil dome tweeter and the proprietary
178mm paper/carbon-fibre composite cone
midrange driver, for example are a direct lift
from Wilsons MAXX 3. These new units were
chosen after a moment of audio epiphany at
the Musikverein Concert Hall in Vienna by David
Wilson. Other parts are total newcomers, such as
the cabinet. Not only is it made from a new kind of
material, developed out of the X (cellulose/phenolic
composite) and M (wood fibres in phenolic resin)
materials found in previous Wilson speakers. The
new cabinet material doesnt have a capital letter
name, but features as yet undefined natural fibres
set in a phenolic resin laminate. This is suggested
to make for a low coloration cabinet material with
a particularly good midrange.
The new material has allowed Wilson to
completely redesign the chassis, making for
increased volume in both cabinets and a head unit
with more nonparallel lines. Inside, theres a new
bracing design. All of which helps aid rigidity and
minimise resonance and standing waves. Those
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - Wilson audio Specialties Sasha W/p loudspeaker
surviving woofer cones are backed up by a new
motor and magnet arrangement, which basically
means more magnet for the same cone mass.
The crossover has been moved from inside the
mid/treble head unit to a rear panel at the top of
the bass unit. The panel allows components in
the crossover to be altered to suit specific rooms,
and also gives the midrange driver more legroom,
and supposedly more midrange clarity. One
legacy point that is missing from both the Sasha
is the grab-handle at the back of the WATT. This
marks the end of the WATTs vestigial standalone
monitor role; the new head unit is adjustable to
better integrate the speaker with the room and the
listening position, but its got nothing to do with
being used as a solo speaker.
On paper at least, the end result of all this change
is just 2Hz more in the bass. The relatively high
sensitivity (91dB/W/m) is tempered somewhat by
the impedance plot. Although nominally a four-
ohm load, the Sasha is claimed to dip to 1.8ohm
minimum impedance at 92Hz. In practice, this
means the Sasha is not a friend of the Single-
Ended Triode brigade and does place a limit on
the choice of amplifiers used with this speaker,
but the sort of amplifier one would normally
consider a comfy partner for a speaker costing
nigh on 28,000 will have no problems handling
the Sasha. And when used with a pair of Krell
Evolution 900 monoblocs, which deliver upwards
of 900W per channel, you have nothing to worry
about, except losing hearing. The rest of the
system in this case was a four-box Krell Evolution
Two twin mono preamp and a Metronome Kallista
CD transport and C2A digital converter. Heady,
bank account draining stuff indeed. It was playing
into a room about 18x24x9, with the main listening
position about 10 into the room. The speakers
were about four feet from the rear wall, but only
two-and-a-half feet from the sides and had about
a 20 toe-in.
The Evo 900s demonstrated one of the joys
of the Sasha; no limits imposed. With nigh on a
Krellowatt being pushed up its speaker terminals,
the Sasha has the throat needed to roar, but does
so with subtlety as well as gusto. you can play at
the sort of levels that cause rimshots and massed
choirs to leave your hearing relaxing between
notes and yet allows you to hear the springs
beneath the snare resonating and lets you pick
out individual singers in the mix. Normally, this is
an either/or situation; either you get the full-blast
sound, or you get the subtlety.
Here, you get both.
Its also a bigger speaker squeezed into a
Sasha-sized box. Those who know their way
around the Wilson portfolio are in for a surprise
here. Hey, where did you hide the MAXXes?
will likely be the stock question. Its got most of
the bass dynamics, bass depth, almost physical
The Wilson Audio Sasha loudspeaker
type: three-way, two cabinet foorstanding
loudspeaker
Drivers: 2.54mm titanium-foil inverted dome tweeter;
178mm paper/carbon-fbre composite cone midrange
2x 203mm poly-coated woofers
frequency response: 20Hz-22kHz 3db
Sensitivity: 91 db/w/m at 1kHz
Impedance: 4 ohms nominal, 1.8 ohms minimum at
92 Hz
minimum amplifer power: 20 watts per channel
System Weight: 89.36 kg
SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
price: $26,900/pr
WILSON AUDIO
SpECIALTIES
2233 Mountain Vista Ln,
Provo, Utah 84606
(801) 377-2233
wilsonaudio.com
U.K.
price: 28,046/pr
ABSOLUTE SOUNDS
58 Durham Road,
London, SW20 0TW
+44 (0)20 8971 3909
absolutesounds.com
because your attention is focused elsewhere, like on the
dynamic range, the solidity, or the sheer exuberance of the
sound, that reference-class imaging passes almost unnoticed.
solidity and power of the MAXX models as well as its
utterly transparent midrange and soaring top end but in
a smaller package. You get more from the MAXX, but the
gap has closed considerably with the launch of the Sasha. In
fairness, much of this is based on exposure to the MAXX 2;
Im pretty far from instrument rated on the new model.
Recently, I highlighted a step-change in audio, that I
called the difference between Hummers (big and bling) and
Humblers (forget the speakers, the music impresses first
and foremost). The Sasha is very much on the Humbler side
of the equation. It scales beautifully swap a Big Band sound
for a fey girl-with-guitar and the soundstage accommodates
accordingly. Now move from breathy songstress to full-on
dub reggae then to large-scale orchestral work, a jazz trio,
live rock at full tilt and all points in between and the Sasha
adapts beautifully. You dont get eight-foot tall singers
or an inch-high second violin... everything played has an
appropriate sense of scale. Wilson has been moving the W/P
design further from the enlarged sound of the footie score
models (WATT 3/Puppy 2, Caledonians vs Queen of the
South...match abandoned due to catastrophic pie failure) for
some time.
A lot of this comes from the work done (both in the cabinet
and the use of that MAXX driver) to improve the midrange. The
W/P always had a good, clean and extended treble (its got
better, cleaner and possibly more extended in the Sasha, but
the improvement is more like a developmental progression
than a jump) and has been well-respected for its big, powerful
bass (once again, a developmental improvement), but the
midrange was always a big part of the Wilson character.
And the move to the Sasha brings the Wilson midrange in
line with the MAXX above and the Sophia below. It gives the
Sasha something of an electrostatic-like transparency to the
midrange.
That beacon for audiophiles imaging is excellent, but
curiously it will take you some time to notice this. Because
your attention is focused elsewhere, like on the dynamic
range, the solidity, or even the sheer exuberance of the sound,
that reference-class imaging passes almost unnoticed.
Part of this is because the overall performance is so very,
very natural the holographic clich doesnt apply here,
because the sounds are too controlled and solid for that.
Weve supposedly been ticking off all the boxes for
superlative loudspeakers for some years now, and the Wilson
WATT/Puppy ticked them all a long time ago. Whats left on
offer and what makes this one so much better than what went
before? Along with the bigger speaker in a smaller box and
the more open than ever midrange, the Sasha does something
very, very few loudspeakers can do, irrespective of price. It
manages to reconcile the world of the audiophile with that of
real people. Audiophiles choose and design products in
adherence to Harry Pearsons benchmark of the sound of live,
unamplified music occurring in real space. However, there are
people (a lot of people) who do not possess a single piece of
live, unamplified music and typically find systems designed
for audiophiles to sound boring. Products especially
loudspeakers that reconcile the two are extremely rare.
The Sasha is one of the very few exceptions.
The reconciliation process is not perfect play a
compressed or badly-mastered recording and the Sasha
keeps it distinctly in the sows ear region. But what it does well
is exactly what the predecessor was praised for, only more
so. The studio sound that Wilson tried for with the WATT/
Puppy is here in full effect. Play the Sashas and you are in the
control room, listening to the sort of sound the producer and
engineer always wanted you to hear.
Although the Sasha changes are not necessarily driven
by increased competition, the days of Wilson Audio having
this market more or less to itself are long gone. And the new
speaker gives us a perfect opportunity to remap the high-
end landscape, to see just where products like the Sasha
fit in. Of course, theres no easy way to compare large, top-
grade loudspeakers. This is because its almost impossible
to compare them side-by-side; it can take as much as five
You a re here
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AnaIc Lives!
A Cuide To LP Playback
Wayne Carcia
S
o the kids are oII to college, you have more Iree time, and maybe, iI you're
lucky, at least a little more disposable income. And you're getting back into
one oI your Iirst true passions: listening to music over a highquality sound
system. But somewhere along the way you either put your old turntable in the attic
to gather cobwebs with other outdated stuIIyou know, like compact discsor you
got rid oI it altogether when it became obvious that LPs were Iinishedyou know,
like compact discs.
And while Ive not attempted a formal census, I
would venture to say that there are actually more
LP playback choices available today than ever
beforeand at an ever-widening, even wilder
range of price points.
WHERE TO BEGIN?
Lets assume you already own a fairly decent
audio system. Although it may be obvious to say
so, it is absolutely critical that whichever record
playing devices you choose fit into that systems
overall quality in both build and sound.
Practically speaking, if you have a fairly high-
end system you shouldnt purchase a lower
quality turntable because you think you want to
check out vinyl but arent yet committed. Likewise,
if youre lusting after a fine LP playback system but
the rest of your system needs a makeover, then
spending a lot of money on a great record player
doesnt make much senseunless, that is, its the
beginning of an upgrade path youre already in the
process of mapping out. In other words, go about
selecting your record player thoughtfully.
Hah, you might be thinking, thats easy to say,
but where do I find dealers for such products?
This is the one area where making an informed
purchasing decision by way of hands- and ears-
on experience is much more difficult than it was
Okay, Im exaggerating the demise of the CD for
effect, but it is more than a little ironic that the
generation that grew up with compact discs has
largely abandoned the format in favor of MP3
players, while simultaneously embracing the once
again flourishing vinyl LP. And while not every
twenty-something spins black plastic, Ive recently
advised more than one young friend on his first
turntable purchase.
But if youre reading this magazine chances are
you probably owned a turntable way back when,
or maybe got into audio with the CDs ascendance
and never took the vinyl plunge. Either way, its
reasonable to ask if all the buzz about an analog
renaissance is true, and, if so, if its worth the
considerably greater effort it takes to operate and
maintain an LP playback system.
As vinyl enthusiasts, we at TAS can confirm that,
yes, the analog resurgence is very real, as are
the accompanying musical rewards. Even if you
havent visited a CES, Rocky Mountain Audio Fest,
or other recent audio show, the evidence is in plain
sightnot only between the pages of magazines
such as this one but also in mainstream media as
well as catalogs and on-line sales sites.
Turntables are cool!
Vinyl is hot!
Moreover, with the exception of classical record
companies, pretty much every other major label
has jumped on the LP bandwagon (and why not,
with CD sales plunging and vinyl sales rising?),
issuing new pop releases while also mining deep
back catalogs. Those doing it well, like Warner
and Sony, have learned their lessons from reissue
specialists such as Analogue Productions, Classic,
and Mo-Fi, and are releasing LPs cut with superior
mastering techniques on quality vinyl.
But even with the demise of brick-and-mortar
record stores, purchasing vinyl is in some ways
easier, via the Web, if not cheaper, than its ever
been (see our accompanying sidebar: Where to
Buy Vinyl).
5 Cuide to Vinyl Playback
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The turntable wizards at Pro-Ject are releasing their European
bestseller, the RM-1.3, in the U.S. for the first time. A small wonder,
it features a boomerang-shaped plinth, a decoupled motor, an MDF
platter, and, in a final flourish, a factory-fitted Sumiko Pearl cartridge,
a $95 value. It hits our shores in high-gloss red, white, or black.
Price: $499.
sumikoaudio.net
ON 1HL HORlZON
NeiI Cader
The Pro-Ject Xperience Classic uses a traditional rectangular
plinth, but adds a snazzy 9cc tonearm fashioned from a single
piece of carbon fiber and a newly designed encased-motor.
Overall performance is said to be improved over the Xpression
III through the addition of a larger, denser plinth with level-
adjustable and damped conical feet and the inclusion of a
resonance optimized composite MDF/vinyl platter. A factory-
mounted Sumiko Blue Point 2 cartridge adds the finishing touch.
Price: $1499.
sumikcaudic.net
The Xtension is Pro-Jects no-holds-barred design and features a
massive, 12-pound, damped-aluminum/vinyl sandwich platter that uses
a unique opposing-magnet inverted bearing. In addition, the entire
turntable comes equipped with four height-adjustable Sorbothane-
damped feet in a magnetic field for exceptional isolation. The ultra-quiet
AC motor employs electronic speed control via a built-in Speed Box SE
II. An external power supply further reduces any potential for electro-
mechanical interference. A Pro-Ject 12cc EVO 12-inch tonearm is factory
installed. Constructed of a single piece of conical carbon fiber, the 12cc
EVO offers easy adjustment of VTA, azimuth, anti-skating, and height.
Price: $TBA.
sumikoaudio.net
34 Cuide to Vinyl Playback
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CC 1C: ConLenLs | From Lhe LdiLor | Cn Lhe Horizon | FeaLure ArLicles | 1urnLables and Record Players | Phono CarLridqes | Cur 1op Picks | Vinyl Accessories & LPs
T
hose oI you who own and en|oy analog systems would probably agree that
entering the world oI vinyl playback is a little like |oining an underground
Iraternal organization. Members oI the analog brotherhood seek one another
out to ask questions, exchange suggestions on equipment, recommend good music,
and discuss and debate new discoveries. Certain components trigger waves oI
commentary almost as soon as they are released, while others stimulate ongoing
interest yet remain shrouded in mystery, even aIter they have been on the market
quite a while. Dne such component is the Wilson Benesch Full Circle analog system
Irom the UK, which |ust might qualiIy as the coolest analog rig that most enthusiasts
have never seen nor heard in action.
WiIscn Benesch FuII
CircIe AnaIc System
A complete LP playback rig that incorporates
carbon Iiber throughout
Chris Martens
The Full Circle system consists of Wilson
Beneschs Circle belt-drive turntable, A.C.T.
0.5 tonearm, and Ply high-output moving-
coil cartridge, offered at the special package
price of $3495. Wilson Benesch specializes in
fabricating carbon-fiber components for use in
audio applications, so it comes as no surprise
that the Circle, A.C.T. 0.5, and Ply incorporate
key structural elements made from that light,
stiff composite material. Upon opening the Full
Circles shipping carton, the first thing new
owners will discover is that system components
are exceptionally well packed, and the second is
that the Full Circle rig is gorgeouseven more
attractive than it appears in the sleek photos
found on the Wilson Benesch Web site.
Overall fit and finish are exemplary; the elegantly
tapered tonearm looks like a fine piece of industrial
sculpture, featuring some of the most delicate,
glass-smooth carbon-fiber work you could ever
hope to see. Ironically, the only problem is that
the arm tube is so smooth that it sometimes skids
sideways over the hard rubber surface of the
tables cueing arm, making precise cueing a hit-

F
R
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E

AT
THEABSOLUTESOUND.COM
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THE 100 BEST SOUNDING LPSAND MORE!
days just to install, set-up, fine-tune, bed in and
repackage a pair of speakers like these, and often
the best place in the room for one pair of speakers
is the same place for another. But, we can draw
parallels and this reasserts Wilsons place at the
acme of speaker design at this price. It was never
really in doubt.
Broadly speaking, there are four equally valid
sounds at this price level; theres music as art,
music as magic, music as science project and
music free from influence loudspeakers. Wilson
has always been firmly in the last camp, and with
the Sasha it digs its heels in still further. The Sasha
is not a magical window on the composers soul, a
talisman to make all music wonderful or a product
that lays music bare. It does all these things, but
its principally the studio monitor we all wish every
studio used, because theyd make better music
in the process. It will expose weaknesses in the
recording, in the performance and in the audio
system with stark clarity, but curiously these dont
detract from the enjoyment, any more than the
surface noise on a good LP played through a top
turntable stops you from enjoying the music.
Sasha highlights a difficult admission for
reviewers. We are apt to look at incremental
changes in designs as dirty great changes in
sound. It comes from many of us getting our
degree in Reviewology from the Centre for the
Easily Impressed. The problem arises when we
actually happen across a genuine large-scale
change in sound and we end up like the (middle-
aged, beer gutted) boy who cried wolf. And Sasha
is a dirty great big change in the right direction
for the W/P system. In fairness, previous W/P
designs did offer distinct improvements over
earlier models; however some like System 6
were bigger and more significant than others.
Sasha is the biggest change of them all.
So, should you turn in your WATT/Puppy
system for the Sasha? Not necessarily; the W/P
remains one of the few legends in high-end and
that reputation is still richly deserved. Just one
thing though; if you arent planning to upgrade
soon, you might want to steer clear of hearing the
Sasha. Even the briefest exposure may make you
change your mind about upgrading.
Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi! +
NEXT pAgE
Y
G Acoustics is a relatively young company (founded in 2002) that has made
quite a splash in the upper end of the loudspeaker market. The firm has
attracted some fervent supporters along with much controversy surrounding
its key marketing slogan, The Best Loudspeaker on Earth. Period. This statement,
along with the products pricing and unusual build, tends to polarize audiophiles.
Yg Acoustics Kipod
Studio Loudspeaker
The Best Loudspeaker on Earth?
Robert Harley
The Kipod Studio reviewed here is YGs least
expensive full-range loudspeaker, priced at
$38,000 per pair. The Kipod Studios design brief
was to bring the same level of performance found
in YGs $107,000 Anat Professional to a more
compact design, with the only trade-offs being
bass extension and maximum playback volume.
The Kipod Studio is a two-piece system:
The Kipod Main Module is coupled to a woofer
enclosure that also serves as a stand for the Main
Module. The Main Module is a small two-way
speaker in a sealed enclosure that is available
on its own for $17,000 per pair. The Kipod Main
Module is transformed into the Kipod Studio with
the addition of the $21,000-per-pair woofer, which
can be ordered with or without integral power
amplifiers (the price is the same). In my mind, the
Kipod Studio is a single loudspeaker system that
happens to be housed in two enclosures. Indeed,
the Kipod Main Module bolts to the woofer
enclosure to form a single structure. Nonetheless,
one can buy the Kipod Main Module and later add
the woofer for the same price as purchasing both
together.
The sealed woofer module has a truncated
pyramid shape that houses a 9 ScanSpeak
woofer in the front and an amplifier panel in the
rear. This panel has a variety of controls for tuning
the system to a room. These include woofer level,
crossover frequency, equalization frequency, and
equalization level. Single-ended and balanced
line-level inputs are provided. The line-level input
is fed from a second output from your preamplifier.
Note that your preamp needs two main stereo
outputs, one to drive the woofer modules and one
to drive your main power amplifiers. The integral
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - yG acoustics kipod Studio Loudspeaker
power amplifiers, designed specifically for this
particular woofer, are rated at 400W.
The enclosures are made entirely of aluminum
panels, machined and finished in YGs Colorado
factory (see sidebar). The Main Modules
ScanSpeak-sourced 6 midrange driver is crossed
over to the tweeter at 1.75kHz with a fourth-order
slope. The crossover components are as good as
they getthe ultra-expensive Raimund Mundorf
capacitors and inductors. Each driver is measured
and the crossover hand-tuned to a specific set of
drivers. YG keeps these measurements on file so
that if you need a replacement driver it can supply
one of identical characteristics.
The crossovers are designed using a program
YG founder Yoav Geva wrote that is based on
an algorithm he developed for another field that
reportedly allows simultaneous optimization of
the frequency and time domains. That is, the
loudspeakers amplitude response is flat and its
phase response is uniform. YG claims that the
Kipod Studio has a phase uniformity of +/-5. This
means that the disparate drivers move in unison
in response to a musical signal.
A machined-aluminum waveguide around the
Vifa ring-radiator tweeter controls the tweeters
dispersion. The Main Module can be ordered
with single-wire or bi-wire connection. The review
samples were supplied with bi-wire connections.
Incidentally, I replaced the stock jumpers with a
pair from Kimber (Kimber Select KF9033 jumpers)
and heard a reduction in grain and a small increase
in transparency.
Although the woofer module is available in
passive or active configurations, virtually every
customer opts for the active versionand for good
reason, in my view. An active woofer has many
I visited yG acoustics factory in the Denver
suburb of arvada, colorado, last year for a
firsthand look at how these loudspeakers are
made. I learned that yoav Geva, yG acoustics
founder, based the loudspeakers design
on an analog application of a digital-signal-
processing algorithm he developed that allowed
simultaneous optimization of signals in the
amplitude and time domains. When used in
loudspeakers, this technique reportedly results
in flat frequency response and nearly perfect
phase response. the best Loudspeaker on
Earth claim stems from what yG claims is the
flattest frequency response and best phase
response of any loudspeaker.
yG builds the loudspeakers from scratch
inside its 6000-square-foot, seven-employee
factory. the enclosures are all made from solid
sheets of aircraft-grade aluminum. (the baffles
of the anat main module and the tweeter ring
of the kipod are ballistic-grade aluminum,
which has some titanium in it.) yG owns the
very expensive (and reportedly top-of-the-line)
milling and grinding machines for working the
metal. raw aluminum sheets, some of them
weighing three-quarters of a ton, are moved
via an overhead crane system. the panels that
make up the enclosure are cut and drilled, and
then ground to create the finish you see on the
final product. the panels are then anodized by
an outside facility.
one model loudspeaker is built at a time with
drivers that have been individually tested and
measured. the data on each driver are archived
so that if a customer needs a replacement
driver, one of nearly identical characteristics
can be substituted. Each speakers crossover
is tuned to match the set of drivers going
into the enclosure. the crossovers use the
huge (and extraordinarily expensive) mundorf
capacitors and inductors. the kipods two cone
drivers are sourced from ScanSpeak and are
either custom-made for yG or re-built by yG
to its specifications. the tweeter in the anat,
for example, uses a diaphragm from Germany
and ScanSpeaks motor structure, with final
assembly performed in yGs factory.
the facility felt more like a craft shop than
an industrial factory. there was a perfectionist
attitude toward every aspect of production,
and the pace was slow and deliberate. the
metalwork was exquisite.
In addition to the kipod reviewed here, yG
makes the anat reference II line that begins
with the $33k anat main module. as with the
kipod, the anat main module can be used on its
own or mounted on a woofer. this configuration
is the $70k anat reference II Studio, and can
be ordered with a passive or actively powered
woofer (the price is the same). the top-of-the-
line is the anat reference II professional, which
adds a second woofer enclosure and is priced
at $107k.
InSIDE tHE yG acoUStIcS factory
advantages, the main one being the removal of
passive crossover parts from the high-level signal
path between an amplifier and the woofers voice
coil. A crossovers low-pass section that feeds
the woofer typically uses a large series inductor;
its removal allows the amplifier to better drive
and control the woofer. Second, an active woofer
relieves your main power amplifier of the burden
of driving the woofer. Third, a powered woofer
can be equalized to deliver deeper extension than
would be possible from a passively driven woofer.
