For reference, a conventional cone-type speaker has a, you guessed it, circular cone or dome which is the surface that moves air back and forth. This back-and-forth movement of creates sound waves that your ear and brain can hear. The cone diaphragm is moved by a “voice coil” which is…a coiled wire. That wire is placed inside a magnet. The audio signal from your amplifier goes through the coil. When audio electrical current goes through a wire that is in a magnetic field, the wire will move with the music. That movement in turn moves the speaker cone. Woofer cones are typically 8-12” in diameter and tweeter domes are typically 1” in diameter. This information will be relevant in a moment.

An electrostatic speaker also moves air back and forth with a diaphragm. But the diaphragm in an electrostat is a large sheet of mylar which is a thin (about 0.0001 inches). Even though the G7-7C diaphragm is 30- 40 times the size of the cone in a 12” woofer. The Sound Lab diaphragm, despite its size, weighs only as much as 2mm of air occupying the same area as the diaphragm. The “secret” here is that the electrostatic diaphragm is driven over its entire surface, rather than at the central point of the cone. Less diaphragm stiffness and weight are required. The driving force in an electrostat is provided by charging the diaphragm to a very high voltage and then placing the diaphragm between two flat, acoustically open arrays of insulated wires that carry the audio signal stepped up to as much as 30,000 volts. The audio signal and the electrostatic field on the diaphragm create electrical attraction and repulsion and the diaphragm moves to the music signal.

Let’s consider some of the advantages of electrostatic speakers. This is not a complete list but gives you some idea why great speaker designers like Peter Walker of Quad and Arthur Janzen at Janszen and KLH, Arnie Nudell at Infinity, Gayle Sanders at Martin Logan, and Harold Beveridge at Beveridge and others have tried their hands at the idea.

Electrostatic Advantages:

• Low mass diaphragm can be less resonant than cones, though it still has resonances
• Diaphragm resonances are damped by the relatively high air mass
• When executed as a dipole, there is a lack of cabinet resonances
• When large enough, no crossover is needed
• Dipole operation excites fewer modal room resonances
• Dipole operation and wide panels can reduce lateral first reflections in untreated rooms
• Can be configured as a line source so that floor and ceiling reflections are minimized
• Exemplary phase response
• Lack of hysteresis non-linearity because the driver system is non-magnetic

Of course, there is no free lunch, so electrostats face tradeoffs:

• The speakers tend to be physically large when designed to product bass
• There often are practical limits to the efficiency or sensitivity of the speakers; related to this there can be limits to the maximum output capability
• Dipole radiation leads to bass roll-off which must be compensated or accepted
• Electrostats are fundamentally capacitors, and this load is not tolerated by all amplifiers

Okay, enough theory, but I want you to understand that this speaker not only looks different but is acoustically and electrically different from most speakers. It is electrically, mechanically and acoustically different from planar magnetic speakers as well as cones-in-a-box designs.

Sound Quality

We generally don’t pay too much attention to theory because listening often comes with surprises and, anyway, we listen to music not to white papers and spec sheets. So, how does the Sound Lab G7-7C sound, using the absolute sound as our reference? Remember, we’re trying to describe what the G7 does, not tell you whether this particular combination of lower and higher distortions is the one that would yield musical engagement for you.

I’ll start with my view of what makes the Sound Lab exceptional. We’ll then get to tradeoffs, because every audio product has tradeoffs and you need to evaluate those. But if what is exceptional isn’t interesting or motivating, then who cares about tradeoffs?

Imaging

The size of the soundstage presented by the G7s is quite large compared to standard box speakers. To be clear about this, by soundstage we mean the width, depth and height of the virtual stage where you can imagine the performers are playing. Roughly, I would say the G7s present a soundstage that can be twice the width of what you hear with most box speakers. In addition, the G7s don’t have the strict height limitation that many box speakers do, where image height sometimes seems restricted to a rectangle that stops roughly at the tops of the speakers. Depth is excellent too, though this seems to me to be matched by the best box speakers in that it extends to or beyond the wall of the room behind the speakers. So, overall, the soundstage seems substantially larger than with conventional speakers.

But, so what? Well, I have commented before that many box speakers present interesting and detailed images, but that these seem miniaturized compared with live music. With the Sound Labs, this miniaturization is pretty much gone. It sounds quite a bit like you are in, say, the 5^th row at a club or row F or G in a concert hall. The scale is rather like it would be if the performers were…in your room or in a room somewhat larger than your room.

This “you are there” feature extends to the size of the performers. They aren’t unnaturally large. They aren’t unnaturally small either. They seem about right, though they may be somewhat bigger than the “miniature performers and a miniature stage” that we often are accustomed to. With the Sound Labs, performers are arranged on a bigger stage than most of us are used to from stereo reproduction and the performers are appropriately sized.

I will note that some instruments are incorrectly sized. This is something I have commented on with piano on other speakers as well. It appears that engineers sometimes prefer to mike the left and right side of pianos with different mics and then piano is presented as spreading across the stage. The Sound Labs can’t erase this error and neither can other speakers.

The soundspace, which is the sense of the size of the hall or venue where the performers are playing, is also well presented with the G7. This seems like a coherent extension of the larger soundstage (remember, it is not the same thing), and it lacks the occasional tendency of some box speakers to stop the sense of soundspace around the left and right edges of the stage. We’ll get to this in more detail later, but the excellent deep bass of the G7 also helps with soundspace portrayal.

Transparency

Another standout quality of the G7s is what we normally call transparency. This is simply the sense that the musical signal is presented without any fog or screen or haze on the “metaphorical window” through which we are listening. This is the kind of thing you sometimes don’t notice until it is gone. But when the veil is lifted, the sense that the performers are in the room, initially set up by the imaging, is significantly enhanced.

The ability to follow specific performers on live recordings is an unexpected but welcome benefit of transparency. Listening to Southern Man on the 4 Way Street album from Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young was a lesson in how well Neil Young and Steven Stills could do improv electric guitar work. Similarly, on Little Feat’s live album Waiting for Columbus, the supporting bass work of Kenny Gradney along with Bill Payne’s keyboards were as easy to follow as if they had their own dedicated channels.

The audible effects of transparency more generally are a believable level of rich detail for each instrument, so that you hear the sound of the body or the strings or the bow or the drumhead or the vocalist’s throat and chest. Harmonics aren’t diminished unnaturally. There is a sense of air around the instrument as if it is being played in space, which of course it usually is. This helps you relax into the music.

Transient Quickness

Now related to transparency is the idea of transient quickness, which you hear clearly on the G7s. Plucked guitar or drum strikes or piano hammers have a speed and sharpness that is impactful and also natural. Again, you might not miss this if you don’t listen to much live music, but when you hear it, you sense that it is right. It brings a level of excitement and dynamic transition to the music that is very engaging, like the real thing.

On the neo-classical album La Folia de la Spagna, there is a main thread of somewhat noodly renaissance recorder and harpsichord. On the G7s, this is clear and detailed. But then, filling in some of the missing music due to the toll taken on the sheet music paper over five centuries, the Atrium Musicae de Madrid substitutes some claps of wooden blocks. I seriously just about jumped off my listening sofa the first time I heard this on the G7s.

Bandwidth

The G7s are broadband devices. You might expect excellent high frequency response, though I think most of what you’d respond to is the transparency I mentioned before, not the high frequency cutoff. But, subject to my next topic of adjustability, the G7 extends easily to 20 kHz. Dome tweeters can do that too, however, so that isn’t what is exceptional. Treble distortion is, since it seems exceptionally low on the G7. To go with this, at the low end of the frequency spectrum, the G7 is pretty much flat to below 30 Hz. There are cone speakers that go there, too, but such capability is rare for a dipole. Sound Lab apparently has patents on their methods for achieving this.

Adjustability

You might consider this a feature or a bug, but the G7 is a very adjustable speaker. This gives you a somewhat better chance at getting the speaker to work well in your room if you are willing to put in some work. The adjustments start with a brilliance control that sets the upper midrange and treble output level. I set the level for about a 2 db/octave slope above the midrange, though I must say a line source with that slope sounds closer to the normal treble slope than the numbers might indicate. On the energizer there is also a bass level control, which affects output below the Schroeder frequency of about 200 Hz. I set this to +3db for my room. It makes a substantial change and allowed the bass range to measure flat rather than rolling off.

Beyond the control knobs, the positioning of the speakers is a major factor. With such a wide speaker, toe-in or lack thereof has a significant effect on midrange and treble output. In addition, the separation of the speakers has a meaningful effect on imaging. I thought the G7s were able to support wider spacing than normal while imaging well; in fact, the best imaging was with the speaker centers about 4’ farther apart than I use for most box speakers.

Bass is an area where positioning the G7 may give less control of output in the ‘extra oomph’ direction than with box speakers. Since box speakers are omnidirectional in the bass, they excite all room modes, and with positioning you can get bigger, boomier sound. I don’t recommend that generally, but it is a tuning option that dipoles don’t have to the same degree because they are not as able to excite lateral and vertical modes.

Other Factors To Consider

Now we come to a group of factors that aren’t what make the Sound Labs exceptional. These aren’t even necessarily tradeoffs, but they are qualities you should be aware of if you are serious about these speakers.

Voicing

The G7s have a slightly midrange-forward sound. This is consonant with the transparency and dynamics I mentioned before as exceptional qualities. The voicing slightly emphasizes the character of clarity, and here I think the voicing is artfully judged for some listeners. At the same time upper bass and lower midrange get relatively less emphasis and so the weight in those frequency bands is slightly diminished. This avoids muddying things up, but on some recordings it can sound slightly thin. Perhaps the recordings are mastered that way.

The frequency response measurements show how small the effect is, so it truly fits with the idea of voicing. You can see an elevation of about 2 db broadly executed between 400 Hz and 2500 Hz. And, as mentioned before, you can see flat output to below 30 Hz (the limit of this room given the lateral null).

However, some will want to note that the bass to midrange area does not follow the perceptually derived Harman curve which would have low bass up about 5 db relative to the midrange. Note that the Harman research shows about 25% of people prefer the Sound Lab type of voicing to the standard Harman slope.

In the treble, the curve is more Harman-like, falling about 2 db per octave with my settings. I should note that it doesn’t sound quite like that, but more like perhaps -1 db per octave. In any event, the brilliance control can tweak this and you can get flat response in the treble if for some reason you want it (the Harman curve tends to reflect the natural fall off in high frequency energy as you move from recording mic distance to distances where the audience actually experiences music, so “flat” isn’t really flat but rather elevated from that perspective).

I should note that the G7 voicing seems to reduce bass punch a bit compared to box speakers you may be accustomed to. The G7s might be ideal candidates for use with a very carefully set up multi-woofer system. It is pure speculation, but the shape and adjustability of the response curve might make smoothing out room effects relatively easy (some all speakers in real rooms need) while not going overboard on bass level. While I know many of you will view the basic G7 price point as “excessive”, for those shopping speakers in the price range from $50k to $100k, using the G7 as a platform to address imaging, transparency and room acoustics might be a shorter path to the state of the art than a more expensive box speaker. If you are willing to do the work.

Amplifier Requirements

As mentioned before, the SoundLabs have different impedance characteristics than conventional speakers. They are nominally 9-ohm speakers, but they rise to 32 ohms in the low bass.

I primarily used an Audio Research 160S for my testing. This has 8 and 16 ohm taps, both of which sounded natural, though I ended up using the 8 ohms taps most of the time. The 160S delivers 140 watts per channel into either 8 or 16 ohms, and I thought this was around the minimum you would want in a room of my size (4200 cubic feet). While the 160S meters were dancing around, the sound never seemed strained, and the dynamics were impressive even when I had the volume relatively high for my tastes (85 db max, and I end up in the upper 70s when playing things “loud”).

Basically, the G7s are somewhat less efficient than typical box speakers. Do note that sound levels fall off more gradually with a line source than with box speakers, so in larger rooms the G7 may not need as much added power as you might think. Still, I would view about 150 watts into 8 ohms as the minimum, as I got the feeling most of the 140 watts I had available were needed at times. Which means you might want 600 watts to get higher levels or greater dynamics if you listen to appropriately dynamic music (that would give +6 db headroom compared to what I had). The conundrum of course is that the SoundLabs are so transparent, that you will want a really clean amp as well, because the quality of the 160S I used was very much on display and valued.

Note also that the SoundLab design is essentially impossible to blow up. If you exceed the excursion capabilities it may sound bad, but it won’t be damaged. I never got there.

Size and Style

Of course, these are big speakers. Sound Lab uses the same technology in speakers of various sizes and prices, from just under 5 feet high to just under 9 feet high and from 1.5 feet wide to 3 feet wide. The idea is to choose the height to come as close as possible to your ceiling height, which simulates the desired “infinite line source”. Width is a function of budget, with the smallest (not small) model priced at $27,000. Width also should be tailored to your interest in deep bass (there is a higher bass rolloff frequency with narrower panels – we measured a 2-foot-wide Sound Lab starting to roll off in mid-40 Hz range but with strong response above that point).

Note also that the frames and grille cloth allow many choices. The green grille cloth of my review samples may send some of you into fits of apoplexy, but here are some alternative colors to give you an idea (there are 72 choices).

Beyond The Sweet Spot

The G7-7C works as described in the sweet spot. I set it up to work best in the sweet spot. In that setup, the image tends to collapse if you move, say, 3 feet to the left or right of the central position. Now, as I mentioned in the section on adjustability, you can toe the speakers in more, and the imaging in the sweet spot will be very good, but not at the excellent level I discussed above. However, with extra toe in you will gain some benefits as you get away from the sweet spot. I don’t feel that most stereo rigs work very well outside the sweet spot, but those with broader dispersion seem to work somewhat better than the Sound Labs. Remember that distance from the speakers, not just radiation patterns, are at work outside the sweet spot.

A related issue occurs with some conventional speakers when you stand up from the sweet spot. With cone drivers, there will be interference effects and many speakers are not optimized in the vertical plane. The Sound Labs of the height of the G7 (or taller) effectively are optimized for either sitting or standing. A line source like these produces a wavefront that is effectively cylindrical, so sitting or standing you hear pretty much the same thing.

Energizing

As I mentioned at the outset, electrostatic speakers require a means of charging the diaphragm to high voltages. The classic method is to plug the energizer box into an AC outlet. That’s great if you have AC outlets in appropriate places. Sound Lab uses a different approach which they call Full-Range Auto-Bias. They derive the static energizing signal from the audio signal. No AC cords, just hook up the speaker wire and you’re ready to go. This is simpler and mirrors the way conventional speakers are wired. The only drawback I noticed is that when you first play music on a given day, you must wait a few seconds for the music to charge the diaphragm.

