LOUDSPEAKERS

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go to: Contents | Features | Bookshelf, Stand-Mount and Desktop | Floorstanding | Editors' Choice Awards Harbeth M40.1 $12,990–$14,990 fidelisav.com The new version of the M40 (REG’s reference) has a slightly more forward midrange, more “domesticated” (less “pro”) tonal balance, and higher sensitivity. A BBC-style three-way monitor, with Harbeth bass and mid drivers and SEAS Excel tweeter. Neutral sound, exceptional midrange clarity, refined and extended treble, almost full bass extension in room, and surprisingly “outside the box” imaging. REG, 190 DALI Epicon 6 $13,495–$13,995 dali-speakers.com This second from the largest of DALI’s new Epicon Series is a modern-looking speaker, which features DALI’s latest developments in driver technology, including mid/ bass drivers that are said to offer lower distortion via special magnet structures. The speaker sounds extraordinarily even, unprecedentedly pure, and grain-free. With full bass (though not the whole bottom octave) to cover both orchestral and rock music convincingly, its balance is somewhat on the warm side with response contoured to recess the upper mids. REG, 230 GamuT M’inenT M5 $13,500 gamutaudio.com These elegant, narrow-front floorstanders of moderate size are optimized for presentation of soundstage, and they do the job with a convincing vanishing act and a large and deep stereo presentation. Though not quite neutrally balanced due to some midrange forwardness, they are clean and pure sounding and have excellent resolution of fine detail and an impressive dynamic capability for speakers of moderate size. REG, Issue 220 Magnepan 20.7 $13,850 magnepan.com These Maggies’ magical ability to transport listeners to a different space and time and to there realistically recreate (with lifelike scope and size) the sound of acoustic instruments and the venue they were recorded in is extraordinary. It almost goes without saying (since these are Magnepans), but the 20.7s are also incredibly good values, although you’re going to have to bring a lot of high-quality power to this party, and you’re going to need a good deal of room to house two speakers the size and width of a couple of NFL linebackers. JV, forthcoming Thiel CS3.7 $13,900 thielaudio.com The best speaker yet from one of the world’s top designers, with major breakthroughs in driver design, overall technology, and build-quality for the money. More importantly, it boasts reference-quality sound with flat timbre, superb resolution and transient response, bass depth and power just short of the most expensive super-speakers, and excellent soundstaging and imaging. One of the most coherent and realistic speakers around without a touch of romance or exaggerated highs. AHC, 186 MartinLogan Summit X $14,995 martinlogan.com A hybrid electrostatic and a technological triumph. A Curvilinear Line Source is coupled to an active bass system, which includes a pair of 10" aluminum cone woofers and two 200W Class D amplifiers. Expect bass extension to 20Hz with plenty of slam and no discontinuity at the crossover. Exceptional soundstage transparency is also on tap with traditional ESL transient speed and detail resolution. Tonal balance is slightly on the lean side. Its capacitive impedance mandates a solid-state amplifier with a high damping factor for accurate treble reproduction. DO, 209 B&W 802 Diamond $15,000 bwspeakers.com The 802 Diamond redefines the performance you can expect from a $15,000 loudspeaker. It delivers many of the qualities we associate with the esoteric designs of small tweaky manufacturers, but in a relatively mainstream product. This significant recasting of its predecessor features new drivers including a diamond tweeter that is outstandingly high in resolution. Couple that to a warm, rich, and full bass, along with a nicely resolved midrange, and you have one of the great values in loudspeakers today. RH, 208 Marten Django $15,000 marten.se The Django wowed TAS editors at last year’s CES, and the review sample lives up to the promise. While the Django breaks no design ground, its canny choice of materials results in a speaker that, on many tracks, proved virtually indistinguishable from AT’s reference. Warm in character (lower piano notes are ravishing), the Django offers needle-sharp transients; details emerge distinctly and naturally. Most importantly, this is an unfailingly engaging speaker. Alan Taffel, 228 Von Schweikert UniField 3 Mk2 $15,000 vonschweikert.com Venerable speaker-designer