Thats the case with the Kipod Studio; the system
is flat to 20Hz despite the small footprint and
compact dimensions. Fourth, a powered woofer
offers the ability to control the woofer level to best
match your room. Finally, the integral amplifier
can be designed specifically for the impedance
curve it will be asked to drive.
Interestingly, the Main Module is run full-range.
That is, theres no high-pass filter to keep bass
out of the Main Modules 6 driver. The idea is
to achieve the purity of a two-way mini-monitor
with the bass extension of a floorstanding three-
way. Nonetheless, the 6 drivers excursion will
be the limiting factor in the systems macro-
dynamic capabilities. It is, however, loaded in
a rather small sealed enclosure which helps
limit its excursion. For those who want higher
sound-pressure levels, YG makes a Main Module
Subsonic Filter that keeps low bass out of the
Main Module, but presumably at the expense of
ultimate transparency.
The Kipod Studio doesnt carry a specified
frequency responsethe literature states that
it delivers useable output from 20Hz to above
40kHz and that frequency-response deviations
are limited to +/-0.7dB in the audible band.
Note that the upper-midrange and treble balance
is somewhat dependent on the speakers rake
angleit can be tilted back to varying degrees
by how far the front or rear spikes are inserted.
Sensitivity is a moderate 87dB and the impedance
is 8 ohms nominal, 5 ohms minimum, suggesting
that the system should not present a difficult load
to a power amplifier. The 100-watt Pass Labs
XA100.5 monoblocks were plenty of power for the
Kipod Studio.
LiSTENiNG
Dick Diamond of YG Acoustics set up the Kipod
Studio in my listening room, as he does for many
YG customers. Setup, placement, and tuning
were surprisingly quick and easy, partly because
of the ability to adjust the bass from the rear-
panel controls. There wasnt the usual struggle
between the loudspeaker and the room; the
Kipod Studios low bass and midbass integrated
easily and perfectly. The loudspeakers ended
up very close to where Ive positioned the last
few speakers Ive auditioned, the Revel Salon2,
Magico V3, and Wilson X-2.
I had heard the Kipod Studio at the 2008 Rocky
Mountain Audio Fest and thought it was one of
the shows highlights. In fact, the Kipod Studio
in a small hotel room showed better than YGs
Anat Professional in the cavernous acoustic
nightmares that are the ballrooms at The Venetian
hotel. The Kipod Studio struck me as having
tremendous clarity and dynamics, with an almost
horn-like presence and jump-factor dynamics,
but without typical horn colorations.
That initial impression was consistent with my
observations after living with this loudspeaker for
the past two months. The Kipod Studios sound
How did you get into loudspeaker design?
I was 15 or 16, and bought my first stereo
systema Sony cD player, Sony integrated
amp, and a pair of bose speakers. I wasnt
too happy with the speakers, so I asked my
father what I should I do. He told me I had two
options: one was to work more, save more
money, and buy better speakers; the other one
was to build my own speakers. He knew that I
liked to tinker with stuff and said that if I were
to build my own speakers, he would be happy
to supply me with the books and materials
necessary to do it. So, of course, I chose that
option and started to build speakers as a
hobby.
Did you make speakers continuously from
that time until you started Yg Acoustics?
yes, it was always a hobby.
When you started Yg, why did you decide to
make the enclosures from aluminum panels?
the first-generation speaker actually had an
mDf cabinet. I ended up using aluminum for
the insert around the tweeter because there
was just no way to machine that complex
shape out of wood. I really liked what it did
in terms of preventing the front baffle from
vibrating. the second-generation speaker
already had the entire front baffle made of
aluminum, and the body was still a combination
of mDf and plywood. that sounded much
betterthe images started to float better
in space. I decided to go full-bore and do
everything out of aluminum, and havent
looked back since. It allows you to machine
things more accurately than you would with
a soft material, such as wood. So you have a
speaker that has a better production tolerance
and also allows you to achieve more complex
geometries inside the speaker.
yG acoUStIcS foUnDEr yoav GEva
taLkS WItH robErt HarLEy
was extraordinarily quick, clean, detailed, and
alive. It was also an extremely transparent and
revealing loudspeaker that laid bare changes in
electronics, cabling, setup, AC quality, and source
deficiencies. The Kipod Studio walked a fine line
between resolution of musical detail and sounding
analytical. Consequently, it should be matched
with high-quality associated components,
preferably those that favor warmth and ease.
With the right electronics, the Kipod was
capable of an enormously appealing and
captivating sound. It disappeared in the sense that
it was a transparent window on the music, with
extremely low coloration. I heard an immediacy
and presence, yet the overall presentation wasnt
forward, spotlighted in the midrange, or colored
in other ways that foster a sense of life but quickly
become fatiguing. Rather, the Kipod Studio
achieved its lifelike vitality by imposing so little of
itself on the music.
This quality was, I concluded, not just the
result of the Kipods lack of tonal colorations in
the midband, but of its transient quickness and
coherence. Leading edges of notes seemed to
jump out of the presentation with startling speed,
much the way horn loudspeakers reproduce
musics dynamic structure. Transient information
had a coherence that was world-class; although
highly resolving of dynamic shadings, transients
never degenerated into mere noise. Instead, I
heard percussion instruments, acoustic guitar,
and other transient-rich instruments rendered
with a completely natural and organic quality that
was the antithesis of hi-fi. This quality is the
Kipod Studios greatest strengththe ability to
sound highly resolving and alive without a trace of
fatigue-inducing etch. Many loudspeakers sound
detailed during a brief listen and then become
fatiguing. The tell-tale sign of such a speaker is
a sense of relief when the music is turned down
or off. Not the Kipod; its resolution was musically
authentic, not an artifact, which allowed very long
listening sessions.
I was greatly taken by the Kipod Studios
reproduction of brass and woodwinds, particularly
trumpet and saxophone. The speaker was able to
convey the blat and bite of these instruments
timbres (they are rich in upper harmonics) but
without glare or shrillness. Check out the superb
(and superbly recorded) DVD-Audio title XXL
from Gordon Goodwins Big Phat Band for a great
example of this quality. Much of what we find
unpleasant in a trumpet reproduced at realistic
levels is not the instrument itself, but rather the
distortion components that make it seem louder
than it actually is. The Kipod Studio rendered these
instruments will a full measure of upper-midrange
energy that gave them a lifelike immediacy with
no trace of hardness.
This performance was realized, however, only
with very clean-sounding sources, electronics,
and cables. The Pass Labs XA100.5 amplifiers
were an ideal match, with their gorgeous
rendering of timbre and lack of solid-state
artifacts. Similarly, the Kipod much preferred
the Air Tight PC-1 Supreme phono cartridge
over the hotter Dynavector XV-1s. Note that
Im not suggesting that the Kipod needed soft
electronics and sources to compensate for an
overly bright presentation (it wasnt bright), but
rather that this loudspeaker was so revealing that
it uncovered any flaws in source or electronics.
(This is probably why show demonstrations of
YG products have been so variable.) Indeed, the
Can you talk about the crossover and
your technique that result in optimized
performance in the frequency and time
domains?
this is really what sets us apart from other
manufacturers. most manufacturers use a
piece of software called LEap, Loudspeaker
Enclosure analysis program; its a very, very
good piece of software. It controls about
80% of the market. thats what nearly all
manufacturers use to optimize their cabinets
and crossovers. the problem with LEap is
that it allows you to optimize either frequency
response or phase, but not both. What we
have thats unique is software I developed that
allows you to optimize both at the same time.
thats why our speakers are currently the only
ones on the market that offer zero relative
phase (actually, plus or minus five degrees
relative phase) and flat frequency response.
youll find a lot of speakers that offer one or
the other. those that offer a flat frequency
response tend to sound very neutral, but
sometimes a bit lifeless. those that offer good
phase have great dynamics and soundstaging,
but are usually a bit colored. Were proud to be
able to offer both.
So, you actually developed this algorithm and
wrote the software?
Exactly.
And how does that manifest itself in the
loudspeakers sound?
the speaker is, first of all, very neutral
because of the flat frequency response.
Instruments have the same timbre that they
would have in real life. and, because of the
phase, the soundstage is very accurate. Its
not overly big, not overly smallit is exactly
as recorded. and maybe the most important
thing is the dynamic pop of instruments, the
absence of which to me is the number one
thing that tells you immediately that youre
listening to hi-fi rather than to live music. With
my speakers, I have to say the dynamic pop
is there as it would be in live music, since all
drivers move exactly at the same time.
Whats the thinking behind the Kipod Studio,
a compact $38,000 loudspeaker?
most speaker manufacturers create a huge,
big, sophisticated flagship. but as you go lower
in their price line, even if its very expensive,
youll find products that are very big, but
they might not have the same technology as
the flagship. What I did was compromise on
maximum volume, or size in this case, which
obviously affects maximum volume. the kipod
is a speaker that is scaled down in size, but it
has the same level of technology that I offer
with my anat, my flagship line. the result is
a speaker that is compact and intended only
for medium-sized rooms, but one that offers
technology that you would otherwise have to
spend $107,000 to get.
So, the Kipod Studio features the same
degree of execution as the $107,000 Anat
professional, just scaled-down in size?
Kipod Studio thrived on a very clean and resolved
source, such as high-resolution files played back
on my fan-less, drive-less PC-based music server
feeding a Berkeley Alpha DAC. This loudspeaker
reached down to the lowest signal levels and to
the farthest reaches of the soundstage to bring
that information to the listeners attention. My
caveat earlier about the Kipod Studio walking
a fine line between resolution and sounding
analytical applies not to highly detailed sources,
but rather to etch or brightness in the associated
electronics. In short, if you feed the Kipod Studio a
clean and detailed signal, youll be rewarded by a
presentation that is richly filigreed and immensely
involving.
The Kipod Studios bass was notable for its
tuneful quality in the midbass along with extremely
deep extension, the latter thanks to the integral
amplifier and equalization circuit that pushes the
woofer harder below its natural roll-off frequency.
Even organ pedal tones were well served by the
Kipod Studio, provided that the playback level
was kept moderate. The bass had a consistent
character throughout the entire range, and
mated seamlessly to the midrange. The texture
of acoustic bass was beautifully rendered, with
a satisfying combination of warmth and agility.
On bass-heavy recordings the Main Modules
midrange driver limited the playback level because
of excessive excursion; the upper-bass became
loose and uncontrolled. Keep the playback level
moderate, however, and all is well.
Just as the midrange had tremendous clarity
without sounding forward, the Kipod Studios
treble was alive, open, and present yet never
overbearing. The top end was musically vivid
without being sonically vivid. In addition, the
treble was exquisitely detailed, with fine resolution
of nuances and inner detail. Delicate brush work
on a drum kit, for example, had real detail that
conveyed the mechanism by which the sound
was made rather than merely sounding like a
high-frequency noise. Cymbals were notable for
the sense of delicacy, and of being surrounded
by air.
The Kipod Studios soundstaging was
commensurate with the rest of its performance
tight, precisely defined, and tangible. Images
floated independently of the loudspeakers just
as one would expect from a mini-monitor. The
loudspeakers tremendous midrange and treble
transparency helped in creating the impression
of a see-through quality that allowed very low-
level sounds at the back of the hall (including
spatial cues) to be rendered with great resolution.
The overall presentation was highly revealing of
the halls size and characteristics, but not hugely
expansive. The soundstage was wide, deep,
and transparent, but had less height and sense
of envelopment than Im used to hearing. I had,
however, been listening to the Wilson X-2 for the
previous 18 months. No doubt this impression
is the result of the Kipod Studios much smaller
physical size that puts the drivers at ear level
rather than considerably above ear level.
As much as I enjoyed the Kipod Studio, I have
one serious reservation about its performance,
particularly relative to its considerable priceit
is limited in playback level and macro-dynamics.
Timpani and other high-level, low-frequency
transients caused the 6 midrange to produce
a popping sound (the back of the voice-coil
former hitting the magnet) when its excursion
limits were exceeded. A related phenomenon was
Its scaled-down in size, but not compromised
in technology.
You use powered woofers in all your designs,
which is unusual in high-end audio. What
do you see as the advantages of driving the
woofer with an integral amplifier?
It offers two advantages. first of all, its room
adjustable. that would be, by far, the biggest
advantage. We can achieve uniform sound in
pretty much any room. Its important to note,
by the way, that we dont expect the customer
to know how to adjust the woofer. Using a
diagram of a customers room, we can optimize
the settings. the second advantage is that the
main amplifier doesnt have to work as hard.
the load gets shared between the woofer
amplifier and your main amplifier.
theres traditionally been resistance by
audiophiles to powered loudspeakers.
Some audiophiles prefer not to have it.
thats why I also offer a fully-passive version
of the kipod Studio and the anat Studio. but I
think once they see the quality of the amplifier
that we put in it and how the amplifier was
designed specifically for our bass drivers
impedance curve, that reluctance tends to go
away.
Your literature and Web site stress the
measured performance of your loudspeakers.
How much can measurements tell us about
speaker performance?
measurements can tell us everything, as long
as we measure everything. Its important to
note that measurements that we do at the
factory, or that any designer does, are not
just the six or seven graphs that you see in
some magazines. We have a book containing
hundreds of tests weve performed. these can
describe the performance of the speaker start-
to-finishwithout anything missing.
But what role does listening play in
loudspeaker development?
Listening tells you whether you have measured
everything or not. your ears will not tell you
specifically whats wrong and how to fix it.
thats what measurements are used for. they
are the development tool, but the ears are
the best verification, because if you didnt
measure something, you will still be able to
hear it, and this will tell you that something
is wrong. Whereas with measurements, if you
didnt measure something, how would you
even see that its wrong?
Or how to fix it?
We need to listen to see if something is
problematic and then find the measurement
that shows you how to fix it. I doubt that from
just listening, youd know how to fix it. at least
I dont. but, it tells me that I need to measure
more until I find something that explains the
phenomenon that I could hear.
Over the years Ive heard your loudspeakers
many times at shows, sometimes sounding
wonderful and other times not so good. Is
there something about your designs that
a tendency for the upper-bass to lose definition
and sound flabby with a combination of high-ish
playback levels and the presence of low-bass in
the music. The low-bass caused high midrange-
driver excursion that colored the midbass. All
loudspeakers have such limitations, and typically
the higher the price, the louder the system will
play without strain. Judged from one perspective,
the Kipod Studio is quite expensive considering
its inability to reproduce orchestral climaxes with
ease at realistic levels.
CONCLUSiON
The YG Acoustics Kipod Studio is an extraordinary
loudspeaker, but one that wont satisfy all listeners.
In a moderately sized room, fed by high-quality
electronics, and played at reasonable levels, it is
world-class. Its ability to vividly bring music to life
through dynamic expression without becoming
analytical is extraordinarily compelling. This is
a vital aspect of music reproduction, and one at
which the Kipod Studio excels.
If, however, you want to play orchestral music
at full-tilt, or have a large room, or cannot invest
in high-quality electronics and sources, the
Kipod Studio probably isnt your best choice.
YGs solution for larger rooms and for higher
playback levels is the Anat Reference II series.
The Kipod Studio is a specialized loudspeaker
that maximizes transparency, transient accuracy,
soundstaging, resolution, and tonal purity within
certain limitations of room size and playback
level. But when playing within those parameters,
the Kipod Studio is utterly magical.
make them more sensitive to the room, or
associated equipment, or setup?
our speakers are very critical. When you have
a speaker that exposes all of the nuances in
a performance, you will hear very clearly any
change that you do upstream. think of it this
way: If a speaker has a response deviation of
plus/minus 4db and you put in front of the
speaker a cable that rolls off highs by 1db you
probably wont be able to hear it. Do the same
with a speaker thats plus/minus 1db and it
will be much more apparent. our speakers
are very, very critical. With a speaker of this
quality the whole system would be of very high
quality and assembled quite carefully.
You chose not to high-pass filter the Kipod
Main Modules 6 driver to keep low bass out
of it. Is that because the Kipod Main Module is
available separately as a stand-alone system
or because you felt that the additional
crossover parts would compromise the sound
quality?
Its actually both. I really like the transparency
of a two-way design. Its a simple design and
a lot less can go wrong when you do a simple
design. thats why both the anat and the
kipod lines are essentially two-way monitors,
and then you add to them bass modules. the
driver relies on mechanical filtration, meaning
a sealed enclosure to protect the mid/woofer
from very high excursions.
Doesnt that limit the systems dynamics?
It limits the systems overall maximum sound.
When you say dynamics, you could refer to
two things. one is just maximum volume level,
which definitely it will limit. thats why the
kipod is designed for medium-sized rooms or
smaller. the anat can handle far, far greater
volumes because it has two mid/woofers. and,
I would have to say with the anat, Ive never
encountered the volume limits of this design
approach. but when you refer to dynamics in
terms of the sense of immediacy in the music, I
would claim that its very helpful to have a mid/
woofer that is not blocked by a big capacitor
with its own problems.
Tell us about your advertising slogan, The
Best Loudspeakers on Earth. period.
of course, I believe it, otherwise, I wouldnt
write it. but, I dont expect anyone else to
believe it just because I said so. In fact, I
would claim that a customer who chooses to
purchase my speakers just because I claim
that they are very good is not a careful enough
customer. but I would expect these customers
to be curious enough to decide to test my
slogan for themselves to see if they agree with
me. my hope would be that the customers read
the slogan and say, yoav believes it. He tries
to give scientific evidence for it in his ads. I
would like to try to schedule a demo and see if
I agree with him or not.
Yg Acoustics Kipod Studio Loudspeaker
type: three-way dynamic loudspeaker
Driver complement: 6 midrange, ring-radiator tweeter
(main module); 9 woofer (woofer module)
Woofer module amplifer power: 400W rmS
Impedance: 8 ohms nominal, 5 ohms minimum
Sensitivity: 87db
cabinet: aircraft-grade aluminum; tweeter ring is
ballistic-grade aluminum
Dimension: 7 x 16 x 13 (main module); 12 x 41 x 17
(woofer)
Weight: 40 lbs. each (main module); 64 lbs. each
(woofer)
SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
price: $38,000/pr
Yg ACOUSTICS LLC
4941 Allison, St., Unit 10
Arvada, CO 80002
yg-acoustics.com
U.K.
price: 28,700/pr
METROpOLIS MUSIC
+44(0)1435 867438
metropolis-music.co.uk
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEWS
Loudspeakers
over $40k
A
valons has long held a reputation for delivering astonishingly low levels of
distortion with commensurate neutrality, but the emergence of the flagship
Isis (and the budget NP 2.0) signaled a new mastery of the time domain.
The Isis was a stunning achievement, but it was simply too big or too expensive for
many homes. The new Time, on the other hand, fits right in...
Avalon Time Loudspeaker
Watch this space!
Roy gregory
The Time inhabits a cabinet that is a few inches taller but
otherwise virtually identical to the companys various Eidolon
models. But remove that grille and youll reveal yet another
familiar view, a large diameter diamond tweeter being paired
with a 120mm ceramic bowl midrange driver and a pair of the
275mm Nomex/Kevlar bass units, although in this case its a
case of hybrid DNA, the 25mm concave tweeter and twin bass
driver configuration being drawn from the Isis, while the bass
and mid drivers themselves come from the Eidolon Diamond.
The bass drivers are reflex loaded by a downward firing port that
is enclosed by the U-shaped plinth with its rear-facing opening
again, an Avalon trademark. The whole configuration that
hints at the Times dynamic potential and bandwidth.
The Time was happy with anything from a good 100 Watts
up. Amps used for the review included the Gamut M250i
monos, the Bernings and even the Hovland RADIA, whose
modest rated output underlined the fact that in this instance it
is subtlety and quality that count. Audiofreaks supplied Cardas
Clear interconnects and Clear Beyond speaker cables along
with the Times and these proved a good match, delivering
a coherent and holistic sound, big on acoustic space and
presence.
The alacrity with which the Time tells you all about early
reflections and asymmetries in the listening room (and its
acoustics), coupled to its bass power and resulting ability
to excite a rooms low frequency resonances, make this a
speaker thats easy to set up (in the sense that you clearly hear
the benefit or otherwise of every shift in position) but
also one that will dictate its placement literally to a matter of
millimeters, along with most of the things around it.
That set up process is also going to tell you an awful lot about
these speakers, simply because it goes straight to the question
of low-frequency performance, fluidity and communication
which in turn goes straight to the heart of music itself, everything
resting as it does on those lower registers. Yes, the bulk of
the usable information is in the mid-band, but its the bottom
end that tells you where it should all go, when it should get
there and whether or not its right. Ive never heard a speaker
yet in which that relationship is quite so obviously apparent.
Indeed, bigger speakers like the Isis or Focal Grande EM,
that exceed the Time in overall achievement, seem to make
this close coupling less obvious; or to put it another way, you
can hear that its not quite right you just cant necessarily
say why. The Time on the other hand, once you start adjusting
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - avalon time Loudspeaker
it, leaves you in doubt at all about both
the what and the why of optimum set up.
In the process it also demonstrates just
what an uncannily natural and evocative
performer it can be.
An example: one of my key set up
discs is the Analogue Productions re-
issue of Duke Ellington and Ray Browns
This Ones For Blanton. Sparse to the
point of ascetism, the upright bass/piano
combination is incredibly demanding,
both instruments individually presenting
any hi-fi system with a stern test, in
combination they are ruinously critical.
Not only dose the system have to deal
with the depth, power and independence
of the bass, it has to let that instrument
breathe, which means dealing with its
almost contradictory sense of attack
and decay, along with its physical
volume and layered harmonics. Then
throw in the sheer range and complexity
of the piano, the need to reproduce its
percussive quality without it becoming
harsh or strident and you can begin
to see the problem. Add the fact that
theres no rhythm section per se, filling
in the background and mapping out the
steps, that the two instruments operate
for so much of the time at opposite ends
of the frequency range, and that with
so little inherent structure, reproduction
of the time domain is absolutely crucial
if you are to avoid the whole thing
collapsing into meaningless (and frankly,
irritating) noise, and this recordings
value as an almost instant litmus test for
bass alignment, linearity and rhythmic
integrity soon becomes apparent.
With the Times, roughly positioned
and happily playing away to bed them
in, Id been really rather enjoying the
results. But when the time came to go to
work and really dial them in I was in for a
shock. Sure enough, cueing up track one
of the Blanton, the problems with the set
up were all too starkly highlighted, Ray
Browns bass sounding small, wooly and
muffled as well as limp and well off
the pace. At the same time, Ellingtons
right hand sounded horribly glassy and
exposed a bit like a poorly tuned pub
upright. This was definitely not correct!
And so the odyssey began and along
the way, quite an education as to just
why this album has proved so invaluable
over the years.
Painstaking adjustments, fore and
aft (with a little sideways thrown in for
good measure) and then again with
the cones in place, wrought dramatic
changes in the musical integrity and
sense of performance*. In comparison,
the minimal degree of toe in required to
snap the image into focus was simplicity
itself. But the educational aspect of
the process is all to do with the way
the musics presentation changes and
evolves. From that unpromising start, a
half-centimeter grid movement quickly
established a position that was forward
and wider, the speaker clearly telling
you when you were moving in the right
direction and when you werent.
Final placement ended up about 40mm
further apart and 60mm further forward
than my original speculative positioning
along with considerable care taken
ensuring symmetry relative to rear and
side walls and the positioning of the first
reflection pads. It might not sound like
much, but when you are working in 5mm
steps to start with, and as small a step as
you can manage to finalize things, thats
quite a trip, and each step of the way
was marked by progressive changes
in the integration and projection of the
music and instruments.
From its diminished and detached
beginnings, Ray Browns bass grew in
stature and physical volume. First you
heard the body, gradually growing in
front of you, then the strings, their length
developing as the speaker zeroed in. This
isnt about imaging as such although
that clearly benefits but the scale and
sense of the instrument, the particular
and so the odyssey began and along the way,
quite an education as to just why this album has
proved so invaluable over the years.
and instantly recognizable way it shapes notes
and drives energy into the room. Listen to live
jazz (or classical music) and you never have any
problem hearing what the bass is playing, or
the way its being played. Listen to jazz on most
hi-fi systems and the same instrument is often
indistinct and barely audible. Here, the Times
deliver the poise and shape of Browns intricate
lines with effortless
clarity. The contrast
between pluck and
release, the physical
difficulty of some of
his runs, are beautifully
captured and projected,
the notes floating clear
of the floor as he picks
and places them.
Meanwhile, Ellingtons piano has fallen into tune.
No more cracked upper register or thuddy left
hand: as the speakers approach their sweet spot
the harmonic complexity and percussive clarity
allow Ellingtons delicacy and touch to open like
a flower, the precisely placed chords blooming
in the body of the instrument, anchored by a
new authority and sonority that has come to the
instrument.
But the emergence of instrumental character
is only a part of the story. The really impressive
think is the developing relationship between the
instruments and with the space they occupy.
As the positioning locks in, so does the music,
the performance drawing you in, the almost
telepathic relationship between these two
master musicians reflected in the way they pass
the initiative back and forth. Suddenly you are
listening to instruments and people, in space,
to what the musicians are doing and saying
their conversation on a note-by-note, phrase-by-
phrase basis. The speakers, the driving system
theyve effectively disappeared, leaving just
the music. Yes it is a small and undemanding
recording (at least in terms of absolute dynamics
and scale) but the two instruments involved
are far from easy to reproduce, placing deeply
conflicting leading-edge
and timing demands on
a loudspeaker, while the
stark simplicity exposes
any shortcomings in
timing or tonality with
ruthless efficiency. Ive
heard two speakers do a
better job than the Time
with this disc: the Isis
and the Focal Grande. One costs three times as
much and the other needs at least three times the
power. And Im not sure that either gets quite as
deeply into the groove as the Time...
Its all about chemistry, that strange fusion
reaction that turns noise into music and musicians
into a band. Lets talk about bass of a different
kind and a bit of Elvis Costello that is, Live At
The El Mocambo and in his pomp on the My Aim
Is True tour: Set closer Pump It Up depends on
the deep, deep, driving patterns played by Pete
Thomass bass, and even given the space of a
slow build up and Elvis toying with the crowd, the
propulsive energy in the playing is both present
and correct. Even under the combined assault
of keyboards, drums and guitar, you never lose
track of the track, and the track never loses its
sense of purpose and direction. Switch back from
this murky live recording to the de luxe Edition
re-issue of the album and its a case of Wow!
The comparison tells you just what a great job
the speaker did of sorting out the densely packed
and dirty bottom-end of the live disc, it also tells
you just what an awesomely driven and energetic
recording the original is, the re-mastered CD
finally capturing the sheer life and intensity of the
analogue original. But playing the live disc also
reveals two other things about the Time: it has
that ability to reach out and include the listener
in the soundfield of the recording, making for a
much more immersive and involving listening
experience. Ohhh... and it likes to play loud. In
fact, it positively invites it. Whereas older Avalon
models would certainly play loud, it was hard
to escape the feeling that they did so with a
slight frown of disapproval. The Aspect tore up
that particular set of rules the Time stomps
on the shreds; enthusiastic barely covers the
willingness with which it embraces the more
energetic musical offerings... and no were not
talking Bach here.
One night long, long ago and in a club
far, far away I saw, heard and felt the power of
Steve Earle in overdrive. Recorded for a BBC live
session the tape has finally seen a CD release
and playing it on the Times carries me right
back to the overheated, sweaty, smoky fug of
the Town and Country, effortlessly capturing the
excitement, the sticky floor underfoot, of a band
(and an audience) that knows its on a roll. From
Earles nasal drawl, rough round the edges from
too much abuse and too many loud nights, to the
sheer enthusiasm of a band feeding on crowd
frenzy, the Avalons put you there right in the
middle of the whole, heaving, hyper event. You
see, its not just about the bass (although thats
critical to the whole question) but the way the low
frequencies are integrated with the rest of the
range and the overall coherence that results.
In this respect it is just like a Symphony
Orchestra; it is not enough for all the bass
The Avalon Time Loudspeaker
type: three-way loudspeaker
Driver complement:
1x 25mm concave diamond tweeter
1x 120 ceramic bowl midrange
2x 275mm kevlar/nomex bass drivers
Sensitivity: 89db
Impedance: 4 ohms
Dimensions (WxHxD): 30 x 117 x 48cm
Weight: 75kg
finishes: Quilted cherry, curly maple and figured
Walnut optional wood fnish (at extra cost): birdseye
maple, Walnut cluster burl, myrtle cluster burl

SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
price: $47,995/pr
AvALON ACOUSTICS
2800 Wilderness Place
Boulder, CO 80301
(303) 440-0422
avalonacoustics.com
U.K.
price: 47, 995/pr
(standard fnish)
AvALON ACOUSTICS
avalonacoustics.com
Distributed by:
AUDIOFREAKS UK
audiofreaks.co.uk
+44(0)20 8948 4153
It has the ability to reach
out and include the listener
in the soundfield of the
recording, making for a
much more immersive and
involving experience.
instruments to play at once thats just loud.
Real impact and drama comes from them all
playing at exactly the same moment and just
the right moment as defined by the rest of the
instruments. That way a massive, monumental
work like Shostokovichs 11th Symphony (from
the fabulous new Vasily Petrenko cycle on
Naxos) can build tension and drama, contrast
light and shade by the measured application of
instrumental force, the long, reflective passages
of the first movement never meandering but
building with wonderful inevitability towards
the shattering crescendo. Its a masterfully
controlled and directed performance, with the
Times retaining and delivering every last ounce
of that musical intent, right up to the sonorous
chimes of the cataclysmic finale.
It is this connected quality, the directness with
which they present the musical event that makes
the Time such a special speaker. The way it delivers
musical energy, the immediacy and suddenness
of instrumental transients has something of the
best horns about it, but coupled to the uncannily
even and extended bandwidth, the tonal and
spatial honesty thats always been an Avalon
hallmark. It certainly invests the speaker with the
ability to excite, but it also opens the palette of
intimacy and delicacy too. Back to the Blanton,
lets appreciate the deftness with which Ellington
balances and weights his playing to build off of
or in support of Browns bass. Shawn Colvins
Shotgun Down The Avalanche has all its familiar
intimacy and she is here immediacy, but it also
has a more solid, rooted quality than Im used to,
a bigger sound without losing any of that fragile
detail and intricacy.
Which sums up the Times achievement
quite nicely. It manages to present its musical
information in the right place and at the right
time, irrespective of pitch or power required. This
temporal accuracy is no coincidence (its not
called the Time for nothing) and the result is an
almost preternatural quality that makes recordings
astonishingly accessible and engaging. This inner
balance, built from the heart of the performance
outwards, extends across enough of the range to
produce remarkably convincing results, almost
irrespective of recording quality. They dredge
the music, whole and intact, from the murk of the
worst discs you own, while the best will be simply
breathtaking. The Time cant match the really big
speakers Ive already mentioned, or a speaker
like the GamuT S9, for sheer scale or ultimate
loudness, but it does more than enough in this
regard that most of us will never feel the lack (either
quantitatively or qualitatively). It doesnt float the
massed basses of a well recorded orchestra, or
establish the acoustic space quite as well as the
Isis, but it gets awfully close and brings its own
special qualities to the party instead. Its easier
to accommodate and much easier to drive, which
means that more listeners are going to actually
realize more of its performance potential out
there in the real world. Musically forgiving it also
brings the best from partnering equipment. Dont
think that makes it unfussy; youll still need stellar
equipment to extract all of the performance this
speaker is capable of, but the range of options
that embraces is now wider than ever before.
Which brings us, finally, to a parting shot.
Weve just enjoyed a purple patch when it comes
to advances in speaker performance. Not so
much when it comes to technology, youll note,
which has merely evolved or been refined, with
new materials rather than revolutionary new
approaches, but more what we do with it. It has
resulted in new levels of musical coherence,
less intrusive transducers and greater access
to recordings. It has also started to realign the
focus of audio attention, away from front-end
heavy approaches to a more system-orientated
understanding, built back from the speaker.
The Avalon Time represents
the pinnacle of that progress,
embodying the musically
communicative sensibilities
that have finally, significantly
advanced the state of the art in
loudspeakers and doing it in
a manageable and deliverable
package.
What the Time stands for is
more music for more people.
Undeniably expensive it may
be, but it is still cheap at the
price, simply because musical
performance like this was almost
unattainable at any price before
it arrived. By mixing a distinctly
real world practicality with
superb musical performance,
the Time establishes a significant
new benchmark for competitors
(and customers) to aim for. Of
course, some will already be
closer than others, but pole
position has to rest with all
those Eidolon owners out there:
youve got the system; youve
got the space; all you need now
is the cash. +
*Just to put this in perspective, the final position on the cones
was around 20mm further forward than without and with this
speaker thats a BIG difference.
T
he third family of products to carry Focals flagship Utopia designation, this latest iteration
represents not just an evolution of the technology and thinking behind these speakers, but a ground-
up reassessment of its implementation. So, while there are clear common factors that bind these
new Utopia models to their predecessors (driver technology, complement and materials), there isnt a
single element that hasnt been modified or changed, wholly or in part. In fact, the developments are so
comprehensive and their implications so far reaching that they are beyond the scope of a single review.
Which is why we started by looking at the simplest speaker in the range, the two-way stand-mounted Diablo,
a model that incorporates the advances made to the established Beryllium tweeter and W Cone driver
technologies, as well as touching on the sophisticated cabinet mapping technique that has been applied to
the design and construction of the enclosure.
Focal grande Utopia EM
Standing tall...
Roy gregory
The Grande Utopia EM embodies all those advances and
adds a few twists to the mix that only become possible when
development budgets and product pricing become truly
elastic.
As such, this review constitutes Part II, a second installment
of the story that started with CTs Diablo review in Issue 63, in
which he notes the significant advances made by Focal in the
areas of driver performance and cabinet design. Refinements
in the diameter of the Beryllium tweeter and the development
of a new spaced motor assembly, shaped to maximize venting
and minimize reflections have resulted in a lower resonant
frequency, a 1.5 dB increase in efficiency and a 40 per cent
reduction in distortion, increased thermal efficiency, greater
dynamics and reduced compression. Laser cutting of the W
sandwich cones used in the mid and bass drivers has improved
sonic consistency and pair matching, while the sophisticated
new cabinet mapping technology has allowed the creation
of more efficient and rigid cabinet structures, shorn of the
excess weight that stores mechanical energy, smearing
musical information and anchoring the sound to the speakers,
identifying them as its source.
The Grande Utopia EM matches those advances in midrange
and highfrequency driver performance and enclosure design,
with equivalent advances at low frequencies, in extending
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - focal Grande Utopia Em Loudspeaker
the Focus Time concept that governs the larger
Utopias curved baffle arrangement and in
crossover developments to actually deliver the
increased musical potential. Confronted with
a structure as strikingly different as the latest
Grande, its easy to assume that its an exercise
in ostentatious aesthetics (at the possible
expense of performance) especially when its
this big and this red! Well, the speaker comes
in black and a subtle pale grey too while
anything, as they say, is possible. Whats more,
by presenting such a striking and well rounded
form, the speakers make a statement, rather
than trying to hide or slip into the background
never a possibility with something this large!
Besides the superb standard of finish, the key
factor in this success is the Bauhaus discipline
to the design, its form absolutely dictated by
function. But its revolutionary appearance pales
into insignificance against the mechanical and
technological developments that lurk beneath
its skin, so lets examine each developmental
aspect in turn.
AdjUSTABLE CABiNET GEOMETrY
Separate, stacked enclosure modules are
nothing new in loudspeaker design, with many
companies relying on the approach to fine tune
arrival times and driver placement relative to the
listening position often in conjunction with a
complex set of tables or formulae to calculate
proper placement. Indeed, the first and second
series Utopias used both separate cabinets and
a curved displacement of the drivers to arrange
them relative to the listening position.
However, despite a fair degree of cleverness
in the actual placement and alignment of the
drivers there was no escaping the inherent
compromise of a one size fits all approach. With
the latest Grande, the speaker with the longest
baffle and most drivers, Focal was determined
to overcome that limitation. The problem, clearly,
was how to make the individual modules movable
relative to the listening position; the solution is
both mechanically impressive and wonderfully
elegant.
The Grande Utopia EM actually consists
of a plinth and five cabinets, but is physically
divided into three separate elements: the tweeter
enclosure, the two boxes above it and the two
boxes below that sit on the plinth. The top and
bottom pairs are actually fixed assemblies,
their boxes physically fixed together. The clever
bit is that the tweeter cabinet moves relative to
the bass and midrange below it, as does the
midrange and mid-bass unit pairing above it,
thus allowing the listener to tighten or loosen the
baffle curve depending on listening distance.
But with a speaker system that weighs around
260kg, the notion of adjusting these elements
and then holding them stable while fixing them
was clearly out of the question. Instead, Focal
have implemented a mechanical arrangement
of moving wedges that is simple, precise and
repeatable. A drop down flap on the rear of the
lower midrange cabinet contains (amongst other
things) a beautifully machined crank handle.
Fit it into the socket in the back of the tweeter
cabinet and each turn raises or lowers the upper
elements, the top two cabinets by exactly twice as
much as the tweeter enclosure, thus preserving
the correct arc. A mechanical/numerical counter
allows you to set the angles precisely and the
whole exercise will take one person a matter of
moments.
The end result contributes not only to the
striking appearance of the Grande EM, but also
to the easy optimization of its sound, with quite
small adjustments in tilt having a profound effect
on the presentation and balance of the sound.
ELECTrOMAGNETiC BASS drivEr...
Virtually all loudspeakers employ what are now
considered conventional bass units, employing
permanent magnets in their motor systems.
These are generally driven passively, but
increasingly, in search of greater level, extension
and control, designers are resorting to active
drive at lowfrequencies. Its an undeniably
attractive option, offering far greater extension
and weight from smaller cabinet volumes, as well
as a degree of tuning adjustment to match room
conditions.
However, it is not without its own set of
compromises, with complexity, cost, amplifier
quality and system integration all posing
significant issues. After all, the inside of a speaker
cabinet can best be described as a hostile
environment for vibration sensitive electronics,
and active crossovers need to match the quality
of the preamp used in the system, not too much
of a challenge in an AV set up, but really hard to
achieve in a high-end rig. And thats before we
even get to the question of amplifier quality and
top to bottom continuity.
For a speaker like the Grande, where size
and cost were largely irrelevant and quality of
performance is everything, another solution
needed to be found. Perhaps typically, it came
from combining forward thinking and new
technology with a concept that, in hi-fi terms at
least, could be described as positively ancient;
the electromagnetic drive-unit. In the days before
powerful amps and high-quality, high power
permanent magnets, speaker manufacturers
resorted to electromagnets to energize their
drivers. You want more bass, more efficiency?
Just turn up the power fed to the coil. Of course,
its not quite that simple, especially when applied
to a driver and system with the power demands
and bandwidth of the big Utopia, as RH explains
in his sidebar. But the attraction of a driver with
not just significantly greater power, but also an
inbuilt level of adjustability was just too attractive
to pass over, and Focal poured massive effort and
resources into achieving their goal. The results
are impressive, even from a purely numerical
standpoint.
Compared to the driver in the previous Grande,
the 400mm EM driver offers an 80 per cent
increase in available magnetic field (from 0.93
Tesla to 1.75 Tesla), an 88 per cent increase in the
force applied to accelerate the cone, increased
efficiency (92.7dB to 98.6dB), a lower resonant
frequency and an overall reduction in distortion
by a factor of almost four; and all down to the
nearly 7kg of copper wire used in place of the
magnets. Add in an adjustable output power
supply, housed in a small separate enclosure and
with six discrete steps from 1W to 75W, and you
have the equivalent of 6dB in level adjustment, as
well as an overdrive setting!
The other big change in bass implementation is
the move to a flow port arrangement, which feeds
the output of the downward facing port through
a wide, forward facing slot between the bottom
of the cabinet and the plinth. This improves the
ports interface with the room and also keeps
it more consistent when it comes to boundary
conditions.
AdjUSTABLE CrOSSOvEr...
Like everything else in loudspeaker design,
making the most of the advances made with the
bass unit was a question of balance, weighing up
how much of the benefit to spend on overall system
efficiency, how much on adjustability. Setting the
range of adjustment at 3dB allows an overall
system efficiency of 94dB. As well as significant
level compensation at low frequencies, this allows
the elimination of subtractive components in the
mid and treble crossovers, components that limit
transparency and dynamic response.
But Focal wanted to further increase user
optimization, and settled on a set of high-quality
jumpers to give three-step settings that enable
users to tweak crossover slopes between mid
and treble, as well as tweeter and mid-bass
levels and sub-bass Q. Add in the level control
on the bass PSU and thats 1458 permutations.
Thankfully, the discrete and repeatable nature
of each step makes the process simple to
execute and easy to navigate. The upper range
adjustments give a tilt and smoothness function
to compensate for the live-ness or balance of the
room, but its the ability to balance mid-bass and
sub-bass levels against low-bass Q that is critical
to achieving the scale, presence and coherent
dynamic range of which the Grande is capable,
and which represents one of the key breakthrough
developments. However, one unforeseen effect
of the elimination of subtractive elements as
well as the increase in bass transparency and
lower levels of lowfrequency distortion was
increased audibility of crossover component
quality, necessitating in turn, a complete
the Em in the Grande Utopia Ems name
stands for electromagnetic, the drive principle
employed in the woofer.
In a conventional drive unit, the
power amplifier drives alternating
current (the audio signal) through
the voice coil, generating a varying
magnetic field around the coil that
is an analog of the audio signal.
the varying magnetic field changes
its orientation at the audio signal
frequency because the audio signal
is alternating current the current
flow reverses direction at the frequency of the
audio signal. Send 1000Hz to the driver and
the current flow through the voice coil reverses
direction 1000 times per second. the voice coil
then alternately pushes and pulls against the
fixed magnetic field generated by the drivers
permanent magnet, causing the voice coil to be
pulled back and forth, and with it, the cone.
this approach, used in virtually all moving-
coil loudspeaker drivers, runs up against the
laws of physics. the magnetic field strength
generated by fixed magnets is limited, which in
turn places restrictions on the cone weight, how
low in frequency the driver will play, and how
sensitive the driver is. a heavy cone goes lower
in frequency (all other factors being equal),
but requires greater magnetic field strength
surrounding the voice coil to drive it.
focals solution to this physics problem is to
replace the drivers fixed magnets with a large
coil that functions as an electromagnet. the coil
is driven with direct current from an outboard
power supply that plugs into an ac
outlet. the current flow through
the coil creates the magnetic
field, against which the voice-coil
generated magnetic field pushes
and pulls. the electromagnet
produces a magnetic field strength
in the gap (the area in which the
voice coil sits) double that of a
conventionally driven woofer.
consequently, the Ems woofer
can be heavier (giving it a lower resonant
frequency) yet simultaneously more efficient.
moreover, the woofers bass output can be
adjusted by varying the current through the
electromagnetic coil. this is accomplished in the
Em via a rotary switch on the outboard supply
that drives current through the electromagnetic
coil. one can thus adjust the Ems bass output
to better integrate the system into a variety of
listening rooms.
the result of electromagnetic drive is a
woofer with very high sensitivity (97db for 1W)
but very low resonance (24Hz). So, the woofer
delivers lots of very low bass with very little
input power. the price of this performance is
the need for the outboard supply that has to
be plugged into an ac outlet, along with the
sheer weight of the woofer. the Ems 400mm
woofer weighs 63 pounds, 48 of which is the
electromagnetic coil. Robert Harley
ELEctromaGnEtIc DrIvE UnItS
overhaul of crossover components (including
the development of dedicated designs) and
the selection (by blind listening) of new internal
wiring. Only with these developments in place
was it possible to fully realize the potential of all
the other advances, finally delivering the kind of
step-change in low-frequency performance that
characterized the impact of the Beryllium tweeter
on the upper reaches of the second generation
Utopia Bes.
FEEdiNG THE BEAST
Installing any speaker that weighs 260kg is always
going to be an issue, but the Grandes proved
easier than most. The fact that the top cabinet
element is removable helps reduce the weight a
little and the height to manageable proportions,
while the integral casters allow you to roll the
speaker straight out of its crate and into place as
well as helping with fine tuning once theyre up and
running and before installation of the (necessarily)
substantial spikes. Once the speakers are in situ,
the top box needs to be lifted into place (a two
person job) and the power supplies connected.
Then, you can finally start thinking about all those
adjustments. I opted to position the speakers for
optimum performance with the controls set flat
before any further refinement, finally settling on a
combination of 1.5dB mid and sub-bass cut with
a notch increase in Q.
Two other points need to be made about the
feeding of the Grandes: despite a 94dB sensitivity,
small amps are out; and it matters how you feed
the power supplies. On the latter point, dont skimp
on the mains leads you will hear the difference.
And on the former, even the impressively linear,
tactile and well-controlled 20 Watt output of the
Vacuum State monoblocs didnt do justice to this
speakers frequency extremes. Around ten times
that is a more sensible target, with the Levinson
383 and both the Ayre and Berning monoblocks
all putting in sterling service. Power and load
tolerance is definitely the order of the day.
ANd, FiNALLY... THE SOUNd!
The latest generation of speaker designs, notably
the Avalons and Spendors among others, exhibit
a level of sonic invisibility, an ability to stand
aside from the music without leaving their mark
on it that is quite unprecedented. But nor is it
a coincidence. Advances in driver design have
in turn placed considerably greater demands
on crossover configuration and component
quality, revealing previously unsuspected levels
of damage to the overall performance (and the
root of the somewhat simplistic notion that the
simpler a crossover the better well yes, but not
quite for the reasons we thought).
Its a development that Focal has matched with
the Diablo, and even more impressively, with the
Grande EM. To make a speaker that is this large,
this complex and this adjustable but is also the
nearest thing to sonically invisible, is impressive
indeed. That the Grande can do the small things
so brilliantly and intimately, do poise and delicacy
with a natural independence to the sound that
mini monitors can only dream about is even more
so. And while its difficult to ignore anything this
large and visually striking, shut your eyes or better
still, turn out the lights, and the music will hang in
its own acoustic, free of the speakers and their
location, the scale matched to the venue and
musical forces involved small when it should
be, effortlessly huge when its called for.
Even early stereo mixes with their hard left/
right placement dont betray the position of
the Grandes, the instruments placed separate
from and just behind the speakers themselves.
Soundstages grow and shrink or simply evaporate
The Focal grande Utopia EM Loudspeaker
type: 4-way floorstanding reflex loaded loudspeaker
Driver complement:
1x IaL2 25mm inverted beryllium dome
2x 165mm W cone midrange
1x 270mm W cone mid-bass
1x 400mm W cone electro magnetic sub-bass
Sensitivity: 94db
nominal Impedance: 8 ohms (3 ohms minimium)
crossover frequencies: 80 / 220 / 2200Hz
Weight: 260kg ea.
finishes: black, red, grey; others to order.
SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
price: $180,000/pr
AUDIO pLUS
SERvICES
156 Lawrence Paquette
Industrial Drive
Champlain, NY 12919
(800) 663-9352
audioplusservices.com
U.K.
price: 110,000/pr
FOCAL JMLAB (UK)
LTD
0845 660 2680
focal-utopia.co.uk
Manufacturer:
FOCAL JMLAB
focal-fr.com
according to the recordings themselves, but the
signal and the picture it paints is always separate
from the speakers holding the brush.
This ability to allow the music to exist
independently of the system producing it speaks
volumes about the quality of the speakers
involved. Its a feat impossible to achieve without
exceptional linearity from lowest bass to highest
treble, without dynamic coherence that projects
energy equally across that entire spectrum.
Finally, you need tonal consistency too, a quality
made easier to achieve with consistent driver
materials across the range. Ironic then, that so
much of the performance achievable from this
boldly charismatic design is delivered by its least
visible element, the crossover that hones and
actually delivers the potential benefits of all those
technological advances in driver and cabinet
design.
Its hard to overstate just how crucial the
configurable nature of both the cabinet and
crossover are to the final results achieved. Sit
and listen as a knowledgeable practitioner goes
about the fine-tuning and youll be astounded at
the degree of difference even tiny changes make
to the presentation and arrival of the music.
This isnt a case of bending it into the shape
you want; more a case of arriving at the shape it
needs, because what happens is that the music
becomes more and more integrated, moves
further and further from the plane and influence
of the speakers, deeper and deeper into the realm
of the natural and believable. Its almost trite to
suggest that youll know when its right, but use
acoustic music, especially with players or voices
that you know and it really is that simple.
Time then, for an example of the Grande
speaking in anger. Having composers conduct
their own works is seldom a recipe for success,
but Polski Radios live concert SACD of Gorecki
leading the National Polish Rado S.O. in his own
Third Symphony is a stunning exception to that
rule. Its a vast and stentorian work of three slow
movements that might easily become sprawling
and ponderous. Indeed, on many a system and
despite the perfectly poised performance with
its incredibly control of tension through tempo,
the sheer weight of low frequency information
simply overloads the speakers ability to resolve
and differentiate pitch, pace and texture. Never
on the Grandes! Even the slow and low bowed
entry is picked out perfectly, the individual bars
and phrases distinct, the measured increase in
intensity and tension, the resulting anticipation of
the Cello entry, the inevitable arrival of the rest
of the orchestra, building and building to the
shattering climax built around the solo soprano
part: it lives, it pulses, it breathes, drawing you
into, immersing you in the sheer majesty of the
music and he playing. But a 33-minute slow
movement, even if you cant tear yourself away,
is a long way round when it comes to making
the point. Thats made before a single note is
played. Just listen to the opening, the eruption
of applause, first from the choir stalls and then
spreading around and across the auditorium
as the conductor comes into view. Feel its
warmth, its length, the explosive enthusiasm of
a home crowd greeting a home-town hero, the
way it reaches out and includes you. And as it
settles, hear the sounds of the orchestra taking
their seats, the shuffling of feet and setting
of instruments and music stands. No random
events these; instead you can hear the height and
breadth of the stage, the gently terraced risers on
which the orchestra is arranged, each incidental
noise a part of a single organic whole. And as
the hush descends with those deep, opening
notes, the sense of presence, of human activity
and attention is heightened by a sudden, stifled
cough, just in front and to the left of you.
Never have I had such a sense of palpable
presence, of attendance at a musical event. The
Isis set new standards in this regard, but the
Grande EM matches it and adds an effortless
scale and genuinely unfettered dynamics to
proceedings.
Its also a chameleon, the same ease with
which it reveals changes in its own state of tune
effortlessly exposing shortcomings in system set
up and partnering equipment. The contrasting
virtues of different front-ends, their behaviour
under warm up and the importance of carefully
considered support have all rarely been clearer.
A speaker like this attracts audiophiles like bees
round a honey pot. Ive been beating them off
with a stick, but none of those who have slipped
under the guard have gone away anything other
than bowled over: Something else this Grande
shares with the Isis the ability to readjust a
listeners notions of what is possible. Seldom
has a speaker looked so striking and sounded so
unlike it looks.
For many (most?), the cost of the Grandes and
the space required to accommodate them will
mean they remain a pipe-dream, but their tonal,
spatial and temporal coherence, their extended
bandwidth and truly astonishing dynamic
capabilities (at both ends of the spectrum) puts
them in a very select category indeed. They rub
shoulders with the Isis and probably Wilsons
X2, although thats one speaker that I havent
had at home. This select group really are do it all
speakers, whose weaknesses and shortcomings
are more to do with practicality and matching than
gross failings in performance. Indeed, they do
less damage to the signal than a lot of matching
electronics, which is food for thought
From a companys point of view there are many
different reasons to build a flagship speaker, from
attention seeking to trickle down. But confronted
by a 110,000 product, reviewers and potential
purchasers need ask only one question: does
this speaker go straight to the top of my if I won
the lottery list? Well, as far as Im concerned
the Grand Utopia EM is firmly ensconced atop
that pile, waiting to be shot at. Bring on the
competition.
With the Grande Utopia EM, Focal has made a
serious statement of intent, one that challenges
the boundaries of speaker performance. That
makes it worthy of more attention than we can
give it here. This is one that will run and run, in the
sense of other views and also other products,
as much for what they say about the Grande
as vice versa+
Magico M5
Redefining a Genre
Jonathan valin
Yes, Virginia, you do give up a few items with a big
multiway dynamic loudspeaker. First of all, where
do you put it? If you live in a penthouse this may
not be the issue that it is in my smallish listening
room, although the corollary to Where do you
put it?to wit, Where do you put it without
exciting all sorts of room resonances?can
remain a problem even in a penthouse. Second,
how do you make that menagerie of driversall
those paper or silk or metal or ribbon tweeters,
upper-midrange cones, lower-midrange cones,
mid/woofers, and woofers, with different on- and
off-axis dispersion patterns, power-handling
capabilities, and break-up modescohere? Its
hard enough to make a two-way sound like a
single thing, but a four- or five-way? Third, those
giant enclosures arent just hard to place; theyre
hard to erase. To me, the first essential duty of
any loudspeaker (of any piece of hi-fi gear) is to
disappear as a sound source. A disappearing
act is a lot harder to achieve when you have a
cabinet with the surface area of a picnic blanket,
every square inch a potential source of diffraction
or reflection. Fourth, lots of drivers mean lots of
crossoversthose heal-alls that are supposed
to compensate for all the other problems Ive
mentioned (like different dispersion patterns,
power-handling capabilities, and break-up
modes). Crossovers may be necessary, but lots
of them with lots of different parts, slopes, and
hinge points arent necessarily good things. (Just
consider how hard it is to get the simple high-
pass crossover in a subwoofer to work right.)
So what happens to that Holy Grail
disappearing act when you house half-a-dozen
different drivers, with half-a-dozen different high-
pass and low-pass filters, in a gigantic singing
box? Dont ask. Not only do you usually hear the
box, you sometimes hear the individual drivers,
the crossovers, everything. Now Ill grant that
materials, technology, and engineering have
come a long way in the past decadeand that
big speakers are considerably better than they
used to be. (The Rockport Hyperion was a high
point for me, as were the Kharma Grand Exquisite
and the Wilson MAXX Series 3 I heard at CES.)
F
irst, a confession: I generally dont like big dynamic loudspeakers. To me their
chief raisons dtre are loudness and bass. And since I gravitate toward small-
scale acoustic music where neither is a necessity, I dont see the point of giving
up all that you stand to lose with one of these behemoths for (to my way of thinking)
the little that you stand to gain.
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - magico m5 Loudspeaker
Nonetheless, as a group they still evince many
of the driver-coherency and enclosure problems
Ive mentioned, and in worst cases, can still carry
you about as far from the single-driver ideal as
any kind of loudspeaker can take you. Is it any
wonder, then, that I prefer (bass-limited) stats,
planars, and mini-monitors?
Butwhat about the fifth string of that five-
string Fender Deluxe American Jazz bass guitar,
I hear some of you asking? What about rock-
concert power handling? How can you listen
to the latest Slayer album at lifelike (or would
that be death-like, because youre surely killing
your ears) levels on a Quad 2905, a MartinLogan
CLX, a Maggie 1.6QR, or a Magico Mini II? Well
you cant. ThereIve said it. But let me also say
something about so-called deep bass in many
typical large ported dynamic loudspeakers.
First of all, more often than not the bass isnt
really that deep. There is more than one gigantic
loudspeaker out there with a steep roll-off below
3540Hz. What keeps you from noticing this is
its greatly elevated midbass and upper bassa
plateau in the 40125Hz region that can make
standard four-string bass guitars or Hammond
organs or jazz/rock drumkits sound astonishingly
powerful and authoritative, giving the impression
of a really deep-reaching low end although none
of these instruments really goes that deep (the
lowest E of a four-string bass is 41.2Hz). Many
audiophiles tend to like speakers that accentuate
the mid-to-upper bass in this way. They think the
sound is more exciting and visceraland it is. It
can also be annoying.
Second, there is the huge problem of coherence.
I dont know how many times Ive talked in these
pages about the troubles Ive seen trying to make
cone subwoofers blend seamlessly with stats
or ribbons or mini-monitors. I grant that some
people are less sensitive to timbral, dynamic, and
textural discontinuities among drivers than I am,
but (outside of the MBL 101 X-Treme subs and
a brief flirtation with the Wilson-Benesch Torus)
I have never been able to come close to mating
a cone sub to a satellite speaker of any kind
without losing much of what I prized the satellite
for in the first place. Not only do I always hear
that sub playing faintly up into the midrange
(no matter how low I cross it over), overlaying
timbres, transients, and textures with its own
greasy thumbprint; I also hear the enclosure of
the sub singing up there, causing bass-range
(and sometimes lower-midrange) instruments
to sound more localized and boxy. Hearing
drivers and enclosures as the source of the
musicor any register of the musicis the exact
opposite of a disappearing act.
Now, heres the kicker. Though I havent made
this point explicitly before, I generally feel that
cone woofers present many of the same issues
as cone subwoofers. Yes, they are housed in the
same box as the midrange and the tweeterand
given proper time and phase alignment there
are well-known advantages to projecting all the
sound from the same point or plane (although
there are also disadvantages). Nonetheless, to
me cone-bass-in-a-ported-box-in-an-average-
sized-listening-room almost always sounds like,
uh, cone-bass-in-a-ported-box-in-an-average-
sized-listening room. Putting aside the inevitable
(and often incurable) room modesthose
huge, maw-like 6080Hz peaks that swallow
up everything below (and sometimes above)
themcones-in-a-box bass more often than not
sounds louder, darker, lumpier, noisier, and less
articulate than cone midrange and cone treble.
The consequent audible discontinuity in timbre,
transient speed, distortion, and resolution
between bass-range and midrange and treble-
range instruments instantly makes me more
aware that Im listening to a loudspeakerjust as
it does with a subwoofer.
Given all that Ive just said, why then am I
reviewing a multiway dynamic loudspeaker in
a relatively large enclosure (though, to give the
M5 its due, at a mere 18 wide, 53 tall, and 21
deep, it is demure in comparison to most of its
competitors)? The answer is that in complaining
about the things I think typically get traded away,
wholly or in part, in large multiway dynamic
loudspeakers I am also pointing to the challenges
that faced Magicos Alon Wolf and Yair Tammam
in designing the M5.
Lets talk about how they went about tackling
them.
First, consider the enclosure problem. How
do you keep a box from singing along with the
drivers it houses? Well, what is the box doing
when it sings? It is being excited by the energy
of the front and backwaves of the driver, adding
its own resonant note to each, and then radiating
So. Does magicos big
multiway speaker cure the
traditional woes that have
turned me off to many big
multiway speakers?
that resonance back into the room for all the
world to hear as the opacity, coloration, dulling,
and smearing we call boxy sound. How do you
prevent this? According to Wolf (see my interview
with him on p. 96), to create a relatively resonance-
free enclosure you have to balance three different,
somewhat conflicting elements: stiffness (to push
the enclosures resonant frequency as high as
possible), mass (to dampen this higher-frequency
resonance and reduce its Q), and damping (to
further reduce the amplitude of the resonance
and kill the sound of the backwave). Finding the
right combination of materials to perform this
complex bit of resonance-control is a somewhat
controversial topic. For Wolf, adding the high
stiffness of a 6061-T aircraft-aluminum baffle to
the high mass and high damping of an airtight
Baltic Birch box is the right formula (although it
isnt the only right formula). I cant speak to the
physics of Wolfs box, but I can say this: The M5
is the first and only large multiway loudspeaker
Ive heard whose enclosure disappears into the
soundfield like that of a mini-monitor. Indeed,
the similarity between it and the Magico Mini II
in this regard is striking. For all sonic intents and
purposes, the M5s boxes just arent there.
However, Wolf had to address a couple of other
matters in order to make his heroic enclosure
work the way it was intended to. To begin with,
he had to ensure that the only moving parts in his
speakers were the drivers cones. If those drivers
werent securely fastened to his inert enclosures,
their frames would rattle against the aluminum
baffles, inciting resonances and destroying the
seal of his sealed boxes (more on this in a
moment or two). To achieve this resonance-free
seal, Wolf uses an ingenious tension-coupling
system that clamps the drivers at very high
torque against their aluminum baffles and then
pulls those baffles against the birch-ply boxes
via thick stainless-steel tensioning rods that run
between knobs at the back of the cabinet and
the backs of the baffles (into which the rods are
screwed by applying very high torque to the
adjustable knobs).
O.K. Weve got a box that doesnt sing, a
system of attaching drivers to that box that
ensures that their cones are the only moving
parts in the speaker, now what about the drivers
themselves?
Those of you who remember my Magico Mini
II review (in Issue 179) will recall how astonished
I was at the magnitude of the improvement that
a single pair of Magicos proprietary Nano-Tec
mid/woofers made to a sound that I didnt think
could be further improved. Designed by Wolfs
partner Yair Tammam, these Nano-Tec cones
combine front-and-back multi-walled carbon
skins embedded with carbon-Nano-tubes and an
inner core of Rohacell foam to make exceedingly
strong, light, stiff drivers. The Nano-Tec cones
are then attached to 75mm titanium voice coils
and a special neodymium magnetic system that
is said to reduce distortion to new lows. (This is
not an idle claim, BTW. I have seen independent
laboratory measurements of the Nano-Tec drivers
that show THD is 60+dB down even at very loud
levelsresults that wouldve been respectable in
a phonostage not too many years ago.)
With the Mini II only one pair of drivers was
changed to a Magico in-house design and the
improvement was astounding. In the M5, every
driver (including the MR-1 ring-radiator tweeter)
is Magico-designed and all of the midranges and
woofers are Nano-Tec cones. Indeed, the M5s
are the first speakers Wolf and Tammam have
engineered with all-Magico drivers. The results
well, well get to that in another moment. First,
lets consider one more piece of the multiway-
speaker puzzlethe crossover.
In my Mini II review, I attributed the improvement
in the sound in large part to the Nano-Tec driver
(with its much higher-in-frequency breakup
modes and much lower distortion) and in part
to Magicos superb CAD-designed crossovers.
Wolf is a bit secretive about the slopes and
hinge points he uses in all of his speakers, but
hes proud as punch of the quality of the parts he
usesgold and gold/silver caps, precision coils,
and low-inductance resistors from Raimund
Mundorf of Cologne, Germany. Once again, this
divine excess isnt just window dressing. To make
a crossover work precisely the way it is intended
to work, you have to use precisely the right-value
parts, and those values cant change with time or
use. That the break-up modes (the frequencies at
which any driver stops behaving in a linear fashion
and starts to distort) of Magicos 6 Nano-Tec
midrange cones have been moved out to nearly
two octaves above its passband is a remarkable
accomplishment, but it would go for naught if
Magicos in-house-designed crossovers didnt
ensure that the output of that midrange driver
was completely removed from the passband well
before those breakup modes start to matter. With
the Mini II, I can remember being shocked not just
by how much better the new Nano-Tec mid/woof
sounded in its own right but also by how much
better it made the tweeterno longer roughed
up by the residual break-up-mode distortions of
the midrange driversound. Once again, this is a
testament to both driver and crossover.
Finally, before turning to the sound itself, lets
consider the M5s bassas its, I dare say, unique
quality will be the very first thing you notice
when you listen to M5s, although you will also
notice the newfound buttery smoothness of the
speakers treble. How come the low end of the
M5 sounds so flat, so seamless, so completely
integrated with the other drivers, so non-big-
speaker-like? True, the bass is still coming from
a cone-in-a-boxtwo 9 cones, in factbut
these are highly linear, very-low-distortion Nano-
Tec cones in a superbly engineered box with
the highest-precision crossover that the mind of
man (or, at least, of a man named Alon Wolf) can
design. In addition to this, Wolfs box is sealed
not ported.
Sealed-box (or acoustic-suspension) bass has,
and has always had, certain distinct advantages
over ported bass (and vice versa). Although a
sealed box is much harder to make because of
the enormous pressures generated inside it by
the backwaves of the woofers, it is also inherently
more linear, as the air trapped inside the enclosure
acts as a spring that returns the woofers cones
to their zero point above and below resonance,
allowing the cones to remain flatter in response
the m5 is the most neutral
and coherent, lowest-in-
distortion, fullest-range big
multiway dynamic speaker
Ive heard in my home.
and lower in distortion longer (which is to say, to
play deeper into the bass without breaking up or
petering off) than the woofer of a ported design.
The trade-off in an acoustic-suspension design
(other than the greater difficulty of building the
sealed enclosure) is sensitivity. It takes more
power to drive the woofers in a sealed box than
those in a ported box. You also lose that often-
gemtlich resonant peak in the low-to-mid bass,
which can add energy and excitement to the
sound.
So. Does Magicos big multiway speaker cure
the traditional woes that have turned me off to
many big multiway speakers? If you read my CES
report (in Issue 192), you already know that the
answer is pretty close to an unqualified Yes!
The M5 is, quite simply, the finest big multiway
cone loudspeaker Ive heard in my home (or,
for that matter, in someone elses home or at
a show), largely because it is the most neutral
and coherent and delicately detailed, lowest-in-
enclosure-and-driver-coloration, fullest-range
multiway cone loudspeaker Ive heard in my home
or someone elses home or at a show. Indeed, as
I said in my CES report, I have never auditioned a
multiway dynamic speaker that comes this close
to the single-driver ideal or disappears this
completely as a sound source.
You can get a sense of why the M5 sounds
so octave-to-octave seamlessso much like
a single-driver transducerby looking at the
following RTA, taken from the listening position
in my room.
This is standard-settingly flat on-axis response,
testifying to the superb integration and linearity of
all five of the M5s drivers, from woofers through
midranges to tweet. But it isnt just flat frequency
response that makes the M5 so special; after all,
Ive tested other very-flat-measuring speakers
(the MBL 101 X-Tremes, for instance) that didnt
sound like the M5s. There is something else going
on herea marked overall reduction in driver/
enclosure/crossover distortion and coloration
that makes the M5 the first (and thus far only) big
cone multiway loudspeaker Ive heard that has
much of the coherence, resolution, and lack of
distortion of an electrostat.
This comparison to electrostats has, Im
afraid, been worked to death in the audio press
(sometimes by me). But the clarity, freedom
from distortion, and octave-to-octave coherence
of stats remain a benchmark, and each time a
speaker comes closer to this ideal we trot out the
analogy. Here it applies more appropriately and
completely than ever before in my experience. If
you can imagine a MartinLogan CLXthe most
neutral and transparent electrostat Ive tested
with greatly increased extension and linearity in
the low-to-mid bass, a sweeter, more effortless,
more extended treble, slightly less low-level
resolution and (hence) transparency-to-sources,
slightly less sterling dynamic range and scale on
pppp-to-mp passages or at very low listening
levels (where the CLXes remain champeens), but
considerably fuller and more lifelike reproduction
of tone color and instrumental body at any
volume and considerably better dynamic range
and scale on mf-to-ffff passages and at medium-
to-loud listening levels, equally great transient
response top to bottom, and much wider, deeper,
taller soundstaging, then you have an accurate
idea of how the M5s sound.
No, cones arent quite as high in resolution
and low in grain as stats; even the Nano-Tec
drivers add just the slightest overlay of texture
to foregrounds and backgrounds, making the
difference between listening to M5s and CLXes
rather like the difference between viewing a slide
enlarged and projected on a screen by a Leitz
projector and viewing the same slide on a light
table with a loupe. The CLXes will tell you a bit
more about how a record or CD has been recorded
and engineered. But its peerless transparency-
to-sources comes at a price that you dont pay
with the M5s, which, unlike CLXes, never make
lousy recordings sound barely listenable and do
anything but roll off the bass.
Lets talk about the M5s bass. A friend of
mineAndre Jennings, a first-class listener with
a superb ear (and a gifted audio engineer, to
boot)said rightly about the M5s that it is the first
big box loudspeaker hes ever heard in which the
enclosure didnt seem to be playing along with the
music. I myself have never heard anything quite
like it from a cone speaker. The bass octaves here
are so much flatter, better integrated with the
midrange, and lower in distortion and coloration
than they usually are with cones-in-a-box that
it is rather like listening to the planar bass of a
Maggie I-U (which remains, after all these years,
my ideal). Bass-range instruments from the deep-
reaching plucked doublebasses (faintly doubled
by the glistening timbre of plucked harps) in the
Passacaglia of Lutoslawskis great Concerto for
Orchestra [EMI]where the notes of the bass line
(which, after all, are what a passacaglia is based
on) are clearer and more lifelike than Ive heard
them sound beforeto the thrilling entrance
of the electric bass on Alison Krauss Forget
About It [MoFi]which seems to rise straight up
from the floor as if lifted on pneumatic tubes, an
almost literally solid foundation perfectly in tune,
time, and tempo with the rest of the band (rather
than a flooded basement of ill-defined pitches,
timbres, and rhythms)are so freed-up from
the drivers and the enclosure, so quick and
finely detailed and naturally imaged (rather than
artificially spotlighted), so close to the absolute
in pitch, color, texture, and dynamic that it is kind
of mind-boggling. Cone bass just hasnt sounded
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85dBS
Liberty -praxis- Frequency Response
LOUDSPEAKER FREQUENCY RESPONSE
acq: 2/19/2009 12:12:43AM
like this in my past experienceever. Yeah, the
M5s will shake the floors with the best of them
(just put on the third track of The Thin Red Line
soundtrack and strap on your seatbelt), but
rattling floors, windows, and walls is (thank God)
in many ways the least of what these speakers
do. (Ive just never heard a better blend of low,
mid, and high from a dynamic multiway. Ive never
heard a smoother presentation of low-, mid-, and
upper-bass, eitherfrom anything.)
Speaking of highs, if youre familiar with the
ScanSpeak Revelator that Magico uses in its Mini
and Mini II, youre going to be in for a surprise. I
dont know exactly what Wolf and Co. have done
with that in-house ring-radiator tweeter (although
I do know Wolf is using a powerful neodymium
magnet of Magicos own design), but whatever it
is it makes the treble octaves blend as seamlessly
with the midrange as the bass octaves do. There
just isnt a note that you can point to and say,
Oh, yeah, now I hear the tweeter! Frankly, this
is not something I could have said about the
original Mini or even the Mini II, as improved as it
was in this regard. The tweet in both iterations of
this great mini-monitor did have an audible rising
response and a bit of residual roughness. Not
here, with Magicos own MR-1 tweeter. Indeed,
if you are used to the sound of the Mini, you may
at first feel cheated of top endthe treble is that
smooth, flat, and low in customary distortions.
But put on any record with considerable
midrange and treble energy, like the youthful
Nadia Salerno-Sonnenbergs fiery rendition of
the Prokofiev First Violin Sonata [MusicMasters],
and marvel at the lifelike timbre and dynamics
of the fleet, eerie, muted runs of scales (which
cover almost the entire range of the instrument
and which Prokofiev himself said should sound
like wind in a graveyard) at the finish of the first
movement Andante assai, or at the in-the-room-
with-you realism of the whistling harmonics that
close the second movement Allegro brusco, or at
the rhythmic clarity of the tricky cycle of eighth
notes (which alternate 5/8, 7/8, 7/8, 8/8) that
starts the final movement Allegrisssimo. (Those
folks who claim that there is no way to tell how
a piece of music should sound on a recording
ought to look at a score every now and then.)
As for the midrangeMagico has long had a lock
on that. The Mini II was the most lifelike dynamic
speaker Id heard on voice, guitar, sax, trumpet,
viola, piano (above the bottommost octaves), you
name it. I dont know that the M5 is better (save
that its mids blend with the bass and treble more
seamlessly), but it sure is every bit as good. Just
listen to Miloslav Klaus phenomenal rendition
of Brittens Nocturnal after John Dowland (on a
great-sounding Panton LP)eight variations for
classical guitar so famously difficult that Julian
Bream, who was Brittens dedicatee, declared
them unplayable. Eventually, Bream mastered
the piece, and so, God knows, has Klaus. The
Czech virtuoso wrings colors and textures from
these toss-and-turn restless, drowsy, dreamlike
variations (the Dowland theme was written to
accompany a song on sleep and death) that will
astound you, especially through the M5s. Ive
simply never heard a more realistic facsimile of
a classical guitar or of a classical guitarist on a
hi-fi system. When you hear piece, performer,
and performance reproduced this fullywhen
a speaker lets you understand not just how
beautiful music sounds but also how much craft
and skill and intelligence it took to compose and
to play itit is an almost irresistible invitation to
keep listening. Thats what a great loudspeaker
and a great stereo system really buy you.
Obviously, the M5 is every bit as marvelous with
the human voice as it is with guitar (or anything
else). Alison Krauss soprano, Holly Coles
contralto, Frank Sinatras baritone, Tom Waits
bass pop up in your room with breathtaking
realism. Better still, as with Miloslav Klaus guitar,
you not only hear the timbre and texture of each
of these voices with astonishingly high fidelity;
you hear precisely the way these vocalists are
using their voicesthe way theyre thinking and
feeling about the words they sing. As I pointed out
in the last issue in my Odyssey Khartago review,
great singers are inevitably also great actors,
and the M5 gives you their entire performance
as if it were reading from their scripts. It sends
a literal chill up my spine to hear Frank Sinatra
sing and act the lyrics of Whats New from Only
the Lonely [MoFi] and, minus a bit of whiskey-
colored wear-and-tear on the vocal cords, bring
virtually the same sophisticated mix of lyricism
and weltschmerz, the same life experience to the
song played back through the M5s that he did
when I heard him sing it live many years ago.
As for soundstagingthat depends on the LP
or CD, for the M5 goes as wide or as narrow,
as shallow or as deep, as tall or as short as
the engineering and mastering allow. Though I
wouldnt say its stage is quite as encompassing
or uncannily three-dimensional as that of the
MBL 101 X-treme (which, because of their omni
design, simply own that aspect of high fidelity), it
is at least as good as any other kind of speaker
Ive heard, including the Mini IIs. Better still, like
the great MBLs, it utterly disappears into the
stage, leaving behind nothing but the panorama of
instrumentalists and the music they are making.
The words the best have been bandied about
quite a bit in this magazine and on our Web site
(avguide.com)and there is legitimate concern
that they are being overused. Unfortunately, no
other words will do to describe how I feel about
the Magico M5. Not only has it redefined an
entire genre of speakers for me, it has carried
me substantially closer to the absolute sound. So
close, in fact, that, for the first time, I can imagine
the possibility of someday achieving a genuine
Magico M5 Loudspeaker
type: Five-driver, four-way, floorstanding dynamic
loudspeaker
Driver complement: One MR-1 ring-radiator tweeter,
two 6 Nano-Tec midrange, two 9 Nano-Tec woofers
bandwidth: 22Hz40kHz
Impedance: 4 ohms
Sensitivity: 89dB
recommended power: 501000 watts
SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
price: $89,000/pr
MAgICO
Berkeley, CA
(510) 649-9700
magico.net
U.K.
price: On agreement
ABSOLUTE SOUNDS
+44 (0)20 8971 3909
absolutesounds.com
facsimile of the real thingnot merely parts of it,
not merely midrange or treble, voices and violins,
but the whole thing from the lowest notes to the
highest, from the least dynamic utterance to the
most. That is how naturalhow completethe
M5 sounds to my ears. It is, in fact, the most
complete loudspeaker Ive ever heard.
Remember that when I say the best, I mean
the sound, overall, that comes closest to the real
thing to my earswith the kind of music I listen
to most often, at the levels I typically choose,
and in the room where I listen. What I dont
mean, which may be as important as what I do
mean, is the best in every way or the best for
every listener. As good as it is, the M5 has sonic
competition in several areas: The $250k MBL 101
X-Treme omni is more immersive, dimensional,
and outright exciting; the $23k MartinLogan CLX
electrostat is more transparent-to-sources, more
finely detailed, and better scaled dynamically
on pianisssimos and at lower levels; the $115k
Symposium Acoustics Panorama hybrid ribbon/
planar is every bit as realistic in timbre and
texture in the midrange and lower treble and
better at softer volumes; the $68k Wilson Audio
MAXX 3 has more lifelike wallop in the mid-to-
upper bass and much the same beauty of timbre;
the $32k Magico Mini II mini-monitor has just as
remarkable a disappearing act and a similar
midband; even the $1.7k Magnepan 1.6QR quasi-
ribbon planar is as top-to-bottom seamless and
of a piece, where it plays. On top of this, the
M5 is very expensive, sounds its very best played
loud (or louder), and may not suit some musical
tastes or some rooms or some ancillaries as well
as it does mine (although, frankly, I cant imagine
anyone being disappointed with it).
There may be other speakers on the market or
on the horizon that outperform the M5s overall
the absolute sound is, after all, a rapidly moving
target. If there are such speakers, I simply havent
heard them yet. If you have, I have no argument
with you. For all the observations and evidence
Ive presented in support of my opinion, there
is, finally, no arguing taste. I freely concede
that there is room out there for more than one
nominee as the best loudspeaker. Youve just
read about mine.
the m5s are a handful. although Ive had other
speakers that weigh a good deal more than
these magicos do, theyve broken down into
semi-manageable parts. the m5s do not. you are
going to be dealing with two four-and-a-half-foot
tall, nearly two-foot deep, 360-pound objects,
soget some help.
Happily the speakers arrive with wheels on
them, allowing you to roll them out of their
crates and freely maneuver them around your
listening room. once youve settled on a spot for
the speakers, the wheels must be removeda
process that involves tipping the enclosures
fore and aft (magico supplies an illustrated
instruction booklet that shows you how to
uncrate the speakers and remove the wheels
safely). after the wheels are off, gliders on the
bottoms of the baseplates allow you to move the
speakers for fine adjustments without marring
floors. (you will need a strong friend to help you
do this and be sure to avoid touching the drivers
as you push the speakers about.) Like most big
speakers the m5s thrive on room, so keep them
as far from sidewalls and backwalls as is feasible
and at least as far apart as the distance between
your listening seat and their front baffles.
Unlike the mini IIs, which liked to be listened
to slightly off-axis, the m5s fare best when the
centers of their drivers are pointed directly at
your ears. (Use the nipple of the ring-radiator
tweeter as a guide.) In a smaller room, this
makes for a narrower sweet spot. Its not as
if the m5s dont sound great well off-axis; they
just dont sound as great as they do when youre
sitting directly in their tractor beams.
be aware that the m5s are very full-range
loudspeakers that will put an amount of energy
into your room. In a less-than-palatial estate
this can be problematical, and you may have to
consider adding corner traps and diffusors to
reduce room resonances in the midbass. as with
any kind of room treatment, be careful not to
overdamp.
although they are rated at 89db sensitivity,
the m5s are actually closer to 86db sensitive.
on top of this they are acoustic-suspension
speakers. all of which means youre going to
need some power to drive them. I have tried
them with both great solid-state amps (Soulution
700s) and great tube amps (arc 610ts), and
they sound fabulous with each, though fabulous
in different ways. for the most accurate sound
(particularly in the bottom octaves), I would
lean toward transistorsand especially toward
the Soulution amps, which are a match made in
audio heaven with the m5s. for a more bloomy,
three-dimensional sound and higher ultimate
SpLs, I would tend toward the 610ts (also a
match made in audio heaven). In any event, if
youre going to spend $89k on a pair of the
worlds best loudspeakers, you would be foolish
not to drive them with the best electronics you
can afford and harness them up with the best
cables and interconnects.
Speaking of cables, the m5s are designed
to be bi-wired or bi-amped. Each speaker has
two sets of binding posts and both sets must
be used. although magico supplies two pairs
of (very good) mIt jumpers if you choose to
single-wire, the speakers sound better bi-wired
with two identical sets of cables and best bi-
amped (which is something you can do with the
Soulution 700 but not the arc 610t). Jv
Setting Up and Driving the magico m5s
M
ore often than not, a high profile, high-priced and technologically advanced
design is followed by simplified versions at lower prices, models that dilute
the performance while slashing the purchase price. Not so with Marten: Their
first model, the flagship Coltrane was followed by an even more ambitious project,
the massive, four-cabinet Coltrane Supreme. Now comes the smaller and outwardly
simpler Coltrane Suprano (although personally I think that Favorite would have been
a nicer name and maintained a greater sense of Coltrane continuity) and again, Marten
have defied expectations. After all, the new model has all the outward indicators
of a cost cutting, cash in design: fewer drivers, a smaller cabinet, less bandwidth.
That is until you notice that the Coltrane Soprano still tips the scales at a far from
inconsequential 40,000. Not much cost cut there then...
Marten Coltrane Soprano
Jazz for the Smaller Room
Roy gregory
In fact, the rationale for this new Coltrane model
is quite distinct and rather than offering a slice
of Coltrane performance at a lower price, has
more to do with delivering as much of the larger,
three-way Coltranes performance as possible
in the confines of a smaller room and a smaller
cabinet.*
So, far from cutting costs, it employs the
same carbon fibre/honeycomb sandwich for its
boat-backed cabinet, the same stainless steel
outriggers and Black Diamond Racing cones
as the larger Coltrane. It also uses a diamond
tweeter (in this case the new 26mm model from
Jantzen), ceramic drivers for the mid and bass
frequencies and a laminated MDF baffle. Indeed,
in most important respects this is, quite literally,
a chopped down Coltrane and thats no way
to create a bargain, believe me. Despite the
smaller size, most of the material costs are going
to approach those of the larger model with only
the driver complement pegged back. Meanwhile,
building the beast and finishing it, packing it and
guaranteeing it will also all cost pretty much
the same as the larger Coltrane design. What
savings there are come from the reduced driver
complement and some detail changes. So why
build a smaller version of the same thing, with
less bandwidth to match the slightly lower price?
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - marten coltrane Soprano Loudspeaker
Because its going to do a different job one for
a different listener with a smaller room.
As impressive as the original Coltrane is, theres
no escaping the fact that its a large loudspeaker
that, while its capable of impressive performance
in smaller rooms (largely due to its tightly controlled
low frequencies), really blossoms once its given
space to breathe. That sonically unobtrusive
cabinet allows the speakers to disappear while
the driver area delivers enough bandwidth for
a real sense of scale. In contrast, listen to the
Coltrane Soprano and while it shares the same
lightness of touch and precise transparency that
characterizes the Marten sound, the fact that this
characteristic extends much lower in the smaller
cabinet makes it even more tolerant of smaller
spaces and closer boundaries.
But theres other things going on beneath that
familiar exterior that bear closer examination and
point quite clearly to a subtly different blend of
virtues in this design, virtues that also clearly
separate the Coltrane Soprano from its larger
namesake.
Lets look at the detail. As mentioned above,
the boat-backed, one-piece composite cabinet
with its large, downward firing reflex port closely
echoes the construction of the original Coltrane.
Likewise the carefully shaped and beveled front
baffle is unmistakable, although in this instance
its formed from laminated MDF (veneered or
high gloss lacquered) rather than the layered,
solid wood employed in the larger design. Two
slabs of differing thickness are used, with a
damping glue in between to create a constrained
layer and a baffle 56mm thick. The stainless steel
outriggers and BDR cones are for more than
just leveling and stability; they also optimize the
distance of the port from the floor boundary. So
far so similar: the real differences lie in the driver
complement and crossover configuration and
in turn, the specific strengths and weaknesses
that go with them.
Rather than the three-way, twin bass driver
configuration of the Coltrane, the Soprano is a
straight two-way design, both of the 7 ceramic-
coned bass-mid drivers working across their
entire range. The two circular cutouts in their
diaphragms suppress the first break-up mode,
helping their midrange performance and ensuring
a clean transition to the high-frequency driver.
This is a new design from Jantzen and while it
cant boast the 100kHz extension of the Accuton
design used in the larger speaker, 55kHz is far
from shabby. Tying this together is a hybrid first/
second order crossover consisting of just three,
extremely high-quality parts and hard wired
throughout with Jorma cable.
The end result of combining a smaller cabinet
with the two-way configuration is a speaker that
delivers the same 89dB sensitivity as the Coltrane
and gives up 7dB of low-frequency extension
(along with the cut at high-frequencies). But the
news is a long way from all bad: smaller and easier
to accommodate, the two-way configuration with
its simpler crossover is also significantly easier
to drive. In comparison to the larger Coltrane, the
rated impedance rises from four to five ohms,
The Marten Coltrane Soprano Loudspeaker
type: two-way reflex loaded loudspeaker
Driver complement: 1x 26mm Jantzen diamond dome
2x 180mm ceramic cone bass/mid
crossover: 1st/2nd order
Impedance: 5 ohms nominal
Sensitivity: 89db
Weight: 36kg ea.
finishes: Gloss black with baffle in oak, cherry, maple,
Walnut or piano black
SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
price: $50,000/pr
E.A.R. USA/SOUND
ADvICE
1087 East Ridgewood
Street
Long Beach, CA 90807
(562) 422-4747
marten.se
U.K.
price: 36,495/pr
ANgELSOUND AUDIO
+44 (0)1923 352479
angelsoundaudio.co.uk
[the Soprano delivers] as much of the larger,
three-way coltranes performance as possible in the
confines of a smaller room and a smaller cabinet.
which may not sound like much, but an increase
in the minimum value from 2.7 Ohms to 3.6 Ohms
is definitely significant when it comes to drive
time. The other big difference is in the bottom-
end voicing, which while leaner and less obviously
powerful than the Coltrane, is wonderfully
transparent and surefooted. Combine that with a
little welcome room reinforcement and the result
offers surprising musical scale and stability from
such a compact cabinet.
Use the Sopranos in a large room and they dont
sound authoritative or commanding. Detailed,
precise, focused and incredibly quick to be sure;
just a little on the cool and lean side to offer the
sort of substance and wallop that comes with
from a real musical foundation. The orchestral
fireworks that enliven the Enigma Variations are
certainly impressively sudden, but the full-on
tuttis dont have that grounded feel, that reach
right down to the floor feel, that massed brass
and heavily bowed strings should really deliver.
Now move them to a medium to small space
and hear them blossom. They are the complete
opposite of the Coltrane in that regard. The extra
reinforcement from the room fills out the body
and bottom end, Nimrod really gets to puff out
his chest now, the seamless soundstage and
cavernous acoustic making the far end of the
listening room simply disappear. Of course, its
an acoustic trick, and comparison with larger,
more fulsome designs will quickly reveal a lack of
absolute bottom end texture and transparency,
a vague rumble where the surface of the
stage should be, but that doesnt stop it being
immensely impressive and enjoyable.
And you know what? I wont tell anyone if you
dont, because the vast majority of listeners will
never notice. Theyll be too busy marveling at
the scale and dynamic range emanating from
such unassuming boxes and given a smaller
listening space Id be among them.
But theres more to the secret of the Sopranos
success than a carefully weighted low-end
balance. Its not just a case of what it gives you,
but how it gives it to you too. One of the problems
with any speaker this clean and this revealing
is that those strengths can quickly become a
double-edged sword if theres news youd rather
not hear. The Sopranos greatest strength is the
way it manages to keep those attributes firmly
on the positive side of the balance sheet, a feat
it achieves largely I suspect, as a result of its
incredibly simple crossover design. Theres a
genuine lack of restraint or intrusion in the sense
of musical flow, with voices and instruments
easily able to traverse the crossover region
without fracturing or stumbling in the process.
Its this that gives the speaker its lucid agility
and, while I dont have the virtue of having the
two side by side, I also suspect that this is one
regard in which the soprano actually betters the
larger Coltrane, despite that speakers dedicated
midrange driver. Its not a question of continuity
per se; more one of musical freedom and
expressive range, aspects at which the Soprano
excels.
Reaching for the man to make the point
could be considered a bit of a clich, so how
about a bit of Miles instead, and Sketches Of
Spain. Just listen to the fluidity and freedom of
Miles lines, the plaintive, stretched out, sinuous
melodies that he places, note by unforced note
over the muted instrumental backing. Listen too,
to the detail and crisp attack of the percussion,
but more importantly, the way all those taps and
clacks and rattles lock into the music, adding to
the atmosphere rather than distracting from it.
This level of integration and dynamic nuance are
actually harder to achieve, their absence easier
to expose, with the measured sparseness of
a track like this than with some up-beat frenzy.
Just listen and marvel to the way the track grows
in density and complexity while Miles horn
grows almost imperceptibly to keep pace and
proportion, always centre-stage, always riveting
your attention.
Voices too, are handled with assured and easy
grace. Sinatras familiar tones and phrasing are
Smaller and easier to accommodate, the
two-way configuration with its simpler
crossover is also significantly easier to drive.
unmistakable, Nice And Easy summing up the
Sopranos delivery perfectly and exceedingly
enjoyably, the balance between Francis and
the perfectly poised arrangements effortlessly
captured and projected into the room. From the
careful muting of the brass to the absolute clarity
with which you can hear the percussive quality
of the piano, the layout of the band, Sinatras
relationship to the mic and the way he moves for
emphasis in his phrasing, the Sopranos deliver
exactly the kind of natural intimacy and focused
stability that make performances so much
more convincing. You can hear the way that the
instruments are being played, the way that Sinatra
works both his voice and the mic but rather
than screaming, Look, look at me look at all
the detail Im revealing, the Martens integrate
that information into a more real whole. This isnt
detail for details sake in the style of some, super-
etched speakers; this is simply allowing more of
the signal through and making more sense as a
result.
Time then to step back a little and take stock.
What we have here is a two-way speaker of
compact dimensions that works in smaller rooms
and delivers a sound of tremendous precision
and insight; sounds like a classic mini-monitor. It
even suffers from the classic mini-monitor trade-
off of dynamic against harmonic resolution; the
laws of physics pretty much dictate that you can
have one , the other but not both, with the Marten
sacrificing warmth and richness for transparency
and micro-dynamic definition. But to less of an
extent than you might think, especially if you
really dial in the set-up and sit a little closer
than you might expect on the points of an
equilateral triangle is about right. And thats an
important point because in many ways it sums
up this speaker.
Yes, appearances can be deceptive; the
Soprano looks like the bigger Coltrane but isnt.