Summary

As I said, this one is different. The performance of the Sound Lab G7-7C in imaging and transparency is unsurpassed in my experience. It has, of course, other characteristics that need to fit your experience and environment and economics. If those factors align, the Sound Labs might be your long-term answer.

Granted, Maggies aren’t for everyone. My colleague Paul Seydor has told me he hears a somewhat “glassy” overlay to the sound. I know what he means, but for me it’s a non-issue, especially given the myriad strengths of founder Jim Winey’s marvelous invention.

And I appreciate that some are drawn to more traditional enclosed designs from the British camp—where midrange naturalness is likely highly prized—or to the enveloping warmth of Italian marques like Sonus faber, or to today’s pedal-to-the-metal efforts from the likes of Magico or Wilson, with their unfettered dynamic and low-frequency advantages.

And in the realm of non- or semi-enclosed loudspeakers there have always been challengers, from QUAD, KLH, and MartinLogan electrostats, to the Infinity hybrid models and Apogee Ribbons of yesteryear, or to unique designs like MBL’s omnidirectional Radialstrahlers, and even more recently the AlysVox full-range ribbons Robert Harley enthused about in Issue 350. 

And this list merely scratches the surface. There are many great and wildly different approaches to making loudspeakers in this world. 

But despite the imperfections they may have (as do all audio components in one way or another, given that none can equal the sound of a live musical experience), there remains something about what Magnepans do right that for me remains intensely alluring. 

And what, pray tell, is that “right” thing? Simply put, the ability to “disappear” just enough, for just long enough, that I’m completely sucked into the music in a sort of trance-like way, where the sound itself isn’t the focus but, instead, a place where the world is shut out and the music takes over.

As my colleagues Robert E. Greene and Steven Stone wrote in Issue 357’s Guest Editorial, describing the premise of this magazine (and its title) by founders Harry Pearson and John Cooledge, “They believed…that reproducing the concert sound of an orchestra was the ultimate challenge. If one could do that, then one would be able to reproduce any kind of music at all.”

To my ears Magnepans achieve this. And mind you, for prices that remain staggeringly great values in today’s sky’s-the-limit high-end audio world. 

Take for example the model I currently own, the 1.7i. As reviewer John Nork wrote in these pages, “The Magnepan 1.7i is an exceptional loudspeaker, especially for its modest cost. It is a true high-end product that will be especially appreciated by those who know and treasure the beauty of live music.” 

I couldn’t agree more with Nork’s assessment. And let’s recall that the current price of the 1.7i is $2995 the pair, which makes them by far the least expensive major component in my system. And because they’re amazingly detailed and transparent, they also allow one to easily discern differences in the gear ahead of them, which also makes them a great reviewer’s tool. 

But it also must be said that among the reasons Magnepans have always been great values is the company’s deliberate decision to compromise ultimate quality in the areas of parts and construction to meet certain price points. This was baked into the company’s philosophy by Jim Winey himself, who was guided by the notion of “hi-fi for the everyman.”

But because of this, even as wonderful as they can sound, savvy consumers with a propensity for tweaking have either long been employing their own home modifications or turning to after-market offerings to get the most from their Maggies. Some of these mods, such as more rigid stands, improved fuses, or better wiring between the tweeter jumpers make sense; others, like intensely modified frames, strike me as borderline crazy, while still others, say, bypassing the tweeter fuse, are potentially disastrous. 

When I think about it, it’s kind of surprising that it took Magnepan so long to get into the game itself. But now it most certainly has—and “bigly,” as they say—with the X series. 

The X Factor

As stated on the company website: “The general idea of the X series is to take the existing design of a given speaker and improve it using three primary axis of refinement: simplification, component betterment, and balancing.” 

With the X models, Magnepan has simplified the circuitry to achieve shorter and purer signal paths; meaning less wiring is employed at fewer junction points while also lowering mass. Moreover, better componentry is employed throughout, and the rigidity of the frames has been increased via the use of cross-bracing. 

Let’s unpack the details.

First, Magnepan has raised the quality of its capacitors. The ones used in the X models are “high-quality, copper-rich, polypropylene capacitors [banks]. Each capacitor [and bank] used is individually tested to the hundredth and sorted according to model and need.” To ensure that each matched left/right pair perform as identically as possible, the company then re-tests the finished bank of capacitors to confirm that each left/right crossover is matched to within five thousandths. In some models, fewer capacitors are employed, resulting, says Magnepan, in a “smoother overall response.” 

Similar rigor is aimed at other component parts. The high-gauge, copper-wire, air-core, bobbin-wound coils (inductors) are now made in-house. “Each coil [array] used is individually tested for inductance to the thousandths, DCR to the hundredth, and along with the Q value and its termination direction sorted and paired. The coils are then tested again after being installed on the boards such that left and right crossovers’ inductances (and coil DCRs) are within five hundredths.”

In the few models that use them, crossover resistors have been improved and paired to match within five thousandths.

Except for the wiring in Magnepan’s true ribbon tweeters, all bus wires used are now 15-gauge-or-larger high-quality solid copper. Excess wiring has been removed to shorten pathways and reduce mass in the crossovers, and they too undergo numerous testing rounds to ensure the best final match.

As for the critical connecting junctions, Magnepan says that, in addition to the input plate being gold plated, “all connections within the circuit, from the solder lug attached to the terminal screw on the nameplate, to the crossover board, to the driver terminal block, and back are silver soldered connections. Besides the terminal screw, solder lug, and jam nut connection on the nameplate, and the quick connectors on true ribbon tweeter models, there are no mechanical connections used in any X series speakers.”

Magnepan firmly believes that the trio of gold, copper, and silver, “and their almost exclusive use is a significant reason why the X series speakers perform so well.”

There are currently six models in the X series, ranging from $4000 the pair for the .7x, to $5000 for the 1.7x under review here, climbing to $10,000 for the 2.7x, $13,000 for the 3.7x, $30,000 for the 20.7x, and $55k for 30.7x. 

Current owners of the non-X equivalents of the above may elect to have their speakers upgraded at the factory. Magnepan’s website lays out the details, as well as the pros and cons of upgrading versus buying a fresh set of speakers. But as an example, if I were to send in my 1.7i’s for the X treatment, the base price would be $2000, or the difference in retail between the two models. Other factors, shipping costs, and potentially new fabric or other unforeseen repairs, must also be considered. 

Of final interest concerning the model being reviewed here: Although the 1.7i was a semi-three-way design with a super tweeter, the 1.7x is a two-way speaker, reflecting Magnepan’s philosophy of simplifying the signal path.

Hearing is Believing

As with all audio components (but arguably even more so), Magnepans take a long time to completely break in and reach their full sonic potential. Yet from the first moment I fired them up, it was evident that the 1.7x-version was already miles above my 1.7i’s. 

All I loved about them before—but now dialed up to 11—was immediately on display in terms of top-to-bottom seamlessness and coherence, inner detail, rhythmic precision, incredibly spacious soundstaging, spot-on imaging, and immediacy, but with a new-found dynamic and low-frequency authority, albeit with a smoother, more relaxed presentation.

And with live recordings of orchestral or other acoustic music they’re also marvelous at revealing the venue in which the concert took place.

Take for instance two recordings by John Adams.

The first, Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes, a marvelous contemporary piano concerto commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is available on a splendid-sounding DG LP recorded in the orchestra’s Walt Disney Concert Hall with Gustavo Dudamel conducting and Yuja Wang at the keyboard. 

The first movement is a sort of funky, jazzy mashup, winking at Gershwin and Stravinsky—there are moments when the piano is so off-kilter it reminds me of Bella Baxter’s first scenes in the movie, Poor Things—and the recording delivers a fine sense of the Disney Hall’s acoustics: warm, intimate, up front, very dynamic. It’s a nonstop musical and sonic rush, and the 1.7x did a marvelous job of conveying the sense of the scale and shape of the soundstage. When the piece slows and mellows into dreamy contemplation, Wang’s piano playfully tiptoes between a chamber-like orchestra that’s beautifully delineated across the stage, with no sense that the sound is coming from a pair of loudspeakers. It’s simply there, convincingly filling the room. With the 1.7x, there’s a degree of precision, ease of delivery, upper-end extension with no edge or glassiness, as well as a bottom-end and dynamic authority that are significantly beyond what I’m used to with my 1.7i’s. 

The second piece, Harmonium, was commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony for the inaugural season of Davies Symphony Hall, a venue I know the sound of better than any other, as I attend many concerts there each season. Davies has a very different—more spacious, lighter, brighter, less intimate and immediate—sound than L.A.’s Disney Hall. Qualities tailor-made for Harmonium’s ethereal, almost church-like blend of orchestral and choral forces, which seem to float high above and behind the orchestra, which in Davies is exactly where the chorus is situated. The ECM recording is very good, too, and a striking example of the 1.7x’s chameleon-like ability to morph with the sound of each recording.

As you might imagine, vocal reproduction is home court to Magnepans. Staying in my “seat,” so to speak, at Davies Hall, I opened my SFO vinyl set of The Mahler Project and pulled out the “bonus” 45-rpm pressing of the piano version of Rückert-Lieder. The entire set is brilliant sounding, but this LP, with mezzo-soprano Susan Graham accompanied at the piano by Michael Tilson Thomas, is an especially realistic rendering of the hall’s ambience and uncanny when it comes to recreating the sound of an unamplified voice and piano in real space. I know this record very well and was floored by how much more lifelike it sounded over the X’s. The particular acoustic signature of Davies Hall with its notably reverberant space and air, the purity of Graham’s mezzo with MTTs piano blossoming behind and around her, the bloom and decay of both her voice and the piano were truly a revelation, with a sound at once more revealing as well as smoother, less strained, and even more coherent than I hear with the i version of the speaker, which leads me to conclude that, in addition to the other upgrades, Magnepan’s reasons for making the 1.7x a two-way instead of keeping it a three-way were very good, indeed. 

Another wonderful—if flawed—vocal recording is Stephen Stills’ Just Roll Tape, a set of studio demos with just Stills and his acoustic guitar. The thing is closely miked and there are moments when the tape is overloaded to the point of screechy breakup. That said, hearing him working out many of the tunes made famous on CSN’s first record is thrilling, and the sound is viscerally present. Again the 1.7x delivers a smoother, more composed presentation, with highs that are audibly far less edgy than the 1.7i, more transparent but again with less sense of pushing the speakers’ comfort level 

To test the X’s moxie, check out The Peter Erskine Quartet’s McIntosh Sessions Volume 1, a demo-quality, all-analog, live-in-the studio recording that will challenge the mettle of any system with its upfront presentation, powerful dynamics, and room-busting drum sound. The 1.7x’s effectively placed each instrument—piano, bass, sax, drums—smack in my listening room, each occupying its own unique space, each presented with a lifelike scale and weight. 

Another go-to is “Little Wing,” from the Analogue Productions 45-edition of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s The Sky is Crying. Risking redundancy, I sat there in a state of semi-disbelief listening to a record I know so well. Talk about sounding as if you are there. This trio’s gorgeous, searing, yet also rather playful take on Hendrix always leaves my guests shaking their heads at the end, marveling at the sound of Chris Layton’s drums—though both the 1.7i and X are spec’d to a 40Hz bass response, the sense of stick striking skin with, at times, the violent force and physical impact the Maggie’s deliver is something naysayers should experience—the wasp-sting of SRV’s Fender Strat and amp combo, and Tommy Shannon’s supportive bass lines. 

Although Magnepan (rightfully) continues to produce its standard line alongside its new X series, I urge anyone considering a purchase to hear both if possible. As fine as the standard series is, the X versions are, well, you already catch my drift. Oh, and they even remain eXceptional values. 

Coda

Just before deadline I received this email from our Editor-in-Chief Robert Harley, who gave me the nod to quote it here.

“I just returned from Dubai where I had set up systems in the new store including one with the LRS+ and one with the 1.7i. It was a thrill to watch people hear music through a Magneplanar for the first time. One customer listened in amazement to Analogue Productions’ reissue of Ella’s Let No Man Write My Epitaph and then stood up and walked around the speaker, as though he were looking for the secret to a magic trick he’d just witnessed.”

Though unsurprising to me, it’s nice to know that Magnepans continue to make such strong first impressions. Wait until this guy hears the X series.   

Specs & Pricing

Type: Two-way floorstanding loudspeaker
Driver complement: Midrange/bass section, tweeter section
Frequency response: 40Hz–24kHz
Nominal impedance: 4 ohms
Sensitivity: 86dB
Recommended amplifier power: None stated, but you’ll want plenty of it!
Finishes: A wide range of wood and metal side strips as well fabrics can be seen on the company’s website
Dimensions: 19.25″ x 64.5″ x 2″
Weight: 38 lbs.
Price: $5000

Magnepan
1645 Ninth Street
White Bear Lake, MN 55110
(800) 474-1646
magnepan.com

Low and midrange octaves employ a pair of 5.5″ Esotec+ mid/bass drivers with two-inch aluminum voice coils, glass-fiber voice-coil formers, and Aramid-fiber spiders. Each cone is made from a single rigid piece of MSP (Magnesium Silicate Polymer), a material that’s’ been a Dynaudio mainstay since the company was founded in 1977. The Contour-derived cone surround allows a longer throw ratio for greater punch. And, like the Cerotar tweeter, the Evoke 30’s woofers are both driven by ceramic Ferrite+ magnets. The Evoke 30 crossover is a second-order design transitioning at 1.2kHz and 2.3kHz. It’s worth noting that since Dynaudio is a company that designs its own drivers, it has a leg up on other speaker firms that source transducers from third parties. This advantage allows Dynaudio to more easily meet its aim of keeping the passive crossover as simple as possible. This yields two benefits: better sound, and the ability to use better components. The Evoke 30 uses the same Hexis motor behind the tweeter found in the Confidence range.

One crucial key that benefitted the Evoke was its optimization in Dynaudio’s state-of-the-art Jupiter measurement facility—a 17,200-square-foot research and development lab in Skanderborg that came online in 2017. Jupiter’s centerpiece is a Free Field Impulse Measurement Room, an expansive 13m-square space wherein the test device is raised into the middle of the room using a special crane and measured by a whopping (count ’em) 31 microphones!

Regarding setup, my smallish listening room doesn’t afford a wide range of placement options. And a single bay window on the left wall creates an asymmetry that adds complexity when attempting to ward off first reflections from sidewalls. Thankfully. I was fortunate to have on hand John Quick, Dynaudio’s VP Sales and Marketing for the Americas. His experience, ear, and satchel of tools proved a reminder that in the set-up game it truly can come down to a matter of inches and exacting toe-in angles. 

The Evoke 30 wasn’t alone in producing the level of performance I encountered. It was ministered to by a Lumin S1 Media Player (including the new X1 power supply, Issue 358) on the digital side and a SOTA Cosmos Total Eclipse (with vacuum hold-down) and SME V tonearm on the analog side. Electronics included the Parasound JC 3+ phono pre, Aesthetix Mimas integrated, and a combination of Audience frontRow cabling and Shunyata speaker wire. Also, as luck would have it, contemporaneous with the arrival of the Evoke was the recently installed EBI Khumar moving-coil cartridge (review forthcoming), so LPs were spinning freely on my SOTA rig throughout my listening sessions.

In performance, the Evoke 30 had impressive range, making it comfortable with all musical genres—jazz combos, a capella vocals, hard rock, gentle chamber music. Overall, it “evoked” a warm, full, and well-balanced midrange character, nicely augmented by a naturalistic treble and anchored by an impressively weighty bottom end which dipped into the low 40Hz range. The slightly oversize soft-dome tweeter was smooth and open and virtually invisible to the ear. (Nothing shouts “bad audio” more than a tweet that goes rogue.) Its mids were open but not too forward. It maintained a relaxed composure across the frequency spectrum. Dynamics, both at the macro and micro levels, were wide ranging. Transients were clean and quick—not lightning fast in the ribbon/planar sense, but quick enough to capture the snap of a rimshot, a vocal trill, or the tick of a flatpick on a vintage Martin Dreadnought. Also, the pair of speakers that made up my review sample were nicely matched in output. One way I listen for this is by playing mono recordings—the musical image should center itself precisely and unwaveringly between the left and right channels, as if there was only a single speaker in the room. The Evoke 30 nailed it. A quick aside: Dubious about mono resolution and soundstage? Just check out “Daytripper” from the Beatles Mono Masters LP. Throughout the track, Paul’s Hofner bass doubles George’s guitar lead line with crystal clarity and a soundstage that often tracked to the inside edges of the speakers.

Evoke 30 presented orchestral music with well-focused imaging and spacious acoustic cues. Front-to-back dimensionality and section layering across the orchestra were good, although not up to the high bar set by the legendary MBL 126 Radialstrahlers or more recently the Raidho X2.6 (Issue 358). These pricier models seemed to possess a sharp deep-focus lens akin to something onboard the James Webb Space Telescope. They preserve every detail to the back of the stage, Nonetheless, as I listened to Andre Previn’s performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, the 1971 EMI recording produced and engineered by the “two Christophers” (Messrs. Bishop and Parker) [Previn Plays Gershwin: LSO], the Evoke 30 provided a colorful and impactful demonstration of its wide timbral range. The piece’s unconventional musical requirements, which include saxophone, tuba, and glockenspiel, were reproduced in high style. I could hear (almost see) that Previn’s concert grand was offset to the left of the podium and downstage toward the audience as it would have been in a live performance. 

 

Articulation, whether focused on voices or other instruments was very good, but not too good. To my ears, extra-articulation is a red flag indicator of one of two things: rising treble or reduced energy in the lower-mid and power range. Where one or the other exists the result is a forced hyper-clarity, even a flinty, fatiguing hardness that masquerades as a version of resolution, but resolution that doesn’t exist in nature. It’s seductive at first but eventually tiresome. I must give Evoke 30 a tip of the hat for avoiding that trap.

Bass frequencies were full bodied and extended into the 40Hz range (and perceptibly lower). But the Evoke 30 doesn’t over-reach, and the roll-off below that point was fairly rapid. The port does its work and stays out of the way and doesn’t mask midrange resolution with excess overhang. Dynaudio supplies foam port plugs should room size, placement issues, or room gain be an issue. My listening room, however, supported the Evoke 30’s bass quite nicely, without major peaks or valleys from the upper bass on down. 

One particular aspect of the Evoke 30’s performance came as a surprise; It wasn’t long ago that short narrow columnar towers with small drivers tended to sound, well, a bit lean and lacking in bloom as music descended into the sub-100Hz range. The tune and the pitch might’ve been present, but the body and LF underpinnings, the foundation that the music rested on, was often lacking. I think Dynaudio has done a superb job using the 2.5-way design to full advantage. Not only is it more efficient than a similarly sized two-way, but also it credibly fills in the upper bass and lower midrange which can often sag a bit on two-ways of a similar specification. 

My personal listening focus has always been based squarely on vocals. The “human” instrument being the most complicated one to reproduce and as different as a bassoon is to a sax or a piccolo. I gave the Evoke 30 quite the workout in that regard, listening for accurate timbres, low-level resolving power, and emotional expressiveness. Beginning with bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, moving on to gravely Tom Waits, and ultimately ascending into James Taylor territory, followed by Don McLean, Norah Jones, and Linda Ronstadt, then topping out with Joni Mitchell and soprano Renée Fleming. The Evoke reproduced these artists sensitively, in vivid color, and with distinctive and complex vocal textures. Critically, I found inter-driver continuity was very good; there was never a sense of one driver asserting itself over another. Even as these singers transitioned from resonant chest tones into their upper ranges, the Evoke 30 expressed each performance with near point-source precision. To coin a phrase, the Evoke 30 spoke with one voice. This conclusion was not entirely unexpected, however. Credit the proximity of the three in-line drivers along the front baffle, separated by only about 11″ from the dustcap of the lower mid/bass to the center of the tweeter dome. 

A great example of the Evoke 30’s resolution and character was found in Bill Henderson’s rendition of “Send In The Clowns” from Live at the Times (Jazz Planet 45rpm, recorded in 1975 and mastered by Bernie Grundman). “Live” it is, with all the audience trappings and clubby rattling and rustling atmospherics you might expect. As if it were seated on a stool right next to Henderson, the recording is so detailed and transparently intimate that you can count the number of ice cubes clinking in a gimlet as a cocktail waitress passes by. 

There was so much musical “rightness” to the Evoke 30’s performance it almost seems petty to point out its limitations. Harmonically the top end could be a bit more sweetly extended and open. Dynamic nuance might also be developed further. For example, horn and brass playing audiophiles might find that, compared with a three-way, the Evoke 30 will pull back slightly at the limits. Most will find this small dip in dynamic energy easy to dismiss given the speakers plentiful attributes. And if I’m allowed to be really picky, a dash more low end would add to the sense of spaciousness and immersion. But then, that’s why Dynaudio invites us to check out the Evoke 50. Right?

The Evoke 30 is an appealing and musical effort by a mature company that knows the audiophile landscape. In both size and output the Evoke 30 makes for a near-ideal small room loudspeaker—one that might even make committed two-way stand-mount afficionados take another look at the possibilities for a floorstander. I consider it a speaker that instantly establishes itself as a leader in its price segment and beyond. With much admiration, it deserves a hearty recommendation. 

Specs & Pricing

Type: 2.5-way bass-reflex floorstander
Drivers: 28mm tweeter; (2) 5.5″ mid/woofers
Freq response: 40Hz–23kHz
Sensitivity: 88dB
Impedance: 4 ohms
Dimensions: 7.1″ x 35.4″ x 10.5″
Weight: 34.2 lbs. each
Price: $3999/pr.

DYNAUDIO NORTH AMERICA, INC.
500 Lindberg Ln
Northbrook, IL 60062
(847) 730-3280
dynaudio.com

Five Most Significant Product Introductions

Aequo Audio, based in Holland, has been in business for about a decade but is unfamiliar to many North American audiophiles, me included. This could be about to change. The company is poised to introduce two new loudspeakers, the Adamantis passive 3-way ($37,900) and the Ensium 500-watt bass-assisted 3-way ($44,900) that represent the first commercial implementation of a Nanotech material called Diluvite MMC. This “metal matrix composite” has unique physical properties that Aequo has leveraged to both sonic and aesthetic advantage. Diluvite is an extremely inert material that converts vibration into heat: Rapping your knuckles on the enclosure results in an dull thud (and sore knuckles.) In addition to minimizing cabinet resonances, Diluvite can be readily formed into “complex organic shapes” that aren’t just easy on the eyes but also serve to further control vibration. At High End 2025, with the Ensium driven by Westminster Lab electronics, an unidentified recording of Saint-Säens’ Danse macabre manifested rich orchestral textures, great imaging, and plenty of musical detail.

The 3-way, four-driver Magico S2 ($34,000/pair for Softek finish; $39,100 for gloss finish) has replaced the 2-way S1 at the “bottom” of the brand’s S Series. In physical size and sound, the new model has much more in common with the current S3 than the now-retired S1 but is less visually imposing. (It’s also between $11,450 and $13,400 cheaper than the S3.) Sonically, the S2 is every bit a Magico—fast, well-balanced across the frequency spectrum, with a characteristically lean but never cool aural presentation. Over the course of a 15-minute audition in Munich, it was obvious that the new speaker does well spatially, with vocals imaging way out into the room.

Estelon has added to its A series of more affordable products—the floorstanding Aura (€17,500/pair) became available in 2023—with the Aurelia (€14,900/pair, €17,900/pair with stands), the Aurelia Centre (€7500) and the Aurus subwoofer (€13,500). Other than Aura, these “real world” Estelons don’t have the sensual curves that characterize the bigger models, and their enclosures are made of a thermoformed mineral composite rather than crushed marble material used to cast the Extremes, Forzas, and other much costlier models. But you are definitely not slumming if you decide to own a pair of the standmount Aurelias, not aesthetically and not sonically. As played at the Munich show with MSB electronics, they manifested the detail retrieval, tonal consistency, and ease of presentation associated with their larger brethren. And note, tech bros: Instead of traditional stands (€3000/pair) to put on the floor, for the same price you can get an elegant version to support the Auras on a desk or countertop. That should be one helluva nearfield listening experience, though I doubt you’ll get much work done.

The Lithuanian loudspeaker manufacturer Silent Pound—don’t ask about the name; I haven’t a clue—brought two speaker models to Munich, the floorstanding Challenger II (€28,000) and the Bloom stand-mount (€14,900.) Both are designed with the same fundamental principle in mind: “Silence the Room” is the Silent Pound motto. Two key design features serve to minimize room interference. First, a unique dipole bass transducer reduces the amount of acoustic energy radiating into the listening space by close to 5dB. Second, a patent-pending midrange enclosure promotes a highly dimensional presentation and, to my ears, an exceptional evenness of top-to-bottom frequency response. In a very small room, I requested some very dynamic and bass-heavy material (large-scale symphonic music, big band, etc.)—and, if blindfolded, would have thought I was listening to a bigger speaker in a much larger space, far away from any room boundaries. I texted RH to come and hear the Bloom, and he was similarly impressed. Silent Pound has dealers in 14 countries, though not as yet in North America. Cofounder and CTO Audrius Balciunas told me the company is working to address that deficiency.

Voxativ’s Alberich bass module was designed to accompany their Hagen back-loaded horn mini-monitor. Together, they comprise the Alberich² System, a modular full-range loudspeaker with a frequency response of 20–33,000Hz and a price starting at €17,900. (In case you’re not a German opera buff, Alberich and Hagan are the father/son villains in Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle.) The Alberich² is an active design, with a 500-watt Class D amplifier on board, and there is, as well, the capacity for a user to adjust several key parameters—level, crossover frequency, and phase—to optimize performance in a specific listening environment.

Auspicious Debuts

When audiophiles think of the ELAC brand, they may think of the Andrew Jones era and the many lower priced models that are currently sold by Music Direct, Crutchfield, and B&H. These are, for sure, products with a high performance-to-price ratio. Many are unaware that ELAC is a German company with a history dating back close to a century, and their catalog includes plenty of pricy, no-compromise gear. The latest example is the Concentro M807 (€22,000/pair) that was proudly introduced at High End 2025. It’s an elegantly contoured 4-way bass-reflex design, weighing in at 137 pounds per side. The high-midrange element is comprised of six small drivers, arranged concentrically around ELAC’s venerable JET 6c AMT tweeter. 4.5” low-midrange drivers are positioned above and below that grouping, and there are two downward-firing 10” woofers. A selector on the rear panel allows the user to choose one of five modes that alter the mix of direct and diffuse sound to best suit the room’s acoustic character.

Manger Audio’s p2 (€15,600 per pair) isn’t a new speaker but sports a redesigned version of the Manger driver, the “bending wave” transducer invented by the brand’s founder, Joseph W. Manger (1929–2016.) His daughter, Daniela, an engineer who has run the company for decades, explained that the latest interation utilized in all Manger models has a stronger motor system, revised damping parameters, and a redesigned chassis—all resulting in improved linearity, less distortion, and superior dynamics. The Manger driver operates from 340 to 4500Hz and is mated in the p2 with a traditional 8” woofer in a sealed enclosure. Manger had plenty of quality vinyl on hand with which to demo the speaker; the familiar Reference Recordings Symphonic Dances (Oue/Minnesota) sounded terrific.

The Piega Premium 801 ($10,000 per pair) is the first product from the Swiss manufacturer to feature a horn-loaded ribbon tweeter, a good-sized one that operates down to 2500Hz, positioned above five identical-appearing cones, one of which is a midrange transducer, two are woofers, and two are passive radiators. Bass was certainly authoritative. This is an active loudspeaker design with functions that can be controlled with the supplied remote.

A new Dutch company, Sphinx Audio-Engineering is on the verge of releasing two loudspeaker models, the Element 3and the Element 5. Both invoke ancient Egypt with an exquisite, sculpted appearance, the enclosures fabricated from a “stone-like material” not unlike the Corian^® utilized for kitchen countertops. The price of the smaller Element 3 is expected to be $38,000–$40,000 per pair. Sphinx isn’t actually a new brand, having been first established in the 1980s but now “reimagined” thanks to the resources of Siltech and Crystal Cable. The enclosure is ported to the front, featuring a proprietary system to optimize bass performance known as “Zero Gravity” that targets compression artifacts to reduce distortion. Bass output is adjustable with rear-panel switches; LF output is rated down to 23Hz.

My friend and colleague Alan Taffel had positive things to say about the PMC Prophecy7 he heard at AXPONA this year, and I was equally impressed with the British manufacturer’s Prophecy9 ($12,999/pair.) Extended bass is produced by a pair of custom-built high excursion 5” woofers implemented in a transmission-line design, combined with a patented airflow technology (“LaminairX”) that greatly reduces the audibility of port chuffing. Soft dome tweeter and midrange drivers are housed in a profiled baffle with a unique waveguide. Prophecy speakers are used at the Teldex studios in Berlin, and the company representative proudly played two Haydn selection recorded there—one for chorus and orchestra, the other a keyboard concerto—to great effect.

In the Auer Acoustics room, I was handed a small block of tankwood, a compressed natural wood product that’s used to construct the cabinets of the company’s Versura line of loudspeakers, including the top-of-the-line V4 (€45,000/pair.) The stuff is dense and heavy, and although the speaker doesn’t visually overpower a room—the front baffle is less than 9” wide— each V4 weighs well over 200 pounds. Bass is prodigious but articulate, down to 20Hz, we’re told. Yet the speaker can be light on its feet: Nothing got in the way of appreciating the pyrotechnics of a solo violin playing a Paganini etude.

The Wilson Benesch Horizon ($39,000) had actually debuted in the UK earlier this year, but Munich was its first appearance at an audio show outside of England. The Horizon is the least costly model in Wilson Benesch’s reference line of floorstanders, sharing technologies utilized in the company’s most ambitious products. The room was very noisy but, from what I could hear of L’histoire du soldat, powered by Lumin amplification, the Horizons demonstrated the characteristic dynamic nuance and tonal accuracy of other speakers from this elite manufacturer.

Wolf von Langa (the man) was playing his Wolf von Langa Sensitivity+ standmount speaker ($11,000/pair, plus $1000 for stands), a two-way design that eschews his favored field-coil technology to bring a top-notch product to market at a lower price. The driver complement includes an AMT tweeter, a cone midrange, and two passive radiator woofers. For a small speaker, dynamics were excellent.

Revival Audio, located in the Alsace region of France, had its newest product on hand, the Atalante 7 Évo (€9390/pair.) The speaker definitely has a retro look to it—boxy, with a furiniture-like dark wood finish. It’s another 3-way, this one sporting a 15” woofer with an unusual basalt sandwich construction. The –6dB low-frequency output was 23Hz, and bass performance was subjectively very good: A walking acoustic bass line was even and well-deliniated. A robust stand that gets the 32-inch-tall speaker up another foot in the air is included in the price.

Among the least expensive speakers I came across at High End 2025 were the Triangle Borea BR04 bookshelf model, at $550/pair, with stands an additional $279/pair. It’s a 2-way model that actually can be located on a bookcase, countertop, or workdesk because the port faces forward. The tweeter is a 25mm device that’s crossed over to a 6” mid/bass driver; the frequency response is given as 44Hz to 22kHz. Unusual at this price point is that there are two sets of binding posts per speaker, and biwiring is an option. Vocals had considerable presence, and synth bass had gratifying impact and extension.

Scansonic is a sort of minor league affiliate of Raido Acoustics offering four lines of loudspeakers—L, M, MB, and Q. The MB and Q series products are built in Denmark by the same people who craft Raidhos. The M series products are made in China, a fact that Scansonic seems to obsfuscate in its slick brochure. It shouldn’t matter, as the M models are also built to a high standard…but audiophiles can have biases against Asian-made gear. The M30.2 sits at the top of the M series line, a robust 3-way floorstander priced at €3500/pair. The speaker stands 43” tall and weighs about 55 pounds. The drive units include a neodymnium ribbon tweeter, a 4” mid/woofer with a honeycomb cone, two 6.5” woofers, also with honycomb membranes, and two passive bass radiators with paper diaphragms. With Vivaldi, pop, big band, and large-scale orchestral fare—with anything you threw at them—the M30.2s sounded excellent when played loudly. I would strongly suggest you don’t worry about the China aspect if this is your budget for full-range loudspeakers.

One reason High End 2026 will be held in Vienna is that the Munich Olympic Center simply can’t accommodate everyone who wants to strut their stuff on the world’s biggest stage for perfectionist audio. In recent years, an increasing number of brands excluded from the MOC have set up shop across the street at MotorWorld München, a large automotive-oriented mall with shops, restuarants, hotels, meeting rooms, and, of course, hundreds of rare and valuable cars to purchase or just oggle. Certainly, the oddest Motorworld exhibit space is a decomissioned railway car outside the main building in which I found the small loudspeaker manufacturer Airplain. (That’s right: A company called Airplain in a railway car at MotorWorld—trains, planes, and automobiles.) Their Model 5 (€20,000/pair) had an AMT tweeter positioned in a relatively tall but slender baffle above four 4” Purifi cones; the speaker delivered a satisfying rendition of my go-to orchestral test track, Bernard Haitink’s 2010 performance of the Allegretto from Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 15. It was well worth the trek over from the MOC, though it will be nice to, presumably, have everything under one roof next year.

 

In Other News

I was told that the OePhi Reference 3, made in Denmark and heard in its near-finished form at High End 2025, will sell in North America for around $20,000 per pair. High frequencies are handled by a 1.5cm true ribbon tweeter that’s mounted in a sub-enclosure that protrudes from the main structure of the cabinet. Combined with a midrange driver and a pair of woofers sourced from Purifi, the system functions from 25 to 40,000Hz, providing an easy load for the hARtmonoblock amplifiers that were driving it via OePhi’s own cables. The simple oak finish was beautifully executed. Another prototype that seems promising is The Pylon Audio Amethyst Gamma, an all-out audiophile effort from an established Polish manufacturer. The speaker is striking in appearance—the enclosure is wood applied to a composite material. The drivers were designed in house and the sound was noteworthy for a complete lack of coloration and excellent front-to-back layering. The company representative steadfastly declined to give even a ballpark estimate of the expected price.

Among the most distinctive-looking products in any category were those from Once Custom Sound, a brand established in Turkey (I defy you to name another Turkish loudspeaker manufacturer.) These curvy, whimsically shaped transducers included the Nar, priced at €24,900/pair. Exotic as it appeared, the Nar is fairly conventional in its design, with drivers sourced from ScanSpeak— a 7” Illuminator paper cone woofer and a ¾” ring dome tweeter.

Among the strangest back stories I encountered at High End 2025 was that of the Indiana Line Utah 8 (€1650/pair). The brand came into being in the late 1970s in Salt Lake City and subsequently moved to Indiana. But it wasn’t economically feasible to make loudspeakers at a low price point in the U.S., and the company went under. It was subsequently resuscitated by an Italian firm, Alcor, who kept the name because it was felt that an American association would be good for sales. In 2006, the brand was taken over by another entity—Coral—and Indiana Line has established itself as one of the best known Italian loudspeaker brands (even if the typical owner has no idea where Indiana or Utah can be found on a map.) The Utah 8s may be pretty pedestrian looking but, sonically, they represent good value— a worthy consideration for a home-theater installation or in a fledgling audiophile’s first system.

Qobuz Connect

Well ahead of High End 2025, industry attendees were invited to a 90-minute press conference to be given by Qobuz, promising that a consequential announcement would be forthcoming. Although I secretly hoped that Qobuz might be telling the assembly about plans for streaming full-resolution immersive content—a Dolby TrueHD Atmos option—most in the audience of several hundred industry people were already aware that this would be the official roll-out of Qobuz Connect, a technology that’s been in the beta-testing phase for some time now, and aims to make the streaming experience more user-friendly.

Several representatives from the company recounted Qobuz’s history since its founding in 2007, contrasting its business model and operating practices to those of a certain malignant Goliath—Qobuz will never have a free, ad-supported subscription option, they pay the rights holders of the music they stream more generously, there’s an emphasis on non-compressed content—and reported on the growth of the service’s utilization in various markets. (The word “Spotify” wasn’t uttered for at least the first 20 minutes of the presentation.) Qobuz launched in the United States on Valentine’s Day, 2019, and American subscribers now account for 23% of Qobuz’s audience—more than in France, where the company is based. But there were some issues that could make using the service clunky, especially if a listener used multiple devices in the course of their music consumption.

Qobuz Control centralizes music control for subscribers, controlling playback with the Qobuz app, regardless of where the service is being used. It will be easy to switch between different devices—say, from a portable, headphone-based system to one’s serious indoor rig—without missing a beat, so to speak. The playback queue is synchronized across all of one’s devices, and optimal audio quality is assured. Access to all the editorial content, provided by the human curators that work for Qobuz, will be available, whatever device is being utilized. Around 60 hi-fi brands have already signed on and will be providing owners with the necessary firmware updates. The service is available to Quboz subscribers with the Studio or Sublime plans at no additional cost over what they’re currently paying.

Immersive Audio at High End 2025
The (Very) Good, the (Not too) Bad, and the Ugly

To this point, immersive audio demonstrations at audio shows have been a big disappointment, not making a good case at all to audiophiles with little or no experience with spatial music of any kind. There were four such demos at the Munich show, and I heard three of them; scheduling problems precluded my attending the one offered by Lyngdorf Audio, which I certainly regret.

Over at MotorWorld, Cabasse was playing a new product called The Pearl Theater. The system is “scalable,” in the sense that the user decides how many channels he or she wants. For $9990, one gets a 5.1.2 speaker complement—seven identical 7.5cm spherical satellites and a subwoofer, plus a versatile AV receiver and two peripheral 50-watt amplifiers that communicate wirelessly with the main unit to power the surround and height channels. The presentation began with Mad Max on screen, never a good sign, the high-ceilinged, rather reflective space progressively filling with automotive mayhem and explosions. On the video monitor, I noted a chamber music demo option, which I requested, to be rewarded with the most incoherent performance of (I think) Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet I’ve ever heard—too loud, with absolutely no sense of an ensemble playing together in a real space. I fled.

SVS did better in one of the small prefab listening rooms (“cabins”) in Halle 3. The 5.1.2 loudspeaker array (all SVS, of course) included two Ultra Evolution Titan floorstanders in front ($4000), an Ultra Evolution Center ($800), two Ultra Evolution Nanos ($900) for surrounds, two Ultra Evolution Elevations ($900) as height channels, and a pair of SB17-Ultra RIEvolution subwoofers ($2700 each.) The AV receiver was a Marantz Cinema 40 ($3500) and discs were played on a vintage Oppo. The demo began with a movie (A Star Is Born) but soon made its way to a Steve Wilson immersive mix that gave much more of a sense of the potential for spatial music to provide an audiophile experience.

But there was a full-bore immersive audio experience at High End 2025 for a lucky few who had planned ahead and signed up for Kii Audio’s demo in a large Black Box Theater kind of space, accessorized with abstract, dimly glowing sculptural forms suspended from the high ceiling. The small number of reserved spots had been long claimed by the time the show began (there were seats for 20 at a time and the Munich show reportedly had close to 23,000 visitors this year), but I showed up anyway on Friday morning to beg and plead. The guy at the door pointed to an empty seat in the back row and I sat down just as the lights were going down.

The 7.1.4 speaker array included a trio of Kii Three speakers for the front left, center, and right channels with BXT active bass stands, plus a total of eight Kii Sevens for the surrounds, rears, and four height channels. (The total estimated cost of the loudspeakers was €80,000.) A Lyngdorf MP60 processor ($15,600) sent signal to the powered speakers via Ethernet.

With only the dim illumination afforded by those hanging sculptures, the music began. I had no idea of what to expect but recognized it immediately—an audio show staple of recent years, “Liberty” by the Norwegian singer/pianist/songwriter Anette Askvik. Askvik’s pure, plaintive, unadorned vocal, sparingly accompanied by electric piano, cello, sax, and minimal percussion, filled the space completely, enveloping the audience in a sensual embrace. It was ineffably beautiful. A second song by the same artist followed, then the house lights came up to a round of appreciative applause. And there she was in a bright yellow dress—Askvik herself, along with the engineer responsible for the immersive mix. She spoke convincingly about how she felt the engineering we’d just experienced had advanced the musical meaning of her music.

The Pure Audio Blu-ray disc, which holds both 7.1.4 Atmos and Auro-3D versions of the program, as well as 5.1 DTS-HD and high-resolution LPCM stereo programs was on sale at a booth near the theater and I practically flung my credit card in the direction of the salesman without asking the price. This is progress. This is good.

ANDREW QUINT’S BEST OF SHOW

 

Best Sound (Cost no object)

The Clarisys Room. No question. This system, featuring the six module Clarisys Audio Atrium loudspeakers ($785,000) plus VAC electronics, an Accuphase DF75 active crossover, Pink Faun and Lampizator digital components, a Kronos/MySonic Lab analog front end, and AudioQuest cables, was bound to impress simply for its complexity, cost, and ability to render large-scale music without any suggestion of stress or compression. But it may have been the natural rendering of space that was most impressive: I felt as if I could get up from my seat and walk forward among the orchestral players or big band musicians I was listening to. Remarkably, the effect was just as good with small groups. This was as convincing a simulacrum of live music—any kind of live music—as I’ve ever heard.

Best Sound (Cost considered)

In the Real (Audio) World where most of us live, the capacity to play music that’s loud and low is an eternal challenge. If the family or condo association doesn’t constrain you, the typical listening room will. The speakers from Silent Pound—both the Bloom stand mount (€14,900) and the Challenger II floorstander (€28,000) take the room out of the equation, without any room treatment, to a remarkable degree.

Most Significant Trend

Maybe it was just some sort of sampling error but, 60 years after Oskar Heil invented the technology, it seems like utilization of Air-Motion Transformer (AMT) high-frequency drivers, is becoming increasing common. Even just a decade ago, they were sort of exotic. I don’t think I heard the word “beryllium” spoken once the entire weekend.

Most Random Demonstration Music Trend

For as long as I can remember, female jazz vocals have been the favorite genre in stereo stores and audio shows, so much so that it’s become a cliché. For some reason, deep-voiced men were all the rage in Munich. If I hear “16 Tons” one more time, I can’t be responsible for my actions. Is the antidote and hour or two of Nora and Diana?

The lower midbass driver crosses over at a relatively low 140Hz; the other midbass (the “.5” element in this 2.5-way) rolls off acoustically at 6dB per octave. The tweeter is in full song at 3.5kHz. This contrasts with a pure three-way in which a dedicated midrange transducer is electrically crossed over via low-pass and high-pass filters. Internally, the point-to-point hardwiring is all done by hand using top-notch Nordost cabling. Stability is key with narrow tower enclosures. Rather than the more common spiked footers, the X2.6 employs stabilizing aluminum “outrigger”-style brackets that bolt onto the speaker from below. These are attached to hemispherical footers which house the inner ceramic balls that the speaker actually rests on and that help to decouple the X2.6 from the floor. Beautifully designed and executed, the outriggers’ form factor makes them an integral part of the loudspeaker.

Excellent loudspeakers have, to my way of thinking, multiple personalities. And so it is with this Raidho. The X2.6 was a shapeshifter, happy to become almost anything that was asked of it. It could play small and intimate, capturing the finest details of acapella voice or solo classical guitar or jazz trio, for examples. But it could also go big and boisterous and direct, rising to the occasion on a full-tilt orchestral recording. Tonally, X2.6 was largely neutral through the midrange and treble. I didn’t perceive evidence of a rising top end or recessive upper midrange. The X2.6 didn’t round the edges or smooth the grittiness of musical images; nor did it add any superfluous upper-treble information. The planar-magnetic tweeter was swoon-worthy in its naturalism, harmonics, and airiness, achieving, in my view, near state-of-the-art transparency, detail, and speed. String sections were lovely, layered, and refined. Cello, in particular, was expressive and darkly resonant. Brass and wind instruments, from piccolo to trumpet, to trombone, to sax, and on down, retained their transient, even blistering attack but also finished with openness and bloom. Try listening to Lew Soloff’s trumpet solo during “Autumn Leaves” for its realistic sense of dynamic attack. The power and stridency of its full-tilt blasts struck me as musically truthful, and just as if he was playing in a small club, it’ll clean your ears out.

Given its midrange vitality and engaging dynamic energy, the X2.6 was anything but dull. The midrange was lively and forward, when necessary, but always balanced and in control. I’d describe the X2.6 as having a bottom-up character, one that shades a bit darker and heavier. (And this contrasts with the lighter, top-down demeanors of some two-ways that seem, at least to me, to over-sell transient detail and push high-octave energy into the foreground.) This makes it a natural reproducing pipe organ, the resonances reverberating from a piano’s soundboard, the keyboard pedal sustains and decay, and the darker tonality of cello and bass violin. In these instances, I could hear and, at times, feel the weight and tug of the X2.6’s rich and ripe lower mid and upper bass octaves. This palpable weight lends the speaker a foundation that grounds it and solidifies soundstage and acoustic cues.

Bass extension was prodigious, plummeting into the low 30Hz region (and easily perceivable even lower). Pretty much on spec. My room is on the small side (room gain is another factor that must be accounted for), with old wood floors on a raised foundation. In the event of too much bass energy, Raidho recommends foam plugs or simply blocking the ports entirely to dampen low-bass extension. (Raidho states that plugging two ports reduces output by –3dB and plugging all four a –6dB reduction). In my case, I was getting a little too much energy and bloom in lower strings and heavy percussion such as kettle drums. A bit of experimentation was required (even small differences in room placement make a difference) but I was able to reduce low-end output sufficiently. Ultimately, I think the X2.6 longed for a slightly larger room to engage with, but I was more than satisfied with the results I was getting.

The other critical elements that helped define the X2.6’s sonic virtues were output and dynamics. Capable of pants-flapping high-pressure levels, the X2.6’s performance was nothing less than rock stable—tonal balance and timbres remained constant at all volume levels. Even at extremely stressful volumes, the cabinet was stable and quiet and the port unfazed, exhibiting little in the way of coloration or overhang. No matter what I threw at it, the X2.6 was a model of composure. And this includes dragging out some 80s-era, 12″, 45rpm remixes, like Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long,” a track that makes full use of top session players like Abe Laboriel on bass and Paulinho da Costa on percussion, along with a burn-down-the-house horn section and innumerable backup singers/partygoers filling in the back of the soundstage.

Or, let rip Metallica’s “Sad But True” at the seriously loud levels this music demands. It may be hard to imagine, but even hard rock at the extremes, like Metallica, could be reproduced with utter clarity, precise imaging, and openness, with only the distortion elements that the band had purposefully dialed into the mix. Even in the face of this onslaught, the X2.6 demonstrated uncommon transparency and resolution. Similarly, there were the two Bruce Springsteen ballads, “Racing in the Streets” and “Darkness on the Edge of Town” (same album, same story told from opposite sides of the same coin) Joined by Garry Tallent’s electric bass, Max Weinberg’s kickdrum overflowed with skin texture and room pressurization. And yet there was perfect synchronicity and balance between the bass and percussion, the instruments standing apart but timing the beat as one. The sound was open and uncompressed, and even as I raised the output there were no added colorations, image smearing, or port overhang.

Very much to my liking was the extent that X2.6 excelled at reproducing voice—not only vocal intelligibility but inter-driver coherence and unity And not just the vocal presence of chesty baritones like Bryn Terfel but even mezzos like Janet Baker or sopranos like Renée Fleming were reproduced as resonant and fully physicalized entities—not just disembodied voices. This was also true with vocal choruses, where each individual within the unified choir was revealed.

The X2.6 also played with disarming sensitivity. An example: Michael Jackson’s guitar/vocal rehearsal demo of “She’s Out of My Life” [This is It] has a fly-on-the-wall tenderness that was very affecting. Another prime vocal track that shined was Melody Gardot’s “Who Will Comfort Me.” Her vocal struck my ears as a bit darker and throatier, but it was also as if more air was being pushed from her body. Listen for the terrific, tuneful bassline that secures the rhythm and hangs with Gardot’s vocal but never upstages it.

The Raidho throws a lavish orchestral soundstage, dimensional, defined, and layered to the back of the hall. Its ability to suggest scale, often real-life rather than miniaturized, was a bonus. It didn’t provoke a sensation of “manufacturing” unearned soundstage depth—that sleepy laid-back feeling that drains away the micro-dynamic energy of an orchestra. Rather, during Vaughn-Williams’ The Wasps Overture, the orchestra came to life with natural section layering, crisply accented low-level lines, upper-octave air, and gentle harmonic lift to the string sections. Image placement, even the delicate concert harp, was unwavering.

As 2.5-way floorstanders of this spec go, there’s little room to improve on the X2.6. With proper setup and care taken to rein in its bass output, it truly is that good, But three-way floorstanders still have advantages, as I’ve observed with my ATC SCM50ASL towers. By using a dedicated midrange transducer and driver-specific crossover filtering, the immediacy factor and presence are heightened even further. Raidho knows this, of course, which is why the larger three-way TD3.2 exists.

To be a high-end audio enthusiast means one’s system always seems to be in some state of flux, where tips, tweaks, upgrades, and updates are always beckoning from around the corner. But I think Raidho’s X2.6 is an exception. Few loudspeakers can boast about offering “something for everyone,” but this speaker’s unreserved likeability factor among my observant audio friends means it surely qualifies. I think it’s a “buy and hold” component—a loudspeaker of such rewarding musicality and superior quality that I see satisfied owners building a system around it for the long haul. A loudspeaker to celebrate.

Specs & Pricing

Type: 2.5-way, bass-reflex floorstander with rear ports
Drivers: One planar-magnetic tweeter; two 6.5″ mid/bass
Frequency response: 32Hz–50kHz
Crossover: 140Hz/3.5kHz
Nominal impedance: greater than 6 ohms
Sensitivity: 87dB
Weight: 66 lbs.
Dimensions: 14.2″ x 42″ x 16.1″
Power requirements: Greater than 100W
Price: $22,800/pr.

DANTAX Radio A/S
Bransagervej 15
9490 Pandrup
Denmark
raidho.dk

Enjoy the show!

 

Nirvana A

Joseph Audio showed its $52k three-way four-driver Pearl Graphene Ultra floorstander, driven by Doshi Audio electronics, sourced by a J.Sikora table, and wired by

Cardas. Despite being a little shouty, forward, and abrasive on vocal fortes (the first instance of what was to become a show-wide trend), the Pearl Graphene Ultra had superb delicacy on cymbals and decent though slightly loose and underdamped bass. Midrange was lifelike on Blossom Dearie “Do I Love You,” but still piercing on transients.

 

Nirvana B

The $200k Credo Cinema LTM multi-driver line source was driven by EMM Labs electronics and sourced by EMM Labs, Meitner, Feickert, and DS Audio in a very large room. Once again, the sound was piercing on vocal fortes and slide guitar transients.

 

Nirvana C

Acora Acoustics huge, five-driver, granite-enclosed $218k VRC, augmented by rears and center and sub and driven by CAT electronics, had huge depth of stage on “Avalon.” The speakers disappeared; their sound was dark, sweet, vast, and beautiful, with next to none of that piercing quality on transients, even on “Coal Train”! A contender.

 

Utopia D

Wilson Benesch’s £100k Omnium, a tall, slim, seven-driver floorstander in a biocomposite monocoque enclosure (with a silk-carbon hybrid tweeter and isobaric woofers), was being driven by Audia Flight electronics and sourced by WB’s fabulous GMT One record-playing system. The sound was very open, with lovely treble, a huge stage, and notably good decay. The speakers were facing straight forward (no toe-in) in a giant room, so the center image on vocals was a little diffuse. Bass was also a bit thumpy and cool in timbre.

 

Prosperity

 

The $54k, two-and-a-halfway, five-driver (one diamond tweeter, four 7” ceramic mid/woofers) Marten Parker Quintet Diamond floorstander, driven and sourced by Luxman and wired by Jorma boasted a neutral balance, surprisingly natural timbre on female vocal, and fine definition in the bass. A good showing.

 

Euphoria

Another set of Acora Acoustics’ $218k, three-way, five-driver (one 1.25″ beryllium dome tweeter, two 4.5″ midranges, and two 12″ woofers) VRC floorstander in a massive, solid-granite, ported enclosure was here being driven superbly well by VAC tubes, and sourced by Wadax and an SAT turntable. Although I haven’t been wowed by these speakers in the past, this year’s showing was an unalloyed triumph. On a cover of “Sound of Silence,” the bass went incredibly deep, midrange timbre was gorgeous, instruments were extremely dense in color, dimensional in imaging, and vast in staging. The overall balance may have been a bit dark, but so what? Despite a hint of room mischief on the lowest notes of the organ, the incredibly lifelike staging and imaging of the choir on the Rutter Requiem, which seemed to be huge in number, freestanding in space, individuated in presence, conjoined in harmony, and nearly life-sized in stature, made for what was perhaps the most realistic reproduction of a large choir I’ve ever heard. This was the best AXPONA sound yet and certainly a BOS contender.

 

Schaumburg C

The $65k Stratton Element 12 two-way stand-mount was being driven by Burmester amplifiers and Acoustic Signature’s new Apex phonostage preamp and sourced by an Acoustic Signature Ascona turntable with TA-9000 arm and MCX4 cart. This was a very good-sounding small system, aided no doubt by Acoustic Signature’s new phonostage and its wonderful table and arm. The sonics took me a bit by surprise given the speaker’s configuration and the largish size of the room it was parked in, but the Stratton had dense dark tone color, good though not earthshaking bass, and a very attractive treble without bite or edge (for once). A very nice showing.

 

Schaumburg D

Estelon’s $296k Extreme Mk II, 5-driver (two 11” Accuton CELL aluminum-sandwich woofers, one 11” Accuton CELL aluminum-sandwich mid/woofer, one 7” Accuton CELL ceramic-membrane midrange, one 1” Accuton CELL diamond tweeter), four-way floorstander in a large, ported, hourglass-shaped, marble-composite enclosure with remote-controlled height-adjustable tweeter/midrange module was driven by Vitus Signature Series SM-103 MK.II monoblock amplifiers and an SL-103 linestage preamp, sourced by a Vitus SD-025 MK.II DAC and two Sonorus ATR10 mkII tape decks with Arian Jansen sampler tapes, and wired with Crystal’s Da Vinci cable and Infinity power cords. On the tapes, the sound was extremely open and present, with bass that was very powerful and extended albeit a little underdamped and a mite thumpy and a midrange and treble that were highly detailed but (yet again) edgy and aggressive on fortes. The tapes had great staging outside the speakers, thanks to Jansen’s Holographic Imaging software-treatment of the high-res digital files from which the tapes were made, but virtually everything recorded on them suffered from that same upper-midrange brightness and aggressiveness. I thought at first this might be due to off-axis diffraction, as I was initially sitting to the side, but when I asked distributor Aldo Filippelli what setting he was using with the Vitus amps—which never sounded even remotely bright or edgy when I used them in my system—he confessed they were running in “rock” mode rather than Vitus’ “traditional” Class A. I immediately asked him to change the setting, and the result was like a different system—far smoother, more neutral in balance and natural in timbe, without a trace of brightness in the upper mids and treble. It still wasn’t one of the very best sounds I heard at the show (the room was too big, IMO), but it was a whole lot better.

 

Schaumburg E

Dali’s $120k Core five-driver floorstander driven and sourced by McIntosh electronics surprised me. This was a good sounding room—dark and rich in color in the midband and treble, just a tad vague in center imaging, and a bit overblown in the bass, but very listenable with a wide soundstage and decent resolution. A fine showing.

 

Schaumburg F

The five fabric-driver (two 12″ woofers, two 6.5″ midrange drivers, and one 1″ soft-dome tweeter in an D’Appolito array), aluminum-enclosed, $165k Stenheim Reference Ultime Two, biamped by four VTL 450 monoblocks, sourced by dCS and Gran Prix Audio, and wired by Nordost, was sensational last year (Robert gave it a BOS award) and (after a late Thursday night recalibration by the great Stirling Trayle) proved to be just as wonderful sounding in 2025. From Robbie Robertson’s electric Sinematic (with Van the Man) to Hans Theessink’s mostly acoustic Jedermann Remixed to a completely acoustic Blossom Dearie and all stops between, these were best-of-show-worthy contenders, with super solidity and three dimensionality top to bottom, uniformly rich dense tone color, outstanding (and outstandingly well controlled and articulated) bass, sweet treble that never shrieked at you (as the tweets in so many other rooms did), and the phenomenal dynamic range that makes these very high sensitivity transducers so alive sounding. Once again, the Stenheims were instant Best of Show contenders.

 

Innovation

The $100k Monitor Audio Hyphen with 11 drivers (an AMT tweeter surrounded by six two-inch midranges—called the M array—on a center strut and four 8-inch force-canceling woofers built into the stone-acrylic side towers, making for an H-shaped form factor) was driven by McIntosh and sourced by Bluesound. The room the Hyphen was being shown in was very loud and busy, full of talkative people, so the sound of the speakers was hard to suss out. However, from what I could hear, they were quite neutral and natural, one of the few transducers I heard that seemed lifelike in balance. I liked them in spite of the noise.

 

Connection

The $50k, four-driver, three-and-a-halfway Sonus faber Stradivari floorstander with its distinctively thin, wide, gorgeously finished, soundboard-like enclosure was being driven by ARC 330M monoblocks and an ARC Ref 10 preamp, and sourced by dCS, Clearaudio, and DS Audio. The sound was simply gorgeous—dark in balance but superbly dense in color, texture, dynamics, body, dimensionality, and staging. Meltingly beautiful on strings, high and low, it may not have been the last word in resolution, but it was breathtakingly lovely to listen to. A BOS contender.

 

Perfection Boardroom

Wilson Audio’s $367k seven-driver Chronosonic XVX in a tall, immensely adjustable “enclosure” was being driven by D’Agostino electronics and sourced by dCS and Clearaudio with DS Audio cart. Wire was by Transparent. The XVX produced a dark solid sound with notably good speed and impact on transients. Bass was a little wooly in the narrow room in which it was ensconced. The XVX was not as rich, rounded, and ravishing in timbre and texture as the Sonus faber Stradavari with ARC—just a touch leaner and drier by comparison—but it was still quite listenable.

 

Third Floor

Despite being parked in a relatively tiny corner room of a large room, the four-driver $55k B&W 801 D4 Signature, driven by Marantz electronics and sourced by a Marantz DAC, had a very listenable sound—scarcely the last word in resolution or dynamics or staging but as smooth and sweet as a really good FM tuner broadcast. It would be nice to hear these handsome looking and sounding speakers in a larger space where they weren’t jammed against and between walls.