Albert Von Schweikert set out to produce a tiny, full-range, single-voiced speaker for small rooms that would not rob you of the deep bass, image size, and dynamic scale of big speakers. The design he settled on is very nearly unique—an “augmented” one-way. That you can occasionally hear the augmentation doesn’t change the fact that throughout most of its range the UniField Three really does speak with one beautiful and persuasively lifelike voice. JV, 199 Burmester B30 $15,995 burmester.de The B30 speakers offer tremendous stage width and depth, with wholly convincing imaging. However, because they are less adept at reproducing image height, the B30s cannot conjure the grand scale that larger speakers achieve. But their slim profile does nothing to hamper deep, detailed bass. AT, 212 Acoustic Zen Crescendo $16,000 acousticzen.com A superbly engineered transmissionline speaker, the Crescendo is a three-way, 5-driver design featuring paper cone woofers with underhung voice coils. Tonal balance is quite neutral. And while the Crescendo lacks the ultimate in bass extension, it makes up for it with superlative time-domain performance, easily exceeding that of the ubiquitous bass-reflex enclosure. The quasiribbon tweeter is also a winner, singing sweetly and with convincing textural purity. DO’s favorite box speaker under $30k. DO, 229 Nola Micro Grand $16,500 nolaspeakers.com Compact in size [24" x 9.5" x 9.5"] the Micro Grand has only four small drivers, a single trueribbon, one cone-type midrange, and two four-inch woofers. It is only marginally larger than many a so-called “monitor” speaker, but the first sonic impression it makes is of anything but small sound. It has a capacious soundstage, a kind of sonic purity, and the ability to unravel dense and complex orchestral textures. It can easily cull the sheep from the herd, losing neither sight nor context of either. HP, 210 Rockport Technologies Mira II $16,500 rockporttechnologies.com The Mira is seductively warm and rich, yet gives up little in terms of detail and openness. Perhaps its most notable strength, because it usually 110 Guide to High-Performance Loudspeakers www.theabsolutesound.com previous page NEXT page
go to: Contents | Features | Bookshelf, Stand-Mount and Desktop | Floorstanding | Editors' Choice Awards comes with only the most costly designs, is a dynamic energy in the upper bass and lower treble regions that brings tricky instruments such as drums, bass, brass, and strings to vivid life. WG, 149 Eficion F300 $16,900 eficion.com A lovely loudspeaker that does not attempt more than it can achieve, which is to say that it will not deliver souped-up bass or an enormous soundstage at the expense of true fidelity. Instead, it offers a wonderfully transparent midrange and preternaturally airy highs, thanks to its air-motion tweeter. The F300 has many of the virtues of a planar loudspeaker but adds dynamic punch to the mix. JHb, 224 Wilson Audio Sophia Series 3 $17,900 wilsonaudio.com The entry-level floorstander of the Wilson line, the three-way Sophia 3 possesses a divine range of expression, tonally and dynamically. It can play fiendishly loud while remaining utterly composed. Yet it doesn’t need volume to get its blood flowing. The listening experience is physical in the sense that a solid harmonic framework underpins every instrument. Equally impressive are its integrity, extension, slam, and attack. NG, 220 Raidho C 1.1 $18,000 raidho.dk Greater “realism” in hi-fi is always a matter of more and less. Where it plays linearly (which is everywhere but below 50Hz or so) Michael Borresen’s elegant Raidho C 1.1 twoway, ribbon/cone, stand-mount minimonitor gives you both—more detail and less electro-mechanical noise— to a truly astounding degree, and without any bleaching of tone color. The result, on select great recordings, is a “realism” that not only raises goosebumps but that can actually extend beyond the momentary to an entire cut. An honest-to-goodness great loudspeaker. JV, 224 YG Acoustics Carmel $18,000 ygacoustics.com The two-way floorstanding Carmel sports a milled aluminum enclosure, has a crossover that optimizes both frequency and phase response simultaneously, and uses very high-quality parts. The result is a speaker that offers smooth, neutrally balanced, near-full-range frequency response, plus superb transient speed, tonal purity, and resolution. What is more, the Carmel serves up tightly focused imaging and eerily realistic 3-D soundstaging. At its best when used with very high-quality ancillary