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Sony SS-AR2
Chip Off the Old Block
Robert E. Greene
The Sony SS-AR2 is a smaller version of the Sony SS-AR1 that appeared to general acclaim
a year or so ago. Sony is at some pains to make clear that the AR2 is not in any way a
compromised version of the design principles of the AR1. It is simply smaller, to fit acoustically,
as well as physically, into smaller rooms. The same standards of speaker design as high art are
applied in the AR2 as in the AR1, and both are creations of the same designer, Yoshiyuki Kaku, who
has worked at Sony for many years studying how to make the sound of speakers as nearly ideal as
possible. In my view, the AR1 was a remarkable speaker, and so is the AR2. It is just smaller.
Smaller does not mean small in sound, however. In a room
of anything like ordinary domestic size, the AR2 produces
abundant bass and life-like dynamic levels. (In fact, at the
2012 T.H.E. Show in Newport, Sony demo’d the AR2 in a
large ballroom, a situation that the AR2s handled with
aplomb and distinction, producing one of the best sounds
at the show.) And it has extraordinary sonic qualities of its
own, independently of its big brother.
Before the AR1, for all its size and importance in audio,
Sony was not usually thought of as a major source of
high-end speakers. The AR1 changed that, and the AR2
solidifies the change. Sony is definitely here to stay in the
high-end speaker market, and the AR1 turned out to be
anything but a “one-hit wonder.”
Like the AR1, the AR2 is a combined work of technology
and what one can only call art. The technology is there in
the high driver quality. (Although the sizes of the drivers are
different than those in the AR1, they’re still custom-made
by the same manufacturer, Scanspeak.) But the art is the
part of the picture that is most unusual.
Many speakers today have high-tech, ultra-quality
drivers. Few have cabinets designed and built like musical
instruments, made of specifically chosen wood from
special locations, Finnish birch and hard maple from
Hokkaido forests in Japan, harvested at the time of the
year when the wood is at its hardest. As with the AR1, one
thinks inevitably of stories of Antonio Stradivari going out
into the forests to listen to the trees fall and picking the
ones that “sounded right” to him as they fell as the source
for wood for his violins. This is just one aspect of the
remarkable attention to detail that makes this speaker what
it is. Seemingly every aspect of the design that has sonic
significance has been extraordinarily carefully considered.
And it shows: The sound of the AR2 has a refinement that
goes far beyond what most speakers aspire to—without
sacrificing dynamic punch and bass. Not to put too fine a
point on it, the sound of the AR2 is really something! But
it sounds somewhat different from the AR1, as it happens.
Appearance and First Impressions of the Sound
The AR2 is a floorstanding speaker of moderate size, 37½"
high with an 11" wide by 16" deep footprint. It has a superbly
executed “piano-black” finish that is very attractive visually
but makes the speaker inconspicuous, more like a guest
with exquisite manners than the bodybuilder flexing
muscles that is brought to mind by a lot of high-end designs.
85 Guide to High-Performance Loudspeakers www.theabsolutesound.com
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