Nor does it look like what it is, which is one of
the best (and most expensive) mini-monitors in
the world. Actually, lets make that mini-ish
because the beauty of the Coltrane Soprano is
that it delivers all the strengths of the best mini-
monitors with significantly less compromise. It
images with the best of them but delivers a
significantly larger and more defined acoustic
space. Thats because its got more bandwidth
and tons more dynamic range a performance
that it delivers with gusto, resulting in real musical
impact, drama and dynamic contrast, without
needing a direct connection to the National Grid.
It takes up no more space than the high-zoot
stand-mounts and leaves them all without
exception from what Ive heard comfortably
in its wake; Transparency AND scale, rather than
one at the expense of the other.
The rub and theres always a rub is the
price. Thats ameliorated to some extent by the
Sopranos more modest power demands. 100
really good Watts will do it 200 and they fly!
A quality integrated and a decent, well weighted
front-end and youll be away. I had a high old time
with the VPI Classic running into the Burmester
032 amplifier, while the fluid grace of the Crystal
Dreamline was the icing on the cake. Thats
not exactly a heavy bill given the ticket on the
speakers but it is a system that sings and
goes staggeringly load with considerable grace
in a smaller to medium sized room; should
circumstances and the Devil demand, of course.
At this price, with a little more space you could
run the Avalon Indra. A little more again and you
might get away with the Crystal Arabesque, both
speakers which can do the bandwidth, dynamics
and harmonics thing better and bigger (or at least
with even greater subtlety) than the Coltrane
Soprano. But both need more system as well as
more room and I dont know anything that comes
close in performance terms to the Marten once
the walls close in. Expensive yes, but for the
listener who demands and will cherish its unique
blend of strengths then I suspect that price will
become secondary. Despite appearances, is this
the best mini-monitor in the world? Probably...
+
*Those wanting Coltrane bandwidth and dynamics in a
more affordable package should look at the Bird, which
while it might not seem to deliver much more on paper
than the Soprano, is an easier load with a greater sense of
scale and more expansive dynamics.
O
ver the years Ive reviewed my share of big, expensive loudspeakers, but none
as big or as expensive as the six-and-a-half-foot tall, three-thousand-five-
hundred pound, four-chassis, $200,000 MBL 101 X-Tremes. And none, I am
relieved to say, as good.
MBL 101 X-Treme
Zowie!
Jonathan valin
Why relieved? Well, if you were at the last two
CESes you wouldnt have to ask. Even driven by
MBLs own superb, ultra-pricey, near-dedicated
electronics, the Xes soundedhow shall I put
this?not very good. Real not very good. Indeed,
when I went to Germany to visit MBLs offices and
manufacturing facility this past spring, I had no
intention of reviewing MBLs flagships. Id come
for the debut of the 101 E MkII, a revised version
of the speaker that has won more TAS Best Sound
of Show awards than any other competitor.
What made and makes the 101 Es such
showstoppers is their uncanny ability to get the
first step in enjoying music right. Before it does
anything else (and it does many things else),
music works on us physically. It excites us. Gets
us moving. Starts our toes tapping and our butts
wiggling and our arms waving like air-guitar
players (or air conductors). When a performer or
a hi-fi really allows us into the music and the
music into us, we are always and only a half-
step away from dancing and singing and sheer
self-abandon. Its one of the chief reasons why we
listen.
The 101 Es own this first step in musical
enjoyment. They are the thrill ridesthe
rollercoastersof the high-end audio amusement
park. Though they have any number of things
going for them, it is primarily their sensational
dynamic range, speed, and impact, their huge
enveloping soundstage, their uncanny three-
dimensional presence, their through-the-floor
bass, and, of course, their ability to play very
loud without compression or confusion that make
them so electrifying. Sheer sonic excitement may
not mean much to those joyless souls who want
to hear a vocalist or a Mahler symphony sound
precisely as good or as bad as she or it did in
the engineering booth on the day of a recording
session; as for me, I still thrill to the thrill of getting
goosebumps on my arms or feeling a chill run
up my back when a stereoa mere contraption
playing back another mere contraptioncaptures
the excitement of the real thing.
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - mbL 101 X-treme omnidirectional Loudspeaker
Sogiven my intention to review a greatly
revised version of a speaker I knew was great,
how did I end up with a speaker that I thought I
knew wasnt? This, my friends, was serendipity
combined with a touch of lunacy on my part
and on Wolfgang Meletzkys (inventor of the
Radialstrahler driver and the M in Meletzky
Berlin Loudspeakers).
As fate would have it, before visiting MBLs
Berlin offices and its factory in Eberswalde (a
picturesque town outside of Berlin), I made the
mistake of stopping at the Munich High-End Show
for a few hours, where I heard the 101 X-Tremes
properly set up and playing in a much better room
than the echo chambers of The Venetian at CES.
What a difference! I literally didnt recognize the
soundit was that improved. Though still a little
dark in balance and perhaps a little too lively in
the upper mids and lower treble (the Munich room
was enclosed in glass), this was a far cry from
the shrieking harridan Id heard at CES. Sweet in
timbre, incredibly wide and deep in soundstage,
huge in dynamics, with sensational bass and top
treble and the kind of three-dimensionality in
the midrange that only Radialstrahlers seem to
own, the X-Tremes sounded like giant 101 Es but
with a timbral and dynamic suavity, a focus and
refinement that the wilder, woollier 101 Es never
quite managed.
By the time I got to Berlin, my schnitzel was
cooked. Hell, Id already reviewed the 101 Es; I
wanted a crack at the Big Boys.
Of course, there were the little problems of the
Xes sheer size and mass to deal with.
What we have here, on each speaker-side, is
essentially two 101 Es without their subwoofers
and subwoofer cabinetsone trio of Radialstrahler
(Deutsch for omnidirectional) drivers facing
upward and another, immediately above it,
down, in a mirror-image array. The bottom trio of
Radialstrahlers is mounted on a massive (over 500
pounds) base constructed of birchwood, brass,
and aluminum in a constrained-layer sandwich;
the upper set is bolted to a similarly massive top
piece, also made of a constrained-layer sandwich
of birch, brass, and aluminum, with a high-quality
dynamic ambience tweeter nestled out of sight
on its roof. Thick struts of stainless steel and
cross members of powder-coated brass provide
top-to-bottom and side-to-side structure and
support. Each speaker-side weighs half-a-ton.
In addition to the gigantic Radialstrahler
towers, the 101 X-Tremes come with two six-
and-a-half-foot-tall subwoofer towers that weigh
better than half-a-ton all by themselves. Each
sub array comprises three ported, lacquered-
birch and aluminum boxes, fitted on top of each
other via heavy-duty aluminum pegs and sockets,
with the sub crossover controls and the MBL
amplifier that drives the entire array housed in the
middle box. Two 12 aluminum-cone drivers with
very wide and flexible surrounds are mounted
in a push-push configuration inside each of the
three boxesone woofer on the right side of the
enclosure, one on the left, both stabilized and
cross-braced by a massive aluminum rod running
between them to prevent the drivers from passing
resonant energy to each other and to the box
itself. That makes a total of six 12 woofers per
speaker-side, twelve 12 woofers altogether. That,
my friends, is a lot of bass.
Although the 101 X-Tremes break down into
pieces, the pieces themselves are massive
(roughly 300 to over 500 pounds each). With the
invaluable help of three of the strongest human
beings on earth (piano movers from the Cincinnati
company of Elam and Sons), Jeurgen Reis (the
X-Tremes designer, who had come over from
Germany to assist in setup), David Alexander
(MBLs U.S. importer), and I managed to haul the
101 Xes upstairs to my listening
room. (Those of you interested
in how this Herculean feat
was accomplished, go to the
forum on AVguide.com and
look at the thread MBL 101-
Xtreme Radialstrahler in the
Speakers category.)
After assembling the
speakers, Reis positioned
the Xes and dialed them
ina two-day process that
involved many large and small
adjustments in the physical
location of the Radialstrahler
towers and their woofer stacks,
as well as adjustments of the
controls for each of the twelve
Radialstrahler drivers and the
two ambient tweeters on top of
the Radialstrahler towers, plus
tweaking of the gain, group
delay (phase), and Q of the
woofer stacks. (The crossover
point between the woofers
and the Radialstrahlers is fixed
at around 100Hz with a slope
of 18dB/octave and cannot
be adjusted.) This is a very
large, extraordinarily heavy,
exceedingly complex speaker
system that absolutely requires professional
assistance in setup. In other words: Kids, dont try
this at home without adult (German) supervision
(and, of course, the Elam brothers).
If the 101 Es looked, as I once wrote in TAS, like
R2D2 in a hot tub, the assembled 101 X-Tremes
looked like the jungle-gym in Nikolai Teslas
house. As a visiting wag remarked, like em or
hate em, they certainly make a design statement.
What I expected to hear from these ultra-cool
high-tech giants was more or less what Id heard
in Municha bigger, better 101 E. But from go,
thats not the sound I got.
Let me be honest here: Forget everything you
may have heard from the 101 Xes at CESI had to.
Forget everything youve read, including everything
Ive written about the 101 Xes (counting what I just
wrote about its poor-to-mixed performance at
CES and its excellent performance in Munich)I
had to. In all candor, this was the most surprising
first listen Ive had with any loudspeakers. They
simply didnt sound at all like what I expected
based on my show experience, good or bad.
First of all, the 101 Xes were so much more
neutral in balance than I anticipated that I was
shocked (and still am). They didnt seem to
have any of the of the frequency-response
lumpinessthe darkness or over-ripeness or
hard aggressiveness or searing treble or bloated
bassthat I had (secretly) expected to hear from
them on the basis of CES auditions. Indeed,
if the 101 Xes sounded like any other speaker,
it was the Magico Mini IIs, which is to say that
they were solidly and impressively and, again,
totally unexpectedly (at least to me) uncolored,
undistorted, and flat.
Of course, Radialstrahlers have always sounded
boxless (they have none) and incomparably big,
open, and spacious. But 101 Es were never what
I would call truly neutral in balance. The 101
Xes were, and even bigger, more open, more
spacious than the Esand not by a little bit. Plus,
they had simply sensational dynamic range and
scalingtruly lifelike speed, pace, and impact
even on instruments (like huge drums or plucked
bass guitar) that are nearly impossible to scale
realistically in a home. At the same time they
had the same in the room with you presence
on voice and guitars and pianos and strings that
makes listening to the 101 Es like looking into a
diorama.
Pleased but mystified, I did an RTA on the 101
X-Tremes after Reis and Alexander departed
just to find out if I was fooling myself about their
neutrality. I wasnt. At the top of this page youll
find the RTA, taken in my listening room with a
calibrated microphone and Liberty Instruments
Praxis software.
For what its worth, from 20Hz to about 14kHz this
is the flattest frequency response Ive measured in
my listening room with any loudspeaker, including
the Magico Mini IIs! The Xes waterfall and impulse
plots were also superb.
Though these plots were a reassuring
confirmation of some of what I was hearing,
they scarcely accounted for all that impressed
me about the 101 X-Tremes, which, like any
Radialstrahler, have a unique sonic presentation
that no measurements can describe.
To explain the uniqueness of the 101 Xes (or the
101 Es) you have to consider how they generate
sound. Radialstrahler drivers are omnidirectional.
They are, literally, pulsating spherespoint
sources that radiate equal amounts of energy
at all frequencies through a 360-degree
soundfield. Unlike conventional wide-dispersion
dynamic drivers, they do not sound or measure
substantially differently off-axis, which is to
say, they dont change in frequency response or
introduce higher amounts of distortion and phase/
time incoherence as you move away from the
central axes of their drivers (in fact, their drivers
dont have central axes). They produce precisely
the same signal whether you are sitting in front
of them, to the sides of them, or behind them.
Necessarily, this means that they bring the entire
listening room into play in a way that no other kind
of loudspeakers (including dipoles and bipoles)
does.
You might think that energy being broadcast in
equal amounts at all frequencies toward literally
every surface of your room would make the sound
you end up hearing a confusing, echo-chamber-
like mess. That it doesnt has to do with two
interrelated phenomena: the 101 Xes frequency-
independent, constant-directionality dispersion,
and the Precedence Effect.
First, unlike conventional loudspeaker drivers
(particularly tweeters) that tend to send spotlight-
like beams of inherently-more-distorted off-axis
sound toward sidewallswhere, delayed only
slightly in time, they bounce back to your ears
alongside the direct output of the loudspeaker,
screwing up timbres, dynamics, and durations
at certain frequenciesan omni doesnt
selectively energize specific spots on your walls.
It doesnt work like a specular flashlight. It works
like a diffuse glowing ball. It energizes your room
uniformly at all frequencies, so that any reflected
early arrivals will comprise the entire signal and
not a small distorted piece of it.
Of course, an omni is still creating broadband
room reflections, but we dont hear them as
colorations because of the Precedence Effect.
The Precedence Effect is a psychoacoustic
phenomenon whereby an acoustic signal arriving
first at our ears suppresses our ability to hear any other
signals, including echoes and reverberations that arrive
up to about 40ms after the initial signal (provided that the
delayed signals are not significantly louder than the initial
signal). As Dr. Siegfried Linkwitz says on his fascinating Web
site at www.linkwitzlab.com: The ear/brain automatically
relegates [these late-arriving signals] to the earlier learned
acoustic behavior of the room and readily blankets that
information and thereby the [sound of the] room itself. Far
from being more colored by room reflections, drivers, and
enclosures, boxless omnis are in principle much less colored
by all of these things and potentially much more faithful to
sources because they essentially take the room sound out
of the equation, thanks to the Precedence Effect and the fact
that they are lighting up reflective surfaces uniformly at all
frequencies rather than selectively at specific frequencies.
Omnis not only light up every surface of your room
evenly; they light them up with tremendous energy, greatly
reinforcing uniform power response through the passband
(albeit at a price in loudspeaker sensitivity). Part of the
reason that MBL Radialstrahlers are so famously lifelike in
dynamics (particularly when they are played at moderate to
loud levels) is the sheer amount of energy they are generating
thanks to the unusually large surface area of their drivers.
Consider a Radialstrahler woofer (the big silver pumpkin-like
driver at the bottoms and tops of the Radialstrahler towers
in the photos of the MBL 101 X-Tremes). Every square inch
of these giant spheres is producing sound with the same
intensity as the central portion of a conventional dynamic
woofer (and without any of the center-to-edge drop-off in
power or increase in distortion of a conventional woofer).
In radiating area a Radialstrahler woofer is the equivalent
of something like twelve 12 cones! (And each side of the
101 X-Treme has two of them!). The exact same thing is
true of the Radialstrahler midrange and tweeter (and what
a tweeter!).
You might think that drivers this large would be slowed
down by their mass and would ring like bells being struck
when hit with an electrical signal, but their size actually
works to their advantage. Since theyre driven over the entire
surfaces (they expand and contract, accordion-like, when
playing), they have to move only very small amounts to make
very loud sounds. These small excursions also mean that
they dont have to move very much to stop making sounds.
Plus for all their size they are made of lightweight materials
(the midranges and tweeters are formed from petals of
carbon-fiber, the woofers from an aluminum-magnesium
alloy) and, because of the volume of air inside them, are
virtually self-damping. No, Radialstrahler drivers arent as
lightweight as, oh, Quad ESL-2905 or MartinLogan CLX
membrane drivers. (And, at really low listening levels, not as
quick on transients or as high in resolution, eitherthough
the difference in speed of attack and resolution of detail is
surprisingly small and is completely gone at moderate to
loud volumes, while the difference in sheer lifelike power
delivery on big dynamic swings is hugely in the 101 Xes
favor. Stats and ribbons are fast but relatively weightless,
like hummingbirds. Radialstrahlers are fast and strong, like
bulls.)
Putting all of this energy into your room is going to
mean thatomni theory notwithstandingyou will need to
selectively damp certain surfaces of your room, particularly
the walls between the speakers and behind the listening
position. But then you have to selectively damp walls with
any speaker. What you will get for your trouble is, I promise
you, something extraordinary.
Everyone whos heard the MBL 101 X-Tremesfrom
my usual listening panel of friends and colleagues (many
of whom have auditioned every piece of gear that has
come through my room) to visiting manufacturers (some of
competing loudspeakers)has had the exact same reaction,
expressed in almost exactly the same words: Where are
the speakers? Despite any shortcomings (and I will come
to these), the MBL 101 Xes (properly situated and adjusted)
sound less like loudspeakers than any other speaker system
Ive heard. All of the various ways in which speakers betray
that their sound is being projected in narrower or broader
dispersion patterns by individual drivers in resonant
enclosures simply arent present (lending considerable
credence to Dr. Linkwitzs argument about the superiority
of frequency-independent, constant-directionality
transducers). What you hear, instead, is a soundfield that
seems, magically, to have been imported in toto from some
other placefrom a concert hall or a recording studioand
plopped down in your listening room. Theres simply little
to no vestige of speaker in the traditional sense. To put
this differently, where other transducers sound the way
movies looklike a two-dimensional medium imitating a
three-dimensional onethe 101 X-Tremes sound the way a
theatrical play looksno ersatz third dimension, but actual
people on an actual stage right there in front of you (albeit
reduced in size).
Ive heard speakers with great disappearing acts before
(the Magico Mini IIs, par excellence), but none like this one,
which doesnt so much disappear as not show up in the
first place. Its really a bit bizarre that a system that calls
so much attention to itself when the music isnt playing,
because of its huge size and ultra-cool high-tech looks,
vanishes so utterly when the music is on. It is, perhaps, the
most astonishing bit of acoustic legerdemain I (or any of my
friends) have ever witnessed.
When the recording allows, the Xes magical three-
dimensional soundfield extends far beyond the boundaries
of the speakers (including their woofer towers) and far
beyond the backwall. When the recording doesnt, the
stage shrinks accordingly. The notion, advanced by some,
that the soundstage control of omnis is always set to 11,
to borrow from Nigel Tufnel of Spinal Tap, just isnt true. Yes,
they add an attractive bit of air and spaciousness to most
recordings, but like any great transducer they reproduce
what they are handed with high fidelity.
Where omni detractors used to have an indisputable point
was imaging. For all their many virtues, something like the
101 Es had trouble focusing vocalists and instrumentalists
at center stage (though not at the sides of the stage); there
was always a vagueness, a swimminess to their central
images, which lacked the specificity of other high-end
speakers. However, I am happy and astonished to report
that imaging is no longer an issue with the 101 X-Tremes,
which focus voices or instruments at center stage with all
the precision of Magico Minis (and with more lifelike size,
to boot).
Whats changed? Well, there are two Radialstrahler arrays
now per speaker side, in a mirror image (or quasi DAppolito)
configuration; the midrange and tweeter Radialstrahlers
have been greatly improved with new formers and voice
coils; the crossovers have been upgraded with new caps
from Mundorf and Intertec; the 101 Es vibration-producing
subwoofers have been moved to their own constrained-
layer enclosures; and the entire Radialstrahler tower is now
heavily damped and braced by massive applications of
constrained-layer materials. In other words, all of the drivers
and crossovers have not just been audibly improved, made
higher in sensitivity, and less subject to exciting room nodes
(thanks to the DAppolito configuration), but they are also
seeing orders of magnitude less vibration than they did in
the 101 E, which, I have to think, was a large part of why they
didnt image very well.
Not only have these changes in drivers, crossover, and
support system wrought big improvements in imaging,
they have, to my ear, also improved overall smoothness of
frequency response, resolution at low volume levels, and
bass response.
Lets start with the last first. Putting twelve 12 woofers in
two towers might seem like a recipe for overloading a room.
But Im here to tell you that the effect is just the opposite.
While the 101 Es low bass was one of its glories, because it
went so incredibly deep and sounded so incredibly fast and
dynamic for a single driver in a small, dual-ported
enclosure, it was also (or occasionally could be)
one of its shortcomings. As great as it was to hear
bass drum strikes detonating like sonic booms,
or doublebass choirs growling like semis pulling
away from a curb, or organ notes rattling the
floor and walls like a subway passing outside the
window, the 101 Es bandpass sub was a little wild
and woolly. It was fast and powerful all right and
tremendously exciting, but it was adding vibration
to itself and the Radialstrahlers ensconced above
it and it was more likely to excite room nodes
(since it was fixed in one spot facing downward
toward the floor).
In my room the 101 E subs tended to lump
up around 6080Hz, to the extent that with the
right recording (or should I say the wrong one),
like, say, just about any LP or CD with good solid
Fender bass, you could be wowed and annoyed
simultaneouslywowed by the sheer extension
and floor-shuddering, pantsleg-shaking power of
the MBLs bottom end, annoyed by the subs room-
induced boominess at select frequencies. Dont
get me wrong. I still think that the 101 Es bass is
astounding. The best Ive heard. I just think that
the 101 X-Tremes bass is better. By adding more
and better woofers and locating them at different
heights from the floor, walls, and ceiling (both in
the bass towers and in the Radialstrahler towers),
the Xes are much less likely to reinforce room
nodesand so they sound. They may be a little
less purely astounding now, but that is because
they are calling less attention to themselves. They
are audibly and measurably flatter, smoother,
better controlled, lower in distortion, and
much better integrated with the Radialstrahler
drivers than the 101 Es bandpass subs. At the
same time, they are every bit as impressive in
extension, speed, and power delivery as the 101
Es subs, and more impressive in resolution. If you
think youve heard all there is to hear in the way
of timbre, texture, and dynamics in low-pitched
instruments (like bottom-octave piano, double
bassoon, doublebass, bass drum) think again.
In the bass, these things sound the way stats
would sound if they went down flat to 20Hz and
had the weight, body, and density of tone color
of great cones. The Xes sheer resolving power
coupled with their speed, neutrality of timbre,
lifelike cushioning of air, and astonishing three-
dimensionality make things like forcefully bowed
cello or bass (or forcefully struck timp) come alive
in a way that very few other speakers Ive heard
can matchand none that Ive heard in my home
exceeds. It may be that the Wilson Alexandria X-2
Series 2 that Robert Harley recently reviewed or
the Magico M6 would outdo them in the bass;
even so, this is phenomenal low end.
As those of you familiar with my writing know,
Im generally no fan of outboard subwoofers. Not
to put too fine a point on it, I almost always hear
them as separate and separable drivers. With
the 101 X-Tremes, for once, I dont. This is the
most seamless blending of subwoofer and main
speakers Ive heard. Indeed, I would dare anyone,
who didnt already know where they crossed over,
to tell me by ear alone where the 101 X-Treme
sub towers were starting and the Radialstrahler
towers stopping. They are as much of a piece as
the Radialstrahlers themselves.
Of course, it probably doesnt hurt that they
are being driven by built-in MBL amplifiers.
And I know that it doesnt hurt that they have
been painstakingly tweaked in by Juergen Reis.