 

Fourth Floor

The $63,400 YG Acoustics Hailey 3 three-driver three-way floorstander in two stacked and finely fitted together aluminum cabinets was driven by Zesto tube electronics and sourced by Zesto’s new tube DAC, with cables by Cardas. Despite bass leak-through from nearby rooms and the confines of a small narrow hotel room, the sound was impressively open, neutral, lively, pacey, and lifelike on Miles and Trane. Staging was limited by the room, but tonality was quite natural and appealing. A good showing for YG and for Zesto.

Von Schweikert’s demure, 6-driver, $59,000 VR.thirty floorstander with ceramic cones, a diamond tweeter, a rear-mounted ambient ribbon tweeter, and active bass was driven by Class A Westminster Labs electronics and sourced by a Lumin streamer and a Rockna DAC. The sound was reminiscent of the YG Hailey 3, in part because the VR.thirty was situated in the same small narrow room. It, too, was impressively neutral and lively with a little less tube bloom, of course, than the Zesto-driven Haley but with faster transients. Another very good showing.

The second pair of $63k YG Hailey 3 three-driver three-way floorstanders (in the same tiny room) was driven by Class D bel canto electronics. They had a beguiling warmth and body and chewiness and the same openness as the other pair on Willie Nelson “Blue Skies” vinyl and Greg Brown’s “Brand New 64 Dodge.” Another nice presentation.

The $89k Altec Lansing Ribbonacci bipolar membrane loudspeaker with separate DSP’d woofers, driven by Lampizator tube electronics and sourced by a Method 4 DAC, was the fullest-bodied speaker I heard on Floor 4. It had rich dense tone color on all instruments, very lively dynamics, and a natural tonal balance. Though played a little too loud for me, it was still an outstanding system.

 

Fifth Floor

The $65k Cessaro Mendelssohn hybrid loudspeaker with compression-driver tweeter in a spherical horn and cone midrange and woofer, driven by Alieno tubes and sourced by a TW Acustic table and tonearm, had more stage depth than other speakers in small rooms.

Despite the too-loud playback level, the Cessaro was still marvelous on piano—extremely clear and natural. Unfortunately, voices had that Schaumburg edge on fortes, though they sounded well controlled at lower volume. All in all, a mixed bag that showed great potential for a larger space.

Bayz Audio’s always interesting-sounding, albeit plumbing-fixture-looking $60k Courante 2.0 omni, driven by Burmester, sourced by Burmester and Aurender, and wired by Shunyata, once again, exhibited that now-familiar shoutiness and edge on vocal and instrumental fortes, although the musicians were free standing and three-dimensional, as if not sourced by a loudspeaker. That omni effect alone made the Bayz worth a long listen, even if it was fighting the room and sometimes losing.

 

Sixth Floor

The $82.5k GIP 4165 replica of a WE full-ranger from the 1930s with a 105dB-sensitive 12” field-coil driver in a horn-loaded baffle with a separate TW 38 tweeter mounted atop the enclosure, driven by $55k 6L6 GIP amps and $48k GIP preamp, was being played piercingly loudly in a small hotel room! Though it had reasonably good timbre and dynamics on trumpet and piano, the excessive volume level obscured its virtues.

TriangleART’s $65k Metis loudspeaker with solid walnut spherical-horn-loaded midrange, ported cone woofer, and RAAL true ribbon tweeter was being driven by TriangleART’s tube electronics and a TA turntable. The Metis had good density of tone color on Diana Krall’s Live In Paris but, like the GIP 4165, was being played too loud in a small room, so sounded rather piercing on vocal and instrumental transients. Center imaging was also a little vague. That said and level aside, the sound was not unappealing.

 

Seventh Floor

The $70k Fourier Transform active loudspeakers with subs and amps is perhaps the weirdest speaker I’ve ever seen—a veritable jungle gym of 12 unenclosed cone drivers stacked atop each other, with an array of ribbons and planar tweeters to their sides and an outboard subwoofer. But surprise, surprise, the Fourier sounded great—open like an omni (which is what it is) with free-floating images of extremely natural timbre, save for the bass, where the subs were boxy and poorly blended. That aside, the Fourier Transforms were best-of-show realistic-sounding in the mids and treble.

 

Eleventh Floor

Italy’s $82k Albedo Audio Acclara SHS, a five-Accuton-driver three-way floorstander, developed quite a nice soundstage, wide and deep in a narrow room. Tonal balance was dark and moderately rich with a sweet treble. Instruments sounded dense in timbre and texture, and the bass was very deep going and well controlled on a Mino Cinélu drum album. A Tape Project tape of Nat King Cole and George Shearing was also impressive, though the Sonorus deck wasn’t quite as delicate in the upper mids as the Cinélu vinyl. Devin Hoff LP of standup bass was simply superb with very deep extension. A notably good-sounding room.

The $78k Rockport Lynx three-driver three-way floorstander with custom drivers and enclosure was being shown in two spaces. Here it was being driven by Absolare. The narrow room and large window behind the speakers weren’t helping, but aside from the usual brightness in the upper mids on fortes, the Lynxes were very detailed with excellent stage depth and height and deep going low end. Too bad about the room.

 

Twelfth Floor

The $91k ceramic- and diamond-driver Marten Mingus Quintet 2 floorstander, driven by Goldmund electronics and sourced by Goldmund and a Garrard 301, were very fast and finely detailed. Bass was overblown in this small space; timbre, neutral to slightly warm.

 

Fourteenth Floor

The $78k Rockport Lynx, making a second appearance here driven by Vinnie Rossi tube electronics, sourced by Innuous, and wired by AudioQuest, was splendid sounding, despite a bit of thickness in the bass—gorgeous on female voice and piano and in spite of the small size of the room, no shoutiness in the mids and treble. This was a better showing than the first Lynx. In fact, in spite of bass issues, it was one of the most natural and appealing sounds at the show.

Audio Note UK showed its large $65k AN-E/SPx Ltd. Field Coil two-way stand-mount driven by AN’s Meishu 300B integrated and sourced by AN digital and analog. For a two-way, the AN-E was surprisingly full range, with a seamless blend of hemp cone woofer and dome tweeter. Tremendously rich, clear, and dynamic on drum and synth (-6dB at 17Hz!), it was one of the surprises at AXPONA and one of the best two-way stand-mounts at the show.

 

Fifteenth Floor

The gigantic, $750,000, six-driver (one 1.1-inch diamond-coated beryllium dome tweeter, one 6-inch Gen 8 Magico Nano-Tec midrange, two 11-inch Gen 8 Magico Nano-Tec mid/woofs, and two 15-inch Gen 8 Magico Nano-Tec woofers) Magico M9s were housed in a nearly 8-foot-tall, 1000-pound (per side), oval-shaped, sealed enclosure of astonishingly complex and sophisticated construction. Driven by top-line D’Agostino electronics, sourced by top-line Wadax DAC, server, and player, and cabled by Vyda, the M9’s low end was big, powerful, and solid on solo double bass, with superb pitch definition and good timbre. However, the M9 suffered from the same aggressiveness in the upper-midrange/lower-treble that plagued so many other transducers at Schaumburg. Soundstaging was terrific, but that brightness and edginess on fortes with male and female voice, ensemble voices, and solo guitar made it sound as if the tweet were sticking out. The room (low ceiling and near sidewalls) and the relatively close listening area were not doing these massive speakers any favors. In a different room with a different setup, I’m sure the M9s would sound like a million bucks, which is virtually what they cost. In this oddball Schaumburg venue, not so much.

MBL’s $91k four-way 101 E MkII omnis, driven by MBL 9011 amps and sourced by its outstanding C41 streamer, sounded astonishingly realistic on voice! Not as rich in color as the Stenheims (in part, I think, because of the electronic bass trap Jeremy was using, which leaned down the midbass but, alas, also leaned down the lower midrange), but so boxlessly open, bloomy, and dimensional that Mark Knopfler sounded “there.”

 

Sixteenth Floor

The $120k Avantgarde Mezzo G3 two-way floorstander with spherical horn tweeter and woofer and powered and DSP’d dual-12” bass, driven by Phasemation MA-2000 tubes and sourced by Wadax, was just plain terrific. A BOS right off the bat. No horn coloration, dark gorgeous tone color, rich texture on voice and instrumentals, and a dynamic range and ease that were nonpareil. The Mezzo was also incredibly detailed, effortlessly differentiating previously undifferentiated background vocals on “I Heard You Paint Houses” from Sinematic. The best I’ve heard these speakers sound and a BOS contender.

 

The $105k Vivid Giya G1 Spirit, driven by Audionet electronics, and sourced by Master Fidelity DAC and Kronos table, had an appealingly light, sprightly, open presentation devoid of darkness but lacking some bass, midbass, and lower midrange color, weight, and body. Nonetheless, it was quite expansive in staging and boxless-sounding bottom to top.

 

The five-driver, four-way $250k Gauder DARC 250 was being driven by Soulution electronics, including the new 717 amps. It was hard to tell for sure on speakers I’m not highly familiar with, but the amps seemed to be absolutely colorlessly neutral, supremely detailed (brushes on drumheads had to be heard to be believed), and breathtakingly natural on “Take Five” and other jazz cuts, completely disappearing the Gauders as sound sources. With terrific treble and midrange timbre and astounding resolution (though not at all analytical), the new amps were phenomenal!

 

Best of Show

Acora Acoustics VRC loudspeakers driven by VAC electronics. Runner-up: Stenheim Reference Ultime 2 loudspeaker driven by VTL electronics.

 

Best Buy

Sonus faber Stradavari loudspeaker driven by ARC electronics.

 

Most Innovative

Fourier Transform omnidirectional loudspeaker driven by its own dedicated amps.

The Tribe Tower Thunderbird is a new model in virtually every sense, highlighting “itself” with its superlative clarity, exceptional staging, magical spatial capabilities and being an easy load to drive … All delivered with accurately defined space between individual instruments and voices, combined with previously unheard phase coherency essentially making it “A True Totem Acoustic Original!”.

A brand new 6” Torrent mid-bass driver, requiring over three years of R&D, was precisely created for the Tribe Tower Thunderbird’s specific cabinet architecture. Featuring a new multi-layer voice coil, increased magnet strength and geometry that generates life-like bass stable to below 28Hz, while being fully capable of music reproduction up to 7KHz is used in a dual-driver crossoverless configuration. Coupling this cutting-edge 6” Torrent driver with a new proprietary 1.3″ tweeter allowed the Tribe Tower Thunderbird to become a reality.

The Thunderbird is regarded as mythological bird-like spirit that is deeply rooted in the sacred beliefs of many North American indigenous peoples’ history and culture. They are considered a supernatural being of power, strength, courage, as well as protection. Thunderbirds are believed to create thunder by flapping their wings and lightning by flashing their eyes. They also symbolize a deeper connection to the land, skies, and forces of nature, while maintaining order between the realms of the living and the spiritual world. Archaeologically, sites containing depictions of Thunderbirds have been discovered that date back over the past four millenium.

Vince Bruzzese, “The Tribe Tower Thunderbird will physically blend into any environment as its performance is not heavily dependant on placement, allowing for easy room integration. The height and width of its image can rival that of the Element Metal V2 and also perform a disappearing act like both the Element Fire V2 and Metal V2 … It can be viewed as a mini Metal V2 with a relaxed, highly articluate and immersive vocal presentation. As well, sonically it will match perfectly with the NEW Tribe On-Wall.  Finally, the Thunderbird offers amazing harmonic decay of musical notes in a superbly life-like and natural way.”

 Tribe Tower Thunderbird Significant Design Features:                      

• Dual ported 2-way design.
• Two 6” Torrent Technology low resonance woofers with no crossover in their path for the purest possible signal.
• 1.3” graphene dome tweeter with 0.25” thick machined aluminum faceplate for crystal clear highs.
• Industry unique Borosilicate cabinet dampening manages energy dissipation in a desired, controlled manner within the enclosure while keeping the cabinet musically alive.
• Avant-garde monocoque cabinetry with no parallel surfaces creates an incredibly rigid and inert enclosure.
• Possesses the dynamic capabilities of much larger speakers.
• A genuine lifestyle loudspeaker where performance is not heavily dependant on physical placement.
• Nominal Impedance: 6 ohms  /  Sensitivity: 90dB @ 1watt  /  Crossover Frequency: 2.5kHz  (first order).
• Frequency Response: 28.5 Hz to 29 kHz ± 3 dB  (in room)
• Recommended power amplification: 30 -200W.
• Dimensions – Top (H x W x D): 42” x 6.5” x 7.5”   Bottom (H x W x D): 42” x 9.5” x 11.5”
• Weight: 25 lbs. each  (Shipping weight: 40 lbs. each)
• Available finishes: satin white, satin black, premium dusk and premium ice.
•  WBT 4-way connectors with premium finishes  OR   Solid twin-pair, gold-plated terminals for single or bi-wire.
• Bottom decoupling system uses 5/8 of a ball bearing x 4 which doesn’t replicate standing waves.
• Matching magnetic grills included.
• Recommended placement: 18” – 5’ from rear wall   4’ – 12’ apart.

The Tribe Tower Thunderbird may very well be Totem Acoustic’s most unique product accomplishment, achieving so much on both a sonic and an aesthetic level. Possessing the dynamic capabilities of much larger speakers, yet compatible with a wide range of power amplifiers, the Tribe Tower Thunderbird will perform very effectively in rooms of many different sizes and varying layouts, yet with minimal physical restrictions. All the while, producing a soundscape that is natural, articulate, very spatially defined both tall and wide. A True Totem Acoustic Original!

 The Tribe Tower Thunderbird in satin finish has an MSRP of $13,500.00 USD and is shipping now. Add 1,500.00 USD for premium high gloss finish with 4-way WBT connectors.

OVERVIEW

I’ll get back to that initial question provoked by these unassuming speakers in just a bit, but first, let’s take a look at some of the design and build details.

The Q Series presents KEF’s entry-level loudspeaker line-up, and with a trickle-down economy at play, this ninth-generation benefits from revolutionary technologies originally developed for KEF’s flagship Blade and Reference series speakers.

Flagship innovations bundled into a roughly $1,800 US package – that’s per pair – is a screamin’ deal and something to keep in mind when taking in the balance of this review.

I’ve heard a number of speakers at twice that price that didn’t sound nearly as well composed. In fact, I’ve recently been tossing a question around in my head. “When it comes to floor standers, is there really anything worth buying below $3k?”

I’m obviously not the only one who has asked the question. In working my way through the introduction to Robert Harley’s book, The Complete Guide to High-End Audio, he remarks that approximately $3,500 is the point, below which, a buyer’s worthwhile options are few and far between.

