$45,500

When, at AXPONA, Robert and I first auditioned the new, relatively demure, three-way, four-driver, aluminum-enclosed S3 2023—said to be the first Magico loudspeaker (the newly released M7 being the second) to use technology trickled down from the company’s flagship M9—both of us were floored by its sound. The room at the Chicago show was small, limiting soundstage width; nonetheless, the timbre and dynamics of the speakers were superb—particularly in the bass (which, as Alon Wolf showed us via in-room measurement, was going down to an astonishing 20Hz). In my own room, the sonics were even more impressive, with no soundstage limits (staging was wall-to-wall, in fact), even richer tone color, and the same rock-solid low end that wowed us in Chi-town. Indeed, I have never heard a small floorstanding cone loudspeaker that does as much as this one does for the money that Magico is asking. If that doesn’t make the S3 2023 a classic of some sort, I don’t know what will. Here is a truly great dynamic loudspeaker that competes with (and in some ways exceeds) the twice-as-expensive competition. (348)

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$63,400

Although the Hailey 3 looks identical to its predecessor, from a philosophical, technological, and sonic perspective the new speaker is a complete break from the past. Series 1 YGs were accurate and detailed but analytical to a fault. Series 2 models were much more musical, while still giