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HP’s
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Speaker Systems
The Nola Grand Reference Mk IV
$140,000 (standard finish)
nolaloudspeakers.com
This “statement” design, by Carl Marchisotto, former protégé of Jon
Dahlquist, had been evolving in ways that are refinements of the original
design, rather than any radical rethinking of the four-tower system. (The
two front towers do most of the work, since they contain the four-per-side
midbass drivers, the six midrange units, and the nine Raven ribbon tweeters.)
The latest change, however, is most striking, since Marchisotto scuttled all
its midrange drivers, replacing them with slightly smaller but smoother and
faster-sounding units. Oddly enough, the first thing we heard were sonic
improvements outside the midrange: The highs from the ribbon tweeters
sounded more open, airier, and a bit “sweeter” in the
same way that the real thing sounds sweeter in the
top octaves. Then we found the lows more focused,
tighter, and much more of a whole cloth with the rest
of the frequency spectrum. The two woofer towers,
operating below 40Hz and consisting of four 12-inch
ported drivers, had up until now been the Achilles heel
of the handsome-to-behold and costly-to-own system.
It occurred to me that maybe it was the upgrading of
the crossover unit, also part of the Mk IV redesign,
that might have made that critical difference at the
frequency extremes, since Marchisotto has radically
improved the capacitors in the external (and now much
larger) crossover chassis and used Nordost wiring (and
banana plugs) throughout. Marchisotto says he is now
using capacitors in the entirely redesigned and enlarged
crossover that are rated at 1200 volts DC (tolerance of
one percent), monsters that are four inches long with
a two-inch diameter. All the internal wiring is Nordost
Valhalla, which is superb in delivering rock-solid lows.
Even so, you’ll not get the best out of the woofs unless
you sock it to them with plenty of power. That has meant, in our case,
using a second ASR Emitter II to provide a well-nigh-perfect match and
big thrills for the kick-ass-bass crowd, among whose number I sometimes
find myself. With this system, as currently constituted, if the information
is on the disc (be it CD or LP), you will hear it, and hear it as an inherent,
continuously flowing part of the original, rather than with the kind of
imposed definition that some call “hi-fi.” There maybe other “statement”
speakers that have the authority of these speakers, but none will surpass
the Nola’s ability to give you an uncanny sense of being in the space with
the performers.
The Magnepan MG 20.1 hybrid ribbon/planar
system
$12,500
magnepan.com
Dollar for dollar, these top-of-the-line Maggies represent the “best buy”
in high-end audio. They have some critical advantages over much of their
competition. The system consists of designer Jim Winey’s fabled true ribbon
tweeter, and lower down, his much improved planar panels for the midrange
and the bass. Because the speaker’s elements are free-standing panels, the
Maggies need no enclosure, so you’ll never hear the sound of a “box,” one
of the most pernicious colorations in audio. Since they also operate in dipolar
fashion (the sound emanating from the panels, front and rear), the 20.ls have
an inherent technical and acoustic advantage: They, like almost all dipolars,
cancel out certain low-frequency resonant nodes. The absence of all these
colorations gives the Maggies a freedom from aural strain that is not only
refreshing, but to these ears, a closer replica of the sound of music itself.
In this regard, they are just about unique in the field of high-end speaker
systems. The drivers are fast—not electrostatically fast in the artificial and
thin sense. So fast, that the initial attack takes precedence over its somewhat
awkward rendering of decay-tails lower down in the spectrum. The biggest
disadvantage here, for lovers of power music, is the
tendency of the bass panels to “flap” when faced with
great big low-frequency pulses at fortissimo levels. You
may also want to watch out for this if you’re considering
using the Maggies in a movie-oriented multichannel
system. It will be inevitable that you’ll blow the fuses
on the tweeters if you try to replicate theater sound
levels (beware the DVD of Master and Commander),
and, if you keep on pushing it, you may even fry the
tweets. (They are easily replaced.) The advantage of the
Maggies in such a system, however, is the extremely
clear articulation it gives to dialogue and vocals. Also
keep in mind that when the .1 channel is handled by
subs (ours are four Thunderbolt IIIs from Nola), the
Maggies won’t be aflappin’.
These speakers are not high in sensitivity, and they
do require a hefty amount of power. Winey designed
them to be particularly forgiving of some of the
transgressions of transistorized equipment (gear that
usually has the power). And there are, if you’re going
for these in a two-channel system, audible, though most
minor, discontinuities in character between the ribbon and both the midbass
and low-bass panel. But the 20.1s sound virtually seamless, so striking is their
overall coherency, when compared with the big building-block speakers
out there these days (you know the ones I mean, with boxes atop boxes).
Remember I said “virtually.” If it’s truth to the music that’s your passion, this
is the speaker you ought to start with.
The Marten Coltrane system
$50,000
martendesign.com
[Review to come.] Talk about a seductive sound system, this Scandinavian
hybrid design is so mightily enchanting that it just about disarms the seriousminded
or perfectionist critic. The stratospheric top octaves are handled by
a “diamond” tweeter that, it is said, extends all the way out past 100kHz.
Sure sounds like it, too. The other two drivers that handle the rest of the
spectrum are ceramics—the first such I’ve heard in a setup of my devising
(translated, that means here in Sea Cliff, carefully positioned in Room 2). The
120 October 2006 The Absolute Sound