In my experience, the Q7 Meta is amongst that few and I would expect nothing less from a company with the storied past, detailed market research, and R&D present at KEF.

Getting back to the design, in addition to the two 6.5” woofers, the Q7’s Uni-Q Driver Array now incorporates KEF’s MAT technology, officially welcoming the Q Series into KEF’s Meta pedigree. MAT (Metamaterial Absorption Technology) ensures lower high-frequency distortion by absorbing rearward sound waves radiated by the tweeter’s dome.

The Q7’s ported cabinet measures just under 40 inches tall, is about 8 inches wide, and a little over a foot deep. The finish – available in Satin Black (as in my review pair), Satin White, or Walnut – felt congruent with its price tag.

The plinth is made of plastic, but I felt it was tastefully executed and a prudent cost savings – presumably to spend more where it counts.

SOUND QUALITY

So, did they spend more where it counts? Obviously, I can’t know with any sort of certainty, but – had they not – I find it doubtful that I would have been provoked into pondering for so long my initial question – Does high-performance audio necessarily mean high-fidelity audio?

Here at The Absolute Sound – it may be self-evident – our comparative reference when critiquing equipment is the absolute sound. That is, the sound of live performers in a real space. You could say there is no higher fidelity than listening to an acoustic performance, live; or more accurately, in this scenario fidelity is infinite.

While this remains our reference, should it be the only metric used to judge whether amps, cables, turntables, cartridges, streamers, or speakers are ‘good.’ Certainly not, and no one here would make that claim.

On the other hand, can equipment be considered ‘good’ or even great if it falls short on this metric? Absolutely. In fact, if you were to poll the sonic priorities of listeners – especially individuals just dipping their toes into audiophilia – a faithful reproduction of an acoustic performance may be near the bottom of their list or possibly even absent.

With KEF’s years of experience and market research, I think they’ve artfully drawn on this reality. Nothing about the Q7 Meta sounded accidental; quite the contrary, nearly every characteristic that caught my attention sounded methodically intentional.

This left me with a feeling of confidence while listening that set me free to simply enjoy the music.

That said, if you’re one who tends towards being more analytical while listening, you may find yourself underwhelmed with the Q7s.

Although, I frequently pitch my tent in the analytical camp; the artful voicing of the Q7s made for enjoyable listening track after track.

Probably the most obvious characteristic was a sonic glow on which the fundamentals are placed –  which may sound pejorative but hear me out.

Typically, equipment in and around this price point will present a slight glow in one or multiple segments of the frequency spectrum. This is often characterized as smeary or incoherent.

Pure conjecture here, but I think the engineers at KEF understood their task of making an affordable speaker and made the prudent decision to make delicious lemonade. This is what I meant when I said some characteristics sounded methodically intentional.

The engineers acknowledged their limitations with the target budget and produced a speaker that presents a consistent sound throughout its frequency range. This separates the Q7 from other products it competes with that often try to be something they’re not.

On lesser equipment this sonic glow comes and goes and varies cross bandwidth, leaving for a distracting and sometimes even frustrating listening session. As I previously mentioned, the consistency rendered by the Q7s was confidence inspiring and quite enjoyable.

The visual that kept coming to mind was the ambient light feature of many modern TVs; used to reduce strain by presenting a more gradual transition for the eye. This is what the Q7’s sonic glow bestowed aurally. Here, it had a certain rightness.

This sonic glow also helps facilitate a more spacious soundspace, making the space around the music feel airier and more delicate. Within this airy soundspace, the sound stage filled the space between the speakers and offered an impressive depth.

Individual performers were distinctly positioned on the soundstage while maintaining a feeling of togetherness – like a live performance.

This is why I was left pondering my initial question. The performance of this speaker is remarkable (especially at its price). It’s the balance of the Q7’s frequency response that causes a very subtle departure from fidelity, with its gently rolled off highs.

Being weighted more towards the bottom end – which most listeners prefer, means some instruments’ upper harmonics are slightly muted. This minimizes their timbre and renders a slightly less real sonic experience.

Female vocals are presented slightly veiled but the gently rolled off treble takes some of the bite off the harsh transients from instruments like the trumpet, violin, or piccolo.

Dynamics were engaging and immersive when the recording asked it of the speakers. The music felt as if it had life. In the opening track from Latvian Radio Big Band’s album Big Band Minimalism, The Girl in the Tree, the horns start out strong and the music gradually settles in.

The Q7s present a strong opening punch yet offer up all the detail when the conductor calls the bass and woodwinds in to gently gather the band.

The bass performance of the Q7s was noteworthy. In fact, the bass energy emitted from the Q7s was significant enough that I chose to insert the included bungs into the ports for most of my listening.

I do like bass, but I felt I could get the tighter, more defined bass response I prefer by reducing some of the energy from the port. Now, if – like Big Boi – your preference is to have the, “Trunk rattling, like two midgets in the backseat ‘rassling,” toss the bungs aside and you’re likely to not be disappointed.

To that end, the Q7 may not be for apartment dwellers. Unless you like sharing your music with your neighbors – unsolicited.

SUMMARY

Based on the work of Sean Olive and his team at Harman, the frequency response of the Q7 certainly highlights listener preferences. So, suffice it to say, KEF has done their research to understand the customer in this segment of the market.

A gentle lift in the mid-bass, a smooth transition through the upper-mids, and a gently rolled of treble – I think the engineers at KEF understood the assignment.

Prospective buyers are not likely to have a dedicated listening room in their home; meaning the Q7s are likely to share the same space as their TV and I believe the voicing of the Q7 would present an enjoyable cinematic experience as well.

So, if you’re just getting into the sport and don’t wish to break the bank, the KEF Q7 Meta may be unmatched in its ability to supply the listener with enjoyment below $2k.

Thanks for sticking around while I shared what I heard on the Q7s and don’t forget to subscribe to the channel and click the bell for notifications.

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And don’t forget to make listening fun again.

• A sandwich mechanical structure. Composed of the assembly of chassis in MDF and 2mm steel sheets maintained tight by many mechanical screws. This set is perfectly rigid. It is a mechanical reference which guarantees the absence of coloration and the preservation of timbres.

• Proprietary ribbon tweeters. The ribbon is produced as an isodynamic cell (mylar film and aluminum conductor). It moves in an intense magnetic field made from neodymium magnets. These tweeters operate over a wide frequency range and mate perfectly with isodynamic cells. A simple crossover (12dB peroctave) allows a perfect fusion of the registers.

In essence, with more space between the magnets, the Mylar film has greater excursion and thus greater extension. While some of the general principles sound like their U.S. competitors, I can say without hesitation, before even getting to any listening notes, that the Diptyque’s low-frequency extension is something unique and that the company has accomplished its goal of extending bass response.

The $30k DP 160 Mk II reviewed here features panels that measure 63.4″ tall by 20.9″ wide and a svelte 1.85″ thick, while weighing a not so svelte 110 pounds per panel. The design cues are very modern and quite attractive; accented with leather edging and supported with a subtle cross-footer and three cones to stabilize and isolate. The standard color choices are black or white for the metal finish (or pay a bit more and select one of 160 RAL colors) and black, white, caramel, or chocolate leather finish for the edges. The speaker utilizes two bass/midrange cells using Diptyque’s PPBM technology and a 21.65″-long wideband ribbon tweeter, crossed over at 1600Hz. Described as a 2-way system (I would call it 2.5), it has a sensitivity of 87dB/1W/1m. It definitely appreciates some amp juice to make it sing, but with a 6-ohm nominal impedance, it is not a challenging load for your amplifier. Diptyque suggests amps greater than 60Wpc, but I wouldn’t match DP 160s with anything less than 100Wpc to get the bass flowing the way it can and should. The spec’d frequency response is 30Hz to 22kHz, and from what I heard I have no reason to question that. Just to be thorough, there are three smaller models and one larger model to choose from, ranging in price from $5k to $50k; so pick the size that fits your needs, your room, and your budget. The larger Reference is a 3.5-way panel that implements a crossed push-pull technology and a more defined bass extending down to 22Hz.

The ribbon tweeter side was set up on the inside, and each panel had a slight toe-in. If setting up for a living room experience and more listeners, you may want to flip the tweeters to the outside to widen that sweet spot or keep them inside and move the speakers farther apart. My room allows what I would consider the minimum 20-24″ from the front wall and minimum 8–10″ off the side walls to get the most out of a dipole design. The size of the stage and the image specificity shifted significantly based on distance apart and toe-in, so it took a bit of time to optimize performance. Anyone who knows what planar-magnetic speakers do, knows they do big. Image specificity takes a step back to stage size, depth, and density; and there is no other way to say it than “Wow!” Floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall? Fwah! (Is that a word? It is now.) I was taken aback by the density and dynamic scale that this essentially diminutive panel could produce. All the typical magnetostatic planar characteristics were there, like lightning speed, amazing transient shifts, midrange palpability and realism, transparency, resolution without stridency or sterility, and those characteristics extended down to the low mids and then down to the midbass and then down to the real bass—honest and true, palpable, impactful, tenacious low-frequency extension that you could hear and feel. I was impressed.

For those who know my writing, on occasion I talk about the listening reset needed when changing between speaker designs—dynamic to planar, planar to electrostat, even dynamic ported to sealed, or dome tweeter to ribbon tweeter. So, when listening to planars, you need to adjust to what they do and how they do it. It’s about painting in bigger strokes on a larger canvas. Think IMAX for audio. While you don’t perceive a loss in image specificity (to me the biggest downside to planar speaker) while you’re enjoying them, it becomes much more apparent when switching back to dynamic transducers. It wasn’t until I went back that, while I lost the panoramic performance, I regained a more palpable sense of the subtlety of the venue and the space occupied by and between and around the performers and instruments. As a completely personal opinion, I would prefer the panels in a family room or living room where I was listening with others, maybe doing double-duty for a surround system. That expansive experience is luscious and captivating and (to me) suits a more casual listening environment. For a dedicated listening room, I want to hear further into the music and the venue by increasing resolution of image, not by making the screen bigger.

There is no way to report on a magnetic-planar loudspeaker without addressing the elephant in the room and comparing to that U.S. brand that makes magnetic planar speakers. Overall, the similarities are there presentation-wise, so, comparing apples to apples, we are at Magnepan’s $22k MG20.7—a 3-way design that goes down to 25Hz, has a nominal impedance of 4 ohms, a sensitivity of 86dB, and is 79″ tall by 29″ wide. 63″ x 20″ is smaller than 79″ by 29″, but only you can decide if it is a lot smaller or not so big a deal. I have a pair of LRS (not the newer LRS+) at my office, driven by a Hegel integrated, which makes a fantastic combo, and I have enjoyed them for years without ever thinking of replacing them. My impression of the Diptyques is that they are somewhat easier to drive both impedance-wise and wattage-wise, which the specs bear out. I also felt the DP 160 Mk II felt small and performed big for a planar, although that is an observation, not a comparison.

I refuse to tell you which is better, because neither is. They have different flavors and different auras. And you need to listen to both, if you can, to make that decision. And to confuse things further, Clarisys is another newcomer that hit the ground running; and some of my colleagues have spoken very highly of its performance. It’s an exciting time for planar-magnetic fans.

Sonically, the DP160s are simply exceptional. They provide clean, resolute, highly dynamic reproduction with a midrange warmth and low-frequency palpability that put a smile on my face and got my foot taping. High-frequency extension was wonderful, full-bodied (yes, high frequencies were full bodied) and natural with zero offense given. The midrange retained a constant energy, exuding pace, rhythm, and timing, while holding onto realistically complex harmonic structure—something that good panels excel at. And, as mentioned, the bass was class-leading for the technology, delivering speed and dynamics down to depths they had no right to tickle.

I admittedly found myself leaning to my classical and jazz listening lists, but not because the Diptyques couldn’t rock. In fact, their low-frequency palpability and midrange performance lent themselves to a bit of AC/DC and Meatloaf. Yet I was constantly drawn to the combination of stage and depth that made classical and jazz tracks stand out and grab me. The Diptyque’s capacity to encompass the room and seamlessly merge with it, as opposed to fighting it, made my listening sessions long and wondrous. Orchestral scale and dynamics pressurized the room when called upon to do so. And then instantly de-energized to render the subtlest of passages with grace and refinement. You just have to love the speed and resolution of a panel.

Obviously, the planar style and design is a potentially polarizing point visually, yet in this case the 160 Mk IIs are not so tall or wide that they become obtrusive in their environment. I did not find them difficult to match with associated components, but they appreciated the slightly more laid-back and flexible presentation of the T+A electronics to the more meticulous Gryphon Diablo 333 integrated amp. Your mileage will vary, but I see them playing well with both tube and solid-state gear if you feed them decent power.

I liked them. A lot. I felt the heart and soul Diptique put into its designs and fabrication. I understand what the company does and what it is trying to accomplish.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the Diptyques and was sad to see them go. Yet I know what most reading this review want to know above all else is if they are worth considering over the American option. I can no more tell you that than tell you whether you will prefer the filet mignon over the rib-eye. What I can say is that they are worthy contenders and offer qualities you may not be able to find elsewhere. If you are in the market for flat-panel speakers, you would be doing yourself a disservice not to make a strong effort to hear the DP 160 Mk IIs.   

Specs & Pricing

Type: 2-way planar-magnetic loudspeaker
Crossover: 1600Hz
Sensitivity: 87dB/1W/1m
Impedance: 6 ohms
Bandwidth: 30–22,000Hz
Power handling: 200W max (suggested amplification >60W)
Dimensions: 530 x 1610 x 47mm
Weight: 50 kg
Price: $29,999 in standard colors (custom colors are a $920 upcharge)

d&p Audio
7 rue du Génie
Montauban
82000
France
+335 63 64 56 69
diptyqueaudio.com

Fidelity Imports (U.S. Distributor)
7 Crown Ct.
Manalapan Township, NJ 07726
fidelityimports.com

But how did he get around the big-woofer problem without sacrificing bass power and extension? His clever answer was to place a hardy 10″ woofer on the bottom of the speaker, firing downward. This not only allowed him to slim down the front panel—which now only had to be as wide as the midrange—but also enlisted the floor as a means of reinforcing bass frequencies. 

Compactness was but one of three goals Vassilkov had for the new Aura. The second goal was to build a speaker that would be compatible with as many rooms and amplifiers as possible. The downward-firing woofer aided in this effort, since it didn’t rely on a backwall for bass reinforcement. In a break with Estelon tradition, he also switched from the use of ports to a sealed enclosure. This aided the cause of placement versatility, but sealed designs are typically of lower efficiency. However, Vassilkov somehow managed to deliver a reasonably easy-to-drive 89dB sensitivity.