equipment in small-tomidsized rooms. CM, 209 Amphion Krypton 3 $19,900 amphion.fi This large speaker is the top of the range of Amphion’s controlledradiation speakers. It is designed to minimize adverse room effects via a flow-resistance enclosure that reduces side and rear radiation and a wave-guided tweeter. And indeed the speaker sounds unusually direct in its sonic presentation, as if the room around had all but vanished. It is somewhat idiosyncratic in tonal character, however. REG, 223 Steinway/Lyngdorf S Series $19,900 steinwaylyngdorf.com This all-in-one (everything but sources) system is revolutionary in concept and superlative in sonics. Combining corner woofers with wall-mount mid/tweeter units, tied together with sophisticated DSP processing and bi-amplification, including adaptive room correction via the RoomPerfect system, the compact S Series system offers almost completely neutral sound, startling dynamic capacity, extreme resolution without exaggerated top end, and an open window into the recorded acoustics at a surprisingly reasonable price for a whole system. REG, 219 $20,000 and above Sonus faber Elipsa $20,000 sumikoaudio.net Yet another gorgeous speaker from this outstanding Italian manufacturer, the Elipsa’s tone colors are ravishing, its overall sound smooth, warm, and intensely seductive. At the same time, it will easily show differences in recordings as well as associated components. WG, 173 Sony SS-AR2 $20,000 sony.com/ar1 This elegantly finished, moderatelysized floorstander offers the same design philosophy and methods as the larger AR1, the AR2 being intended for smaller rooms. The AR2 has beautifully natural sound and enough bass and dynamic capacity to do justice to large-scaled music in rooms of less than palatial size, while also doing an exquisite job of small-scaled music (think female vocals, if you will). Somewhat midrange-oriented in balance rather than ruler-flat neutral, it is very convincing overall. REG, 229 Usher Be-20 $21,199 usheraudiousa.com Offering true full-range frequency response and a sound that is highly dynamic, extremely detailed, and very three-dimensional, this berylliumdriver-equipped floorstander is accurate enough to delight leftbrainers, yet soulful enough to capture the hearts of right-brainers. It looks stunning, too. Be aware that this hefty speaker needs room to breathe and works best in larger spaces. CM, 183 Revel Salon2 $21,998 revelspeakers.com The result of five years of intensive research into every aspect of loudspeaker performance, the Revel Salon2 represents a genuine breakthrough in dynamic loudspeakers. Although impressive in every performance aspect, the Salon2’s treble is the cleanest, most natural, and best integrated RH has heard from a dynamic transducer. Extremely natural rendering of timbre and dynamics. Bring a highpowered amplifier. RH, 178 mbl 120 $23,030 (with stands) mbl-northamerica.com The new omnidirectional mbl120 has been specially engineered for medium-sized rooms—and in such environs it sounds fabulous. The soundstage it throws has never been more holographic or enveloping. More extended across the frequency spectrum and far less colored in the bass than the 121, it is a more refined speaker in every category. The best small MBL yet. NG 228 Audio Physic Avantera $24,000 audiophysic.de This slender, stylish, seven-driver three-and-a-half-way represents German speaker manufacturer Audio Physic’s latest attempt to live up to its motto: “No loss of fine detail.” To JV’s ear, the Avantera succeeds impressively. Not only is the Avantera exceptionally finely detailed; it is also explosively dynamic, with a power, weight, and impact that are astonishing in such a demure transducer. Capable of a superb disappearing act, terrific treble, and a paradigmatically seamless blend of its many drivers. JV, 220 Vandersteen 5A Carbon $24,000 vandersteen.com This upgraded version of Vandersteen’s Model 5 brings the carbon-fiber-clad balsawood midrange cones from the Model 7 to a much lower price point. Model 5 owners can upgrade to Carbon status for $8650. Featuring a selfpowered 12" push-pull woofer with EQ adjustments below 100Hz, the 5A Carbon can deliver extraordinary bass extension. But the real magic is in the carbon-fiber and balsawood drivers, which deliver astonishingly low coloration, high resolution, and a sense of top-to-bottom seamlessness. AHC, 219 111 Guide to High-Performance Loudspeakers www.theabsolutesound.com previous page NEXT page
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