(Before he worked his magic, you could hear the
sub towers quite plainly. Indeed, I believe that the
proper dialing in of the sub towers has been the
chief problem at showsthat and playing these
things at jet-airplane-engine levels.)
Lowering the amount of resonant energy and
improving the drivers and crossovers of the
Radialstrahlers and their subs has also improved
another area of 101 E weaknessrealistic
playback at lower volume levels. Like dipole
Maggies, the 101 Es tended to lose a little dynamic
scale at both the piano and the forte end of the
spectrum when played softly. You needed to turn
up the juice to make them come to life (which was
why the MBL gang has always played them loud
at shows). Though still not the match of a Magico
Mini II, a Quad ESL-2905, a MartinLogan CLX,
or a Symposium Acoustics Panaroma in timbre,
texture, and dynamic nuance when played at low
volumes (under 80dB average SPLs), the 101
X-Tremes are considerably improved in all three
areas over the 101 Esto the extent that you can
now listen through them to chamber or acoustic
rock or folk music with the same pleasure (and
with very nearly the same sense of verisimilitude)
that youll get through them from any and all kinds
of music played at louder levels (80dB+ average
SPLs). It used to be said that MBLs were a rock
n rollers loudspeaker. Not anymore. Low-level
resolution, top-to-bottom neutrality, and dynamic
scale at all volumes have been greatly improved.
And at lifelike SPLs, the Xes are very nearly
unmatchable in every area save for top-treble
extension, where the ribbons in the Symposium
Panoramas and the ring-radiator tweeter in the
Mini IIs outdo them. (While not as extended on
top as these two other great speakers, let me
MBL 101 X-Treme Omnidirectional Loudspeaker
type: four-way omnidirectional loudspeaker with
separate subwoofer towers and ambience tweeter in
four chassis
Drivers (per speaker side): two radial tt100 woofers,
two radial mt50/E midrange, two Ht37/E radial
tweeters, one ambience dome tweeter, six 12
aluminum cone subwoofers
frequency response: 20Hz-40kHz
Sensitivity: 88db/2.8v/2pi
SpL: 109db
power handling: 500W (continuous), 2200W (peak)
Weight: 3600 lbs.
SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
price: $199,000/pr
MBL OF AMERICA
20381 Lake Forest
Drive, Suite B-1
Lake Forest, CA 92630
(949) 331-3147
mbl-usa.com
U.K.
price: 195,000/pr
SOUND vENTURE LTD
Unit 2
Banbeath Court
Banbeath, Leven
KY8 5HD
0844 811 1258
soundventure.co.uk
assure you that neither the Pans nor the Minis can
reproduce a cymbal as realistically as the Xes
Radialstrahler tweeter.)
As noted earlier in re electrostats, the 101
X-Tremes dont just deliver the goods with
superior speed and startling neutrality; they
deliver them with a power and a lifelike duration
that reminds me of the TW Acustic Raven AC-3
turntable. Through the 101 X-Tremes, instruments
like struck cymbals arent just wispy, floaty little
things expressed with exquisite delicacy that then
die away like a sighhalf color, half air, like aural
half-tones. They are the big, powerful, solid bell-
bronze instruments they are in life, whose sound
is reproduced with the power and lingering,
shimmering sustain that describes their physical
presencetheir three-dimensional shape and
material compositionin addition to their timbre
and texture. All instruments are so described
by the 101 X-Tremes, not just in richly colored
outline but in solid, richly colored shape. To hear
the Xeswell, not really the Xes because they
arent there as sound sourcesbut to hear the
way they conjure up something like Mark Cohns
terrific cover of Willie Dixons 29 Ways is to hear
something much closer to musicians in a club or
hall or recording studio than to mere hi-fi. Cohns
centered voice, his voice doubled for backup
and panned hard right and left (sometimes well
outside the physical bounds of the speakers),
the hard spikes and soft-palmed strokes of
percussion distributed throughout the stage, that
wonderful purling Hammond organ that comes
flooding across (and beneath) the floor like a
dark, burbling tideonce again, it is like watching
a play to hear these things conjured up in three
dimensions before eye and ear. While we all
listen, perforce, blind to stereo, the 101 X-Tremes
go further toward compensating for our hunger
to see what we hearto fulfilling the definition of
the word stereo (which literally means three-
dimensional or solid)than anything else Ive
yet auditioned.
The 101 X-Tremes are not the only great
loudspeakers Ive heardmerely the best. They
arent quite as transparent as MartinLogan CLXes.
They arent quite as lifelike in timbre as Magico Mini
IIs. They arent quite as fast in transient response
as Quad ESL-2905s. They arent as colorless in
the midband and treble as Symposium Acoustics
Panoramas or as microscopically finely detailed
(at least at low-to-moderate volume levels). They
are ungodly expensive. They are huge. They
require extensive setup and fine-tuning, and in
spite of the fact that they are 6dB more sensitive
than 101 Es they still do best biamped with four
of MBLs own nearly $100k/pair 9011 monoblocks
and fed by MBLs own superb 6010 D preamp
(although the ARC Reference 3 preamp is, IMO,
every bit as good as the MBL 6010 D with MBLs
powerhouses, and a pair or two of ARCs 610Ts
represents much-less-expensive and equally
impressive alternative amplification). They need
the best sources and cabling that money can buy.
They are handmade to order and take at least 90
days to build. In short, a system built around them
represents an insanely complex and expensive
investment of time, space, and upwards of half-a-
million dollars, which, in this economy, is a stretch
even for the ultra-rich and ultra-loony. Although
they did exceedingly well in my smaller room (so
well that even saturnine Juergen Reis pronounced
himself greatly pleased), they will probably do
better in medium-sized-to-large rooms, although
I would be wary of rooms that are too large
(since Radialstrahlers need to see walls at some
distance to function the way they are designed to
function).
There may be other speakersin fact, there are
other speakers (some of which Ive mentioned)
that marginally outdo the 101 X-Tremes in this
area or that, and there are some on the horizon
(two in particular from Magico and Kharma) that
will doubtlessly prove competitive. Thats OK.
Theres room for more than one great transducer,
even at this level of excellence. This said, I rather
doubt that the 101 X-Tremes will be beaten out by
any other kind of loudspeaker when it comes to
their uncannily realistic recreation of space, their
three-dimensionality, their dynamic range and
scaling from top to bottom (above 80dB SPLs),
and their you-are-there presence.
Frankly, the other reaction that every single
listener whos heard the 101 X-Tremes has had,
once he gets past the Xes disappearing act, is:
This is the most realistic stereo system Ive ever
heard. It hurts me to say so, since I will never be
able to afford them, but I have to agree.
I
n April of this year, I traveled to Berlin by way of Munich to visit Wolfgang Meletzky,
a most amiable, sophisticated, and cultured man, the founder and CEO of MBL
(Meletzky Berlin Loudspeaker) and the inventor (in 1979) of the Radialstrahler
loudspeaker. Meletzkys company has been in business for almost 30 years and, as I
could tell from the two letters on his desk in MBLs Einemstrasse offices from pleased
customers (one in Scotland and one in the U.S.), he still gets a kick out of bringing the
joy of music into other peoples lives. Part scientist, part businessman, part music
lover (Wolfgang goes to concerts at least twice a weekand in fact took me and my
wife to Alfred Brendels memorable farewell concert at the Berlin Philharmonie and
to a fantastic chamber-music recital at the gorgeous old Konzerthaus), Meletzky has
arranged his offices to reflect his personality, with one section devoted to business
affairs, one (filled with computers and eager young research assistants) to R&D, and
one to auditioning MBLs loudspeakers and electronics.
How To Make A
Radialstrahler
Jonathan valin
MBL differs from other audio manufacturers
in two important ways. First, it makes entire
stereo systems from front end to backnot just
loudspeakersand its electronics are just as
beautifully designed and highly regarded as its
Radialstrahlers. Such com-prehensiveness and
uniformly high quality is in itself unusual in this
industry. Second, outside loudspeaker enclosures,
MBL manufactures virtually everything in house.
MBL is not one of those domestic-design/
overseas-manufacture companies. Its products
are entirely German-engineered, German-
fabricated, and German-assembled.
Although most of the design work is currently
done by the able and talented Juergen Reis (and
an assemblage of gifted young college graduates
at MBLs Berlin offices), the execution of these
designs is carried out at MBLs manufacturing-
and-assembly plant in the little town of Eberswalde
(Boars Wood), outside of Berlin. The factory was
designed by Wolfgang himself; like a scientific
lab, it is air- and temperature-controlled, sealed
against contaminants, and linked by computer to
MBLs Berlin offices and other design facilities (see
Illustration 1). The entire facility is systematically
organized, beginning with Wolfgangs offices
1
2
3
in the front of the building and preceding to a
computerized parts department (run by Thomas
Peter) where every nut, bolt, and fitting for MBLs
extensive line of speakers and electronics can be
called up via a computer server that keeps track
of parts inventory, to the large manufacturing floor
where speaker/electronics parts are made and
assembled (Illustration 2).
The manufacturing floor houses four large
computer-controlled CNC machines that convert
raw materials to parts for electronics and
speakers. To give you an example of how this
works, consider the milling and machining of
one of the massive faceplates for one of MBLs
superb components. In Illustration 3 you can
see the thick aluminum slabs that will form the
massive front plates of an MBL faceplate after an
initial CNC-milling; in Illustration 4 you see these
same billets after the second stage of CNC-
milling; and in Illustration 5 you can the third stage
of cutting with the MBL logo embossed on the
faceplates. The faceplates are then painted and
beautifully finished in brass (Illustration 6)the
entire process is done in MBLs machine shops.
Lest you think that everything in the MBL factory
is computer-generation high-tech, in Illustration 7
you see a pressing machine built in 1886 that is
still functioning and used in the construction of
MBL electronics, and in Illustration 8 you see a
skilled craftsman machining the top plates of a
6010 D preamp by hand.
Every product that MBL makes is tested at the
factory at various stage of assembly. In Illustration
9 you see a partly assembled 9007 amp being
bench-checked using computer programs and
test gear.
Lets turn to the manufacture of MBL
loudspeakers, which takes place in a different
section of the factory. The first step in building
a Radialstrahler woofer is the milling of petal-
shaped slices of magnesium-aluminum alloy
(Illustration 10). In the next production step that
petal is corrugatedthe corrugations are rolled on
(not pressed) to make the petals stiffer (Illustration
11). Materials are added to the corrugated
petalto dampen it (Illustration 12). After this,
the petals are glued by hand to a thrust plate at
the end of a pole piece and wired (delicately) and
affixed to a voice coil and magnet (Illustration 13)
at the opposite end of the pole. Strips of elastic
material are hand-inserted between the petals
and external damping materials are hand-applied
to their surfaces (Illustration 14). In a finished
Radialstrahler woofer, the voice coil drives one
end of the petals; the other end is held stationary.
The moving voice coil causes the petals to flex
in and out in response to the musical signal
(Illustration 15).
The Radialstrahler midrange and tweeter
function in the same way but their petals are
4
5
6
7
9
10
11
12
8
made of different materialcarbon fiber. Here is a piece of
baked carbon fiber (Illustration 16), fresh from MBLs oven.
Smaller slices of this sheet are computer-cut from the larger
piece to make the petals of the midrange Radialstrahler driver
(Illustration 17). As with the MBL woofer, the petals are wired
and attached to the midranges voice coil on bottom and glued
to a thrust plate on top (Illustration 18). Here we see a partly
assembled midrange, with thrust plate held in place on top
(Illustration 19).
As I hope you can tell from this brief photographic tour
of MBLs factory, MBL electronics and speakers combine
extraordinarily high-tech computer technology with the most
delicate hand-craftsmanship. They are ongoing testaments to
the determination and imagination of MBLs founder, Wolfgang
Meletzky, for whom, even after 30 years of enterprise, anything
less than exceptional just isnt good enough.
15
13
14
17
18
19
16
It is no secret that I think that mbL electronics are among
the finest solid-state components that money can buy.
Gorgeously made and beautifully finished, they not only look
cool but sound fantastic. Which is a good thing because the
101 E mkIIs and the 101 X-tremes were designed with them in
mind. though there are undoubtedly other combinations that
would work effectively with the 101 Xes, the radialstrahlers
are a peculiar case. though they arent anything like a
difficult load, they simply thrive on power. there are obvious
reasons for this: they have no enclosures and radiate
omnidirectionally, so much of the energy they produce isnt
being heard directlyor, depending on the size of your room,
even indirectly. though mbL rates the 101 E mkIIs as 82db
sensitive and the 101 X-tremes as 88db sensitive, I think
both numbers are misleading. both speakers are 4-ohm
loads, which means that you cut 3db off those sensitivity
numbers to start with. Second, radialstrahler drivers are
unusually large in surface area, more like stats than cones,
and like stats take power to drive. this is where the mbL
9011 monoblock amps come inbeautifully. Ive talked before,
at length, about these 275-pound monsters. they are, Imo,
the most liquid, gorgeous sounding, inexhaustibly powerful
(capable of 5000W peaks!) solid-state on the market. being a
little bit darker and richer in balance (more like class a amps
than class ab), they arent as dead-neutral as, oh, a Soulution
710 or an arc 610t, but they are every bit as lovely to listen
to, extremely finely detailed, and simply standard-settingly
good for solid-state at reproducing the full duration of notes
(including their decays). add to this, iron grip in the bass and
tremendous speed and articulation in the treble.
Long my own personal favorite solid-state preamp, the
mbL 6010 D has all of these same virtues. also a little dark
and sweet (a little class a sounding), it is, like the amplifiers,
robust and hard-hitting, with tremendous grip in the bass and
treble but also, like all mbL electronics, gorgeous in timbre
and liquid in textures. Its almost a paradoxical combination
of virtuesthis teutonic control and authority, burgundy-
like color and sweetness, and all-american resolution and
dynamic excitement.
the mbL 1621 a and 1611 f transport and Dacmerely
the second-best cD player Ive ever heard, after the much-
more-expensive dcS Scarlattihave all of these same
characteristics and more. the combo may be the most
finely detailed and hardest-hitting cD player Ive heard,
and yet it isnt a bit analytical or aggressive. once again
the combination of power delivery and control with melting
sweetness and liquidity and extraordinary resolution and
excitement make it sound purely gorgeous. Jv
mbL ELEctronIcS anD tHE 101 X-trEmES
W
ith its quaint shops and fine restaurants, Quebec City is a seductive place.
But this city, which was first settled in 1608, also has a majestic side that
helps to explain why the Quebecois are so stubbornly independent. Visit the
old town, walk up the ramparts, which once served as the citys defense, and you have
a towering view of the St. Lawrence river, where ships lazily make their way up and
down the legendary seaway. Meanwhile, looming over the former military citadel is
the massive hotel, Fairmont le Chateau Frontenac, where Franklin Roosevelt, Winston
Churchill, and MacKenzie King met in 1943 to confer about World War II.
Perhaps it should not be altogether surprising,
then, that these two sides of Quebec are also
faithfully reflected in the Canadian manufacturer
Verity Audios sizzling Lohengrin II loudspeaker.
A powerhouse of a loudspeaker, the Lohengrin II
also possesses the ability to woo listeners with
its extremely coherent and fluid sound.
Verity Audios factory is based just outside of
Quebec City and it would be hard to think of a
more dissimilar pair than its two designers Bruno
Bouchard and Julien Pelchat. Of these terrible
twins, one, Bruno, is taciturn, contemplative,
brooding; the other, Julien, is exuberant and
full of joie de vivre. Somehow these disparate
qualities have been fused to produce the elegantly
fastidious and exciting line of Verity loudspeakers.
The signs of the care with which Bouchard and
Pelchat approach their callingand it is a calling,
not just a jobare immediately evident at the
factory, which I had the good fortune to visit for
several days. For one thing, Verity has a sizable
listening room with 11 ceilings that allows it to
let its loudspeakers cut loose. It also boasts
a considerable array of equipment, including
Nagra preamplifiers and amplification. But
perhaps the most unusual piece of equipment
on hand was a rare and quite delectable Matisse
tubed amplifier that sounded quite beautiful on a
variety of music. Vinyl was in abundance as well.
To gain a greater familiarity with the Verity sound,
I also had the chance to listen to each speaker in
the line, leaving me feeling a bit like a potentate
ordering around his subjects as various speakers
were hefted in and out.
As enjoyable as the others may have been,
the big Daddythe Lohengrin IIwas clearly
nonpareil. What made it so special? To grasp
the basic character of the Lohengrin II, it helps
verity Lohengrin II
The Cutting Edge
Jacob Heilbrunn
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - verity Lohengrin II Loudspeaker
to be familiar with its technical features. The first
and most obvious of these is that it is a very high
sensitivity (95dB) loudspeaker, which makes
life cushy indeed for any amplifier (though the
Lohengrin is bi-amplifiable as well as bi-wirable).
It simply takes a lot less power to produce sound
once you get into that lofty zone of sensitivity.
As Pelchat cogently explains, Verity, at bottom,
seeks to unite the qualities of a horn design (high
efficiency, jump factor) with the refulgent sound
of moving-coil drivers. My own verdict: With high
efficiency music becomes more tuneful, snappier,
since the loudspeaker and amplifier dont have to
strain to reproduce a recording. Veritys simple
but carefully thought out crossover helps account
for the sensitivity of the Lohengrin.
The four-way Lohengrin II features an upper-
midrange driver that reproduces an extremely
wide spectrumfrom 300Hz to 6kHz. A ribbon
takes over at 6kHz. The lower midrange (80Hz
300Hz) is handled by a 9 cone driver, which
crosses over to a 15 rear-firing ported woofer
housed in a separate enclosure. The lower
midrange driver is not high-pass filtered; rather,
it rolls off naturally. The drivers were custom
designed for wide bandwidth and minimal break
up to allow the use of a minimalist crossover.
The woofer is low-pass filtered at 80Hz with a
first-order filter. The woofer is thus conceived of
acting as a subwoofer. The rear-firing woofer didnt
seem to present any problemsI felt a goodly
amount of bass kick. Furthermore, in contrast to
some other manufacturers, Verity does not go to
extreme lengths to dampen the cabinet. Instead,
it believes that the cabinet should be rigid without
being weighted down. Bruno Bouchard says that
excessive damping kills the sound. The goal,
he says, should be to control vibration through
cabinet design that achieves a proper balance of
energy dampening and transmission.
Whats more, Verity, it should be said, has
also gone to considerable lengths to improve the
Lohengrin II over its Mk. I version (older versions
are fully upgradable). The new lower midrange
driver is 9 in contrast to the older versions 8
driver. The aluminum foil ribbon tweeter has also
been completely reworked. I picked up the old
and the new tweeter, and the old one was much
heavier. This weight reduction results from the
use of powerful neodymium magnets arranged in
tight stacks to focus the magnetic field over the
ribbon. The previous design used a single large
magnet block with heavy pole pieces on either
side of the magnetic gap. The new ribbon is
lighter, more sensitive, has higher power handling,
and delivers greater consistency in output across
its bandwidth. Verity also developed an entirely
new custom impedance-matching transformer
specifically for this ribbon driver. Finally, the
internal wiring has been upgraded to Nordost,
which may help to account for the Lohengrins
sheer velocity.
My interest in the Lohengrin had been piqued
when I heard it at the Nagra factory in Lausanne,
Switzerland, where the estimable John Quick, who
represents both Nagra and Verity, had arranged
for a tour, complete with a trip to Nagras listening
room, which had some woeful deficiencies, most
notably a glass wall. A second listen at Maier
Shadis spacious Audio Salon in Los Angeles
convinced me that the Lohengrin would be well
worth auditioning. Quick spent a day adjusting
the loudspeaker and was also kind enough to
lend me a pair of Nagra 845 tube amplifiers so
that I could listen to the Lohengrin with a lowered-
powered amplifier than either the hefty Class
Omega or the VTL Wotan monoblocks.
Regardless of the amplifier I used on
the Lohengrin II, it had several basic sonic
characteristics. The Lohengrin produces an
extremelyfor lack of a better wordacoustic
bass by which I mean to suggest that it has a
verity Lohengrin II Loudspeaker
type: Four-way loudspeaker
Driver complement: One ribbon tweeter, one 5 mid,
one 9
1
/2 lower mid, one 15 woofer
frequency response: 15Hz to 60kHz
Sensitivity: 95dB
Weight: 250 lbs.
Dimension: 59.9 x 19 x 23
SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
price: $89,995/pr to
$100,000/pr, depending
on type of fnish
vERITY AUDIO
1005 Saint-Jean-
Baptiste Avenue,
Suite 150
Quebec, Quebec G2E
5L1
Canada
(418) 682-9940
verityaudio.com
U.K.
price: 64,999/pr to
78,995/pr, depending
on type of finish
SELECT AUDIO
10 School Drive, Flimby
Maryport, Cumbria,
CA15 8PL
United Kingdom
+44 (1) 900 813 064
selectaudio.co.uk
remarkably woody, resonant characteristic. On
Kenny Burrells album Handcrafted [32 jazz], the
plucked bass line on the cut You and the Night
and the Music is often difficult for loudspeakers
to clearly articulate, especially as it heads for
the nether regions. The Lohengrin II supplied
both the note as well as the ambience. The
Lohengrins bass also goes deep. On Claudio
Abbados recording of Mahlers Third Symphony
with the Vienna Philharmonic, you can fairly
hear the tympani mallet whistling through the air
before it lands. The impact itself sounds like a
depth charge going off. Sheer grins on my face.
Childish? I suppose. But a lot of fun and, hey, that
happens to be what it sounds like in the concert
hall.
Part of this sonic spectacular, I suspect, can
be ascribed to the sheer speed of the Lohengrin
coupled with extreme dynamic reproduction.
A somewhat similar effect could be discerned
on a Roy Haynes, Phineas Newborn, and Paul
Chambers LP on the New Jazz label called We
Three. The Verity had the best reproduction of
the snare drum and cymbals that I have heard.
There is a sort of rat-a-tat quality to it. The Verity
came closer than anything Ive auditioned so far
to the real thing in capturing the concussive hit of
the drumstick and the rattle of the drum itself.
Another aspect of the dynamic power of the
Lohengrin is its ability to ramp from pianissimo
to fortissimo in a heartbeat. This was perhaps
most obvious on the Abbado recording. There
is a passage in the first movement where the
trombone repeatedly plays a plangent passage.
The Lohengrin captured both burnished sonority
of the trombone and the air around it with great
fidelity. Sudden, even grotesquely overblown,
orchestral crashes, which Mahler delights in, left
the Lohengrin completely unfazed. The Lohengrin
will also rock on out if you wish, but I dont really
think of it as that kind of a loudspeaker. What all
that dynamic power will do is allow the music to
billow into your room, which some listeners may
perceive as a forward orientation. But its not.
The front-to-back layering is superb. But the
Lohengrin does provide an unusual amount of
push, for lack of a better word, to the instruments.
There is a lot of body and texture, to put it another
way, behind each note.
What that speed and dynamic power also favor,
however, is an extreme kind of attentiveness to
each note. Each note is, in a sense, caressed.
Its as though a good deal of forethought went
into the reproduction of each note before it is
actually enunciated, which, come to think of it, is
precisely what a performer aims to accomplish
in a concert. Take Andras Schiff and Yuuko
Shiokawas performance of Schuberts Fantasie
in C major for violin and piano [ECM Records].
After a gentle piano introduction, the violin makes
a whisper-quiet entrance, stretching out its initial
note before soaring into the empyrean. Variation
after variation follows and the Lohengrin carefully
recapitulates each and every nuance. Similarly,
on a Wynton Marsalis SACD recording of Haydns
trumpet concert [Sony], the Lohengrin simply
nails the timbre of the E-flat trumpet he uses,
capturing not simply the note but the shimmer
around it. The tonal purity and accuracy of the
Lohengrin is simply astounding. The Lohengrin
does a marvelous job of conveying the silky
sheen of strings and the bravura sound of brass
instruments. As Marsalis performs double and
triple octave jumps, Im reminded of a fascinating
passage in Terry Teachouts new biography of
Louis Armstrong. Armstrongs sideman, Charlie
Holmes, is quoted as remarking: Other trumpet
players would hit them [high] notes, just like they
do nowadays. Theyd be hitting high notes, but
they sound like a flute up there or something.
But Louis wasnt playing them like that. Louis
was hittin them notes right on the head, and
expanding. They would be notes He wasnt
squeain. They wasnt no squeaks. They were
notes. Big, broad notes. The higher he went,
the broader his tone gotand it was beautiful.
Thats exactly what an instrument is supposed
to sound like, whether its jazz or classical music.
So one of the aspects that I find most bothersome
with some loudspeakers is that the tonality or
depth of sound shifts depending on what part
of the frequency spectrum theyre reproducing.
It aint supposed to be so. The truth is that, given
the frightening technical proficiency of musicians
in this day and age, high notes simply dont
thin out in a live concert; they dont sound any
differentthat is, sharper or thinnerthan notes
in the midrange. Wynton Marsalis sounds exactly
the same, no matter what musical register he is
playing in, and that happens to be the way the
Lohengrin portrays it as well. This is an aspect
concerning the issue of the overall coherency
of loudspeakers that is, I think, sometimes
underestimated.
Apart from a single-driver loudspeaker, no
moving-coiling design is going to achieve complete
coherence. But I didnt hear any gaping holes in
the Lohengrin II. Instead, I was most impressed
by the ribbon tweeter, which endowed the
Lohengrin II with its most special characteristic.
The amount of air and the cavernous size of the
soundstage really are quite impressive and can
be ascribed, I suspect, to the ease with which the
ribbon is working at 6kHz and above. No doubt
those listeners who dont like ribbons in general
will likely not be persuaded by the Lohengrins
treble reproduction, which is very neutral and
may even be ever so slightly pitched toward the
mids and treble. I myself may be partial to this
sound because Im accustomed to the Magnepan
ribbon, which may extend even a little higher than
the Lohengrins. Its also the case, I feel obliged
to note, that the Magnepan 20.1 produces a
taller soundstage and even more air around the
instruments. But the planar design, almost by
definition, lacks the dynamics and palpability of a
moving-coil design, not to mention the superbly
precise imaging of the Lohengrin. The Lohengrin
will reproduce pretty much every last jot and tittle
on a recording, which, in some ways, is a kind
of scary experience. Some listeners will find this
kind of verisimilitude addictive; others may find it
to be too much to handle.
I didnt. And Im scarcely the only listener who
is taken aback by the Lohengrins performance.
The composer Keith Murphy, who teaches at the
University of Illinois, recently visited me together
with his father Declan, a former archivist at the
Library of Congress. Murphy fils was, to put it
bluntly, wowed by the incredible power of the
Lohengrin. His only regret, he said, was that most
professional musicians could never afford such
a system. Which raises the nettlesome issue
of cost, which I usually dont really touch on in
reviews, figuring that it is not my job to decide
what is and isnt an appropriate expenditure
for someone else. All I can say is that what is
expensive for one person may be chump change
for another. If youre temerarious enough to take
the plunge, then I suspect that youll find that the
Lohengrin II isnt cause for buyers remorse but
prolonged elation.
NEXT pAgE
T
he great conductor Bruno Walter loved to recount the tale of an orchestra
players first chance to conduct a concert. How did it go? the musician was
asked the next day by the orchestras regular conductor. Very well indeed, he
replied. And do you know, Maestro, this business of conducting is really very simple.
After pretending to look alarmed, the conductor raised an admonishing finger and
whispered, I beg you: Dont give us away.
Wilson Audio Specialties
MAXX 3 Loudspeaker
A Trickle-Down Alexandria X-2?
Jacob Heilbrunn
Its often hard to avoid the sense that this anecdote applies
with equal force to sophisticated audio equipment. Why does
company Xs amplifier, the skeptics like to ask, have to cost
so much? Put aside the hocus-pocus, and the business of
making one is really very simple; an amplifier only consists of
wires, transistors or tubes, and a transformer or two. When
it comes to loudspeakers, these doubts can multiply. In the
end, loudspeakers usually consist of a box, some capacitors,
maybe a vent at the bottom, and a few holes cut in front for
mounting several drivers. Why, then, is company Y charging
such steep tariffs for its loudspeakers?
Enter David Wilson. When I recently met Wilson at his factory
in Provo, Utah, he himself raised the issue of expensive wares
in a sagging economy without any prompting from me. Sitting
at his desk and peering at me excitedly through his spectacles,
he began reading aloud from an essay by the editor of Fortune.
The essay made a fundamental distinction between luxury, on
the one hand, and opulence, on the other. As Wilson explained
it, luxury, unlike opulence, offers both elegance and real value,
but it doesnt come cheap.
Certainly Wilsons factory epitomizes his commitment to both
his products and music. With its lined walls of photographs of
eminences such as Ricardo Muti praising Wilson, to its CNC
router and its special automotive paint shop with downdraft
chambers, this sophisticated operation is apt to leave even
the most jaded audiophile quivering with admiration. No
outsourcing to China here; everything in a Wilson loudspeaker
is fashioned specially for it in America, down to the binding
posts. Crossovers are hand-soldered at the factoryno boards
with traces. Fit n finish, as usual with a Wilson, is impeccable.
Even the ports are specially machined. Wilson attaches great
importance to achieving as much uniformity as possible with
a pair of loudspeakers. I expected to stumble upon a team of
seamstresses sewing the speaker grilles.
EQUIpmEnt rEvIEW - Wilson audio Specialties maXX 3 Loudspeaker
Wilsons own office, which is filled with model
airplanes and rockets as well as an original manual
for the Saturn V, is emblematic of his fascination
with technical issues. The factory also contains
several auditioning chambers, one with panels
that can be pulled into the room so as to simulate
an acoustically treacherous environment. At
bottom, Wilson simply cant help himself: Upon
meeting me, he started quizzing me about my
roomreviewing the reviewer, so to speak. After
I told him the dimensions, he disappeared and
a few hours later handed me a paper sketching
out my room and where any nodes might be. He
suggested that there might be a bit more bass in
the right hand rear corner. He was dead-on right.
But all of this attention to detail and fussing
over the dimensions and appearance of his
loudspeakers would be superfluous if they were
unable to deliver the musical goods. As a longtime
Magnepan fan, Ive had a bit of a hankering to go
over and experience the other side of the sound
spectrum. Moving-coil designs almost always
provide more slam and dynamics than planar
ones, and none more so than Wilson. What it
would be like, then, to experience the companys
spanking newand second from the top-of-
the-lineMAXX 3 loudspeaker? The Alexandria,
which retails for $158,000, is a cost no-object
design. Its younger sibling, by contrast, lists for
$68,000. But is the MAXX 3 a pale shadow of its
big brother? Or does it deliver even more relative
value and listening pleasure?
The MAXX 3 represents an attempt to trickle-
down in somewhat more compact form many of
the features that Wilson introduced in the new
version of the Alexandria, which, among other
things, features a redesigned, more efficient
midrange driver which I had the opportunity to
hear at length a year ago at the Brooks Berdan
store outside of Los Angeles. Powered by VTL
Siegfried amplifiers, the Alexandria delivered
gobsmackingly thunderous dynamics coupled
with startling speed in the bass region, which is
quite a feat, one that TAS editor Robert Harley has
explored in his review of the Alexandria. Wilson
himself has said that he decided to alter the
Alexandria after extensive listening sessions at
Viennas Musikverein, where he was able to listen
to the Vienna Philharmonic rehearsing, among
other things, Mahlers glorious Second Symphony
(Resurrection), conducted by Seiji Ozawa. They
had no fewer than eight bass players playing that
day (and one of them, says Wilson, actually owns
a pair of Sophias). The Musikverein has the best
acoustics of any hall I have ever heard. In fact,
it contains two halls, one in the form of a large
shoebox for orchestral and other large-scale
performances as well as a more intimate one for
chamber music.
As it happens, my listening room is in the form
of a shoebox. It also has a concrete floor, which
improves bass response. To help position the
loudspeakers, Wilsons National Sales Director
Peter McGrath came out to my house for several
days. (Wilson rigorously trains its dealers in
its special methodology for speaker setup.)
Assembling the MAXX 3 is a snap. As part of its
redesign of the MAXX 3, Wilson has separate
cabinets for the tweeter and midrange drivers
that can be angled separately. The tweeter is a
Focal that has been modified and the midrange is
a proprietary driver.
Once youve got the bass cabinet with its Focal
11 and 13 woofers set up, you then stack the
tweeter and midrange modules on top. Wilson has
its own set-up regimen for fine-tuning the position
of the speakers that involves calculating the
distance from the listener to the speaker. It relies
upon a system that it devised and calls Aspherical
Group Delay. In theory, it allows Wilson to time-
align the mid and tweeter drivers perfectly, whose
modules, as with the Alexandria, can be shifted
fore and aft as well as rotated. In addition, Wilson
has gone to heroic lengths to isolate and pot the
internal crossovers to increase their immunity to
the distortions induced by the effects of speaker
vibration. It took McGrath, who played me a
number of his recordings of Miamis New World
Symphony, a day before he was satisfied with
their position. I have never moved them from
the spot we both agreed upon was best, about
six feet from the back wall, and three feet from
the sidewalls. The distance from the inner edge
of each speaker to the other was almost eleven
feet.
Even in their unbroken-in state the MAXX 3s
were notable in several respects. First, they set up
a wide and deep soundstage, closer to the scale
of a large orchestra or a full organ than any other
loudspeaker Ive had the chance to hear. Second,
the midrange drivers sensitivity allows the MAXX
3 to deliver a more relaxed and refined sound than
its predecessor, the MAXX 2. Third, it possesses
whiplash speed in the bass that suggests that
port designs, which are often accused of being
a poor mans way of achieving deep bass at the
cost of exactitude, dont always have to represent
a sonic compromise. Fourth, it has a remarkable
purity of timbre; it unfurls different tonal colors
like a peacocks tail. Finally, for all the emphasis
on the dynamic sizzle of Wilson loudspeakers,
perhaps their most outstanding characteristic is
their ability to breatheto play with true fidelity
at low volume. But it did take hundreds of hours
for the speaker to break inthe treble sometimes
had a horrendous shrillness that took a long
time to disappear. However, once it did, the one
remark that visitors to my home made with almost
metronomic regularity was that this was a Wilson
that sounded nothing like Wilsons of yore.
Take the Brazilian Guitar Quartet. Their
recording of the Bach suites for orchestra ranks
high among my favorite transcriptions. The MAXX
situated each guitar in its own space, which a lot
of speakers can do, but what was particularly
fetching was its ability to render the delicacy and
nuance of each instrument. The MAXX 3 had
an unbelievable ability not simply to enunciate
each note crisply but to allow decays to linger on
and die into silence. You hear each crepitation
with uncanny precision, perhaps more than the
performers themselves ever imagined would
be reproduced. (Part of this reproduction was
also due to the superlative Playback Designs
CD player, which impressed Peter McGrath
so much that upon returning home to Florida
he immediately ordered two of them, one for
recording purposes.)
Furthermore, the imaging was simply rock-
solid. Part of this may be attributable to Wilsons
decision to measure each capacitor in his
crossover individually and then use bypass
capacitors to achieve even tighter tolerances than
those specified by their manufacturer. In so doing,
Wilson helps to ensure that each loudspeaker
measures identically. This, Im convinced, helps
improve image solidity to a great degree. That
solidity, in turn, creates a heightened sense of
emancipation among instruments and of rhythmic
security.
The MAXXs, you could say, got rhythm. This
is no small point. While listening to the MAXXs,
I perused pianist Gerald Moores penetrating
autobiography Am I Too Loud? in which he
explains that he regards Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
as the singer nonpareil. Why? According to
Moore, If I had to put my finger on the key to
Fischer-Dieskaus supremacy, setting him apart
from every other singer, I would say, in one word:
Rhythm. This is the life-blood of music and he is
the master of it.
Instead of smearing or blurring, the MAXX
3 thus provides a great, much greater, sense
of individual performers playing together
simultaneously as opposed to a congealed blob.
On one of my precious Fitzwilliam Quartet LPs of
the Shostakovich String quartets, it sounded as
though six feet separated the first violinist from
the violist. The MAXX simply grounds instruments
to a degree unprecedented in my experience.
Similarly, the Beaux Arts trio sounded more
transcendent, more unified than I had ever heard
before on LP. In this regard, I should also mention
that thanks to the generosity of Nagra distributor
John Quick, I enjoyed the chance to try the
elegant Nagra VPS phonostage, which renders
tone colors beautifully and has a liquid sound.
The MAXXs higher sensitivity allows it to
convey the elastic sense of music. Nuances and
colors that make the music come alivesuch
as previously almost imperceptible rubatos and
vibratosare simplicity itself to discern. This
isnt a matter of listening for irrelevant squeaks,
rumbling subway cars, and the like, but vital
musical cues that help create the illusion that the
real thing is transpiring in front of you. In short, the
MAXX constantly astonished me with heretofore
obscured details that the phenomenal Continuum
Caliburn turntable was extracting from the black
grooves; in many ways, it was as though I was
hearing the turntable in an entirely new light.
If the precision and delicacy and finesse of the
MAXX 3 came as something of a surprise, it is
also fuller and more relaxed sounding than its
predecessor, the MAXX 2 (the MAXX 3 is notably
easier to drive than MAXX 2 as it features an
easier load, even though its 4-ohm impedance
means that its sensitivity is closer to 89dB than
the specified 91dB). A comparison of the two
loudspeakers at Wilsons home in Provo first
alerted me to the contrast, but it became even
more apparent as I continued to listen to my pair.
On a CD of Thomas Hampson singing Schubert
lieder, the MAXX reproduced the sound emanating
from his chest, not simply the leading edge of the
note. (Hampson, by the way, is a devout Wilson
fan and ownerWilson told me in a tone of some
incredulity that he met him in the library of the
Musikverein, where Hampson said, Youre David
Wilson? The David Wilson?)
Nor is the MAXX at a loss when it comes to
coherence. No, the three-way crossover isnt quite
as seamless as that of a planar design. How could
it be? I found it very difficult, though, to descry
where the sonic handoffs were taking place, which
seemed to occur with the velvety smoothness
of a star track team passing the baton without
sacrificing a millisecond. Its seamlessness is
particularly notable on the big stuffon Mahlers
Third, conducted by Claudio Abbado, I was
bowled over by the lack of congestion. Tympanis
may be pounding away center stage, but the
violins, flutes, and trumpets are all there in full
glory, unflappably playing away.
And those tympanis, my word! You can crank
this speaker to crushing sound pressure levels
and it will never lose its composure. Quite the
contrary. So blinding is the speed in the nether
regions that you almost hear the mallet descending
an instant before it whacks the tympani. And you
hear not only initial impact on the skin but also
the reverberation in the tympani itself and then
the hall. No doubt about it: Bass is not in short
supply with the MAXX. On the CD Count Basie
Meets Oscar Peterson: The Timekeepers [Pablo]
John Heards groovy bass simply oozes out of
the MAXXs on the cut Im Confessin (That I
Love You). One things for sure: I cant imagine
anyone not loving the bass reproduction, which
has a telluric quality. My sense, however, was that
for the speaker to produce a towering soundstage
and stygian bass it really required a high-powered
tube or solid-state amplifier. Or maybe Im just a
sucker for grip and control!
Despite their reputation for boom and sizzle,
the MAXXs never seemed splashy or to have a
hebephrenic quality. Instead, they are almost
conservatively voiced. No single part of the
frequency spectrum seems to dominate another
or become obtrusive. Some of this can probably
be chalked up to the amazing inertness of Wilson
cabinets. Yes, when really pushed on rap music it
was possible to feel some vibration, but it wasnt
as though the speaker were trembling. And the
port would expel puffs of air that you could
feel with your hand, but there was no auditory
evidence of chuffing, which is pretty unusual in my
experience. The MAXXs sense of command also
may explain its notably pristine micro-dynamics.
TAS editor Neil Gader perceptively noted that the
MAXX is so precise it appears to put a kind of
miniature halo around each note.
Though the speaker is notably smoother than
the MAXX 2 in the treble region, it is a tad drier
in the mid-to-treble region than some other
distinguished competitors such as the JM Lab.
Here Neil complained that he felt that cymbals
were consistently located too high, perhaps
because of the driver configuration. For me,
however, this wasnt an issue. More generally,
on the spectrum between lush and analytical,
Wilson Audio Specialties MAXX 3 Loudspeaker
Drivers: 11 and 13 woofers, 6 midrange, 1 inverted
dome tweeter
frequency response: 19.5Hz22.5 kHz
Impedance: 4 ohms
Sensitivity: 91db
Weight: 450 lbs./speaker
SpECS & pRICINg
U.S.
price: $68,000/pr
WILSON AUDIO
SpECIALTIES
2233 Mountain Vista Ln,
Provo, Utah 84606
(801) 377-2233
wilsonaudio.com
U.K.
price: On agreement
ABSOLUTE SOUNDS
58 Durham Road,
London, SW20 0TW
+44 (0)20 8971 3909
absolutesounds.com
pREvIOUS pAgE
the MAXX does lean toward the lattera quality
that, Im convinced, helps create a tremendous
percussive effect on piano recordings. Whats
more, the Wilson opens up the recording studio to
a degree Ive never heard beforeyoull hear the
drummer to the far left, stuck in his booth, while
the piano plays centerstage. With choirs, each
voice is almost distinctly identifiable, such is the
accuracy of the MAXX. But no one will mistake it
for a forgiving loudspeaker.
If I had my druthers, Id flesh out the mids and
highs just a tad. The slight leanness that I heard on
some recordings may be a function of the resistors
that Wilson uses to prevent its drivers from being
blown out by excessive current or a crossover
point. Or it might just be that the inverted titanium
dome tweeter is the culprit. Ultimately, I felt that
the Wilsons sounded their best with the tubed
Wotan amplifiers. But make no mistake: The
neutrality of the MAXX is what Wilson is striving
fora conscious design decision, I suspect, not
to sugarcoat the sound but to allow dreadful
recordings to remain just that.
Its also the case that the MAXX has a highly
evolved passive crossover network of capacitors
and inductors, which have their plusses and
minuses. (Ive found my Magnepan 20.1 to pass
the most information when run actively and using
the crossovers volume controls, which allows me
to dispense with a preamplifier.) But running the
MAXX in an active configuration would require
several amplifiers and is probably a nonstarter as
far as the factory is concerned. As Paul Seydor
has observed in his thorough review of the Wilson
Duette [Issue 176], an outboard crossover offers
the chance to experiment with equalization to
compensate for room effects. But this is an audio
arena that many manufacturers are loath to enter
as it presents a new set of difficulties. When I
made bold to mention active crossovers to Wilson
himself, he simply raised his eyebrows. Forbidden
fruit.
But these are nits Im picking. Now that Ive
picked them, its time to assay the more forbidding
question of whether the MAXX matches up to the
Alexandria. Lets say it covers a good deal of the
distance, but doesnt quite get to the finish line.
The blunt fact is that the Alexandria is in its own
stratosphere. There are several areas in which the
Alexandria surpasses the MAXX.
First, the Alexandria has an array of dynamic
gradations that the MAXX does not possess. The
Alexandria has an amazing ability to ramp up
from pianissimo to forte, then double forte, then
triple forte in the space of a few seconds. It simply
seems to possess no dynamic boundaries. Then
theres the issue of bass. For all its precision and
power, the MAXX does not have the extension of
the Alexandria. Finally, the Alexandria, to my little
ears, has a more expansive midrange.
None of this should come as a surprise. If
you have the passion, the space, and the green
stuff, the Alexandria will be the ticket, should you
covet a Wilson. But for almost another $90,000,
this verdict shouldnt come as a surprise. The
startling thing, I would say, isnt where the MAXX
falls short but how close it really does come to
the Alexandria. The truth is that the Wilson MAXX
3 is superior, overall, to the original Alexandria.
It represents a laudable effort to adapt the
advances in the new Alexandria to improve the
MAXX line. This isnt trickle-down technology, but
a cascading waterfall of improvements.
I cant resist ending as I began with an
anecdote: When the delivery man from a shipping
company caught a glimpse of the Wilson MAXX
3 loudspeaker through the door leading to my
garage, he asked, Remember the movie The
Italian Job? In it, a gang of thieves fantasizes
about how they would like to spend their ill-
gotten gold bullion; Left Ear indicates that he
covets a villa in Spain that boasts a special room
just for his shoes, while Lyle makes it clear that
he pines for a cutting-edge stereo system with
some rather unique abilities. As the shipper put
it, Can those speakers blow a womans clothes
off? Well, I couldnt honestly answer that query
affirmatively. But I can say that there doesnt seem
to be much else that the stupendous MAXX 3 is
incapable of accomplishing. An aristocrat among
loudspeakers, it offers the promise of a lifetime of
enjoyment.
But it wont, of course, come cheap. As Count
Basie says on one of his recordings, One more
time, once more, by which I wish to plead
indulgence for what is truly the final anecdote:
When my father, who has a modest system,
listened to a classical cut on the MAXX 3, he
quietly asked after it ended, How much do these
speakers cost? I answered, $68,000. Without
missing a beat, he responded, I guess thats
what it takes to get this kind of sound.
Yes, it does.

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