The third goal was to make the new speaker more affordable than a typical Estelon. Before the Aura, Estelons started at $32,000/pair, with prices climbing to (gulp) $269,000. The Auras start at $19,900/pair. That’s not chump change, certainly, but it does put the new speaker in a different price class than other Estelons. Those other models have garnered nothing but rave reviews in TAS and elsewhere. The challenge, then, was to reduce the price without losing what makes Estelon speakers so special.

Many other designers would solve this riddle by turning to trickle-down technology and design choices. Vassilkov considers this approach anathema. Aside from a few techniques on which he will not bend, like the curved cabinet, he makes every design choice specific to the speaker in question. For instance, he selects drivers individually for each speaker, based on the model’s overall goals, system context, and characteristics. In the case of the Aura, to save cost he chose not to use the custom drivers found in higher-model Estelons. Rather, the drivers are sourced from respected manufacturers like ScanSpeak, Satori, and Faital.     

Yet the biggest cost challenge was unquestionably the enclosure. Until now, all Estelon speakers were made of a marble-based composite. But that’s one of the things that pushes up their price. For the Aura, Vassilkov needed something that was less costly in its raw form, and less expensive and time-consuming to manufacture. The solution was thermo-formed sheets of artificial stone. Think of them as a modern-day Corian. The sheets are CNC-machined to size, then bonded together with a special glue made of a similar material. This makes for invisible, smooth seams and reduced reflections. 

At first, Estelon found it difficult to paint the new cabinet material in a variety of colors. In fact, turning the old dictum about the Model T Ford on its head, the Aura was initially available in any color you wanted—so long as it was white. Eventually, the company overcame this hurdle, and the Aura is now available in a spectrum of striking colors to match its lithe model-esque appearance.

Listening

My first listening session with the Aura took place prior to any set-up tweaking or break in. Yet, two virtues struck me immediately. The first was the Aura’s imaging, which is spacious, with exceptionally well-defined instruments and vocals. The Auras come across like 2-ways, performing a complete disappearing act. I suppose this shouldn’t be surprising, since the front baffle actually is two-way, with only a pair of mids and a tweeter firing forward. Further, the MTM (midrange-tweeter-midrange) driver arrangement enables the Aura to act as a point source in the mid-to-upper frequency range, and point-source speakers are known for their imaging capabilities.

The second thing that struck me about the Aura’s un-optimized sound was the bass. I admit that I had my doubts about the down-firing woofer scheme. In the past, I’ve had speakers with that arrangement, and they failed to deliver natural-sounding bass. I also wondered how much low-end power Estelon could achieve from such a compact cabinet. But even at this early listening stage, the 10″ driver was producing deep forceful bass that frankly stunned me.

All this was a very good omen. But before any more serious evaluation could take place, there’d need to be a more rigorous setup. Prior to the Auras, I’ve had three speakers (both sealed and ported) in my new room. They were all professionally set up by their manufacturers, and all three ended up in roughly the same spot. The Auras did not.

I put this down to its unique bottom-located woofer. Whatever the reason, the Estelons didn’t care to be as close to the front wall as usual. The woofer, as noted, puts out gobs of bass, and if the speaker is too close to that wall, the low end will overwhelm and dominate the tonal balance. The manual suggests that the Aura be positioned no less than 18″ from the front wall, and this guidance should be taken seriously. In most rooms, this won’t be a problem, but if you really need to place your speaker near the front wall, the Auras may not be your best choice.

Other than that sole proviso, the Estelons are, as intended, a breeze to place. They can, for instance, be quite far apart, as they were in my room. Further, they are quite revealing of positional changes, so they let you know when you’ve gone too far one way or the other. When you get it right, they “lock in” and there’s no doubt you’ve achieved aural optimization.

What that brings, in addition to doubling down on the aforementioned imaging prowess, is a delightfully wide soundstage that extends beyond the speaker’s sides. Vassilkov told me he had hoped the Aura, despite its small stature, would produce a big sound. That it does. On “True Love Ways” from the Buddy Holly CD From the Master Tapes, I felt like I had a front-row seat to a full orchestra, with Buddy himself crooning away just beyond my toes.

With proper positioning, bass also improves. Along with power, there’s more information about the instrument’s character. However, the Aura’s bass, though full, isn’t as hard-hitting—meaning it lacks some of the crispness of the initial attack—as that of, say, the Wilson Sasha V. However, its soulful timbre and surprising force make it highly satisfying within its operating range.

That last caveat is worth a little further commentary. Strictly speaking, the Aura is not a full-range speaker. Though it’s rated down to 35Hz, I found that spec a little optimistic. Down to about 50Hz, all is good—very good, in fact. The down-firing woofer does a stellar job with typical rock bass lines. Take the Cure’s “Lullaby (Extended Mix).” The electric bass is everything you could want: full, powerful, and reasonably taut.

However, Billie Eilish is another story. On many of her tracks, she likes to sneak in a subterranean bass line played by a low synth. The Aura will have nothing to do with bass this low. Indeed, it will audibly object to being fed such a diet. On “Xanny,” there was so much cavitation I had to immediately shut down the system for fear of destroying the speakers!

This doesn’t mean the Aura has poor bass. To reiterate, the bass is exemplary within its prescribed envelope. But that envelope has limitations. If you like what the Auras do—and you will—but want a full-range speaker setup, you’re going to need a subwoofer.

As it happens, Vassilkov confided in me at the Munich show that he is working on a new speaker called the Aura Sub. The name says it all. The Aura Sub will be a subwoofer specifically designed to complement the Aura, creating a full-range combo. This, it seems to me, will be the ideal Aura setup, either initially or as an upgrade path. The sub is expected to be available in the first half of 2025.

Besides imaging and bass, the Aura checks a lot of other audiophile boxes. One of those is unrestrained dynamics. But the speaker’s most alluring characteristic is its tonal quality. To put it simply, the Aura is lush. Not in a way that obfuscates detail; indeed, resolution is one of its greatest strengths. Rather, listening to the Aura is like sinking into a favorite chair of well-worn leather. The experience is rich, inviting, and relaxing in a way that leaves you open to whatever charms the music you’re playing may hold.

For example, on the Notting Hillbillies’ “Your Own Sweet Way,” I found it remarkable how distinctly rendered the images were through the Auras. This despite being 10 feet apart in my room. Further, the bass line was satisfyingly full, though (as previously noted) leading edges were slightly soft.

I heard much the same on the raucous “Los” by Rammstein, a track which has become my new favorite bass test. The Aura is perfect when it comes to low-end power, and that virtue came through on the track’s prodigious bass line and kick drum. And though that kick drum is low, it was well within the Aura’s scope.

Conclusion

With a talented designer like Alfred Vassilkov, it’s perhaps no wonder that the Aura achieves all its goals. The speaker is remarkably compact yet manages to deliver tremendous bass. It hits a much more accessible price point than the average Estelon, yet it doesn’t sacrifice either the form factor or the performance for which the company is known. Indeed, with its lush timbres, spellbinding imaging, and wealth of detail, the Aura is as great a joy to listen to as it is to behold. 

Specs & Pricing

Type: 3-way sealed floorstanding dynamic speaker
Impedance: 4 ohms
Drivers: 10″ woofer, (2) 5″ midrange, 1″ tweeter
Frequency response: 35Hz–25kHz
Minimum power: 30 watts
Dimensions: 15.1″ x 53.7″ x 14.4″
Weight: 75 lbs. each
Price: $19,900 per pair (slightly more for special finishes)

estelon.com 

Associated Equipment
Analog source: Lyra Etna cartridge, Goldmund Studietto turntable, Graham 2.2 tonearm
Digital source: Bryston BCD-3 CD player
Electronics: CH Precision I1 integrated amplifier (phonostage, DAC, streamer, linestage, power amplifier), Goldmund Telos 800
Speaker: Wilson Audio Sasha V
Cables: Empirical Design
Room treatment: ASC Tube Traps
Footers: Goldmund Cones

Bowers and Wilkins is well-known for supplying its speakers to some famous recording studios, notably Abbey Road. Many other monitor brands appear to be more focused on this market, with specialized product lines. It seems likely that Bowers & Wilkins speakers, when used, are more a part of the mastering phase than earlier in the process.

Product Overview

The 804 D4 is the smallest floorstanding speaker in the top 800 Series line (the Nautilus still exists but is a single product not a core line). The 804 is priced at $15,000 per pair. The speaker is 42” tall, 12” wide and 15” deep, weighing 81 lb each. They are available in 5 different finishes, along with the common denominators of leather-covered aluminum top and brushed aluminum tweeter housing. The tweeter housing is now 12” long to better manage the tweeter resonance and the whole assembly is decoupled.  The cabinet is a primarily a single piece of curved wood, with an aluminum spine and top and bottom plates on a plinth to allow port venting near the floor.

The driver complement consists of a diamond tweeter, with tweeter-on-top ported and isolated mounting, an FST matrix 5” midrange, and two 6.5” Aerofoil cone bass drivers. Sensitivity is 89db for 2.83 volts at one meter with a nominal impedance of 8 ohms and a minimum impedance of 3 ohms. This is the same as saying 89 db at 1 watt/1 meter. This is slightly above average sensitivity, but the relatively low minimum impedance means you will want an amp with good low impedance capability.

Sound Quality

I can’t reason well, and most of you can’t reason well, from technical features to sound quality. So, we listen and note our objective observations with the absolute sound (real instruments in real space) as our reference.  We then try to describe the type of listener or listener who might like the resulting deviations from that reference (since these always exist to one degree or another).

As I said in the opener, the 804 D4 follows its own muse. Let’s start with what I think is the big win here: imaging.

The imaging and soundspace presentation of the 804 is the best I have heard thus far in the under $20k price range and better than most in the next price range up. The thing I need to point out is that this isn’t simply a matter of degree. Often, when we review speakers in this range, I attempt to describe imaging and how speakers differ. But almost every speaker I’ve tested at this level is a variation of the miniaturized stage model. What I mean is that you can draw a mental rectangle from the left speaker to the right speaker about 2 feet high and imagine that the performers are arrayed on that virtual stage. Some speakers expand the stage a bit more vertically. Some present the performers on a somewhat U-shaped stage, with left and right performers farther toward you than other performers. Some speakers present a better sense of front to back layering. So, there are differences worth caring about.

But the 804 pretty much goes up a level from this miniaturized stage model. First, and I think very importantly, the 804 gets the image off the left and right speakers more dependably than the competition. This is more believable, especially because there isn’t the discontinuity of front to back positioning as you get hard left or hard right. The performers with the 804 seem to be on a regulation stage with a linear front edge. Of course, bad (especially very old) recordings don’t have the phase information to allow this. Second, the 804 has a better, less “windowed” vertical cutoff of the image. Images just seem to fade out gradually in the vertical dimension as they tend to in real life. Third, the 804 complements this with very good depth portrayal, though I must note that this imaging domain is one that some recordings don’t attend to as much as others. And finally, the 804 has a more believable sense of the sound space which nicely complements the larger stage and lets you mind believe you are in a real performance venue.

There are speakers at higher prices that do this sort of thing, particularly from Linkwitz and MBL. They probably go farther. But the very good speakers just above this price class aren’t automatically ahead in imaging. So, if you count yourself as a spatially-sensitive listener, you will want to check out the 804 if it is in your price range.

Voicing

Continuing its march to a different drummer, the 804 has a different voicing than any of the other speakers I’ve tested recently.

Let’s start in the bass range. I measured good response into the upper 20 Hz range, which is about the limit of my room because the lateral null is at 22 Hz. More important for many listeners will be the mid-bass balance. I would characterize this as slightly reticent, sounding as if the mid bass were perhaps 1-2 down from the midrange. Interestingly, this behavior shows up as a “shelf” below about 80 hz, not a rolloff, and may reflect Bowers & Wilkins assumption that the 804 will be used in a smaller room with bigger bass modes than my 4000 cubic foot room with a significant quantity of bass traps. The other side of this point is that a speaker like the 804 might be ideal for use with separate woofers applied to smooth the bass and control the level, more than to go subterranean. We will be testing this idea next month.

In any event, the 804 as it stands, depending on room behavior, seems more aimed at the 20% of listeners who prefer to avoid elevated or boomy bass. Since the 804 can go pretty low, it won’t toss the music aside, but boom may be vanquished.

The lower midrange of the 804 is clear and clean and nicely presented. Remember, this is the range of most musical fundamental tones, so while it looks like a minor part of a graph, it is musically important.

Then we get into the distinctive voicing area of the 804. Basically the 804 has an elevated upper midrange and treble delivery. I would say from about 500 Hz up, the output rises by about 1 db per octave. The impact of this varies with the recording. On some recordings with very clean high frequencies the 804 has a sense of clarity and openness and snap that is rather special. On other recordings the sound is simply brighter than normal for our reference. But there is also the issue of digital distortion which can arise in the decimation process that leads to the master file and/or in the D/A conversion process. The 804 emphasizes these distortions more than some other speakers because its area of treble emphasis coincides with the frequencies where digital artifacts often reside.

I should put this voicing into a bit more context. There is some research work measuring concert hall frequency response, and other work asking listeners to stereo equipment what they prefer. Both of these type of research suggest a roughly -1 db per octave tilt as frequency goes up (a “downward sloping curve” from left to right). Many speakers follow this approach at least until the mid-treble (say 8 KHz) where they sometimes begin a rise or bump to generate some sparkle outside of the basic range of instrumental fundamentals and low harmonics. But the 804 goes a different direction.

If you prize clarity and definition and snap, the 804 may be just the ticket. It is, in a way, slightly reminiscent of the much-loved Martin-Logan CLS electrostatic from the late ‘80s. That speaker had incredible transparency and definition and was a dream speaker if you could overlook a treble rise. I should say that the 804 might be the ticket for vinyl lovers who crave transparency, as the LP can eliminate or mitigate digital distortions.

If you are what I have labelled a ‘tonal beauty’ listener (you prefer a sound that could be described as a ‘warm glow’, avoiding harshness and edge), I think the 804 probably goes too far. You might think that you could manage the upper ranges with a special amplifier, and perhaps you could. But it seems odd to choose a speaker that has a defining characteristic that you have to try to eliminate.

Dynamics

The slightly reticent bass means the 804 probably isn’t ideal for power pop and rock, although it performed surprisingly well with bands like Metric. Perhaps the advantage of the 804 is that it doesn’t tend to overload the room. I also felt it handled lower volumes and big dynamic swings well, although I can’t say the latter are obviously superior to other competitive speakers, assuming a big enough power amp. But the big dynamic win offered by the 804 is an excellent sense of transient quickness and life that it brings to a lot of music.

Summary

Outside of some electrostats, I haven’t anything quite like the Bowers & Wilkins 804 D4. If “an electrostat with deep bass” sounds ideal, this might be the ticket. Beyond that, anyone who wants superb imaging and soundspace presentation may find the 804 to go farther than you previously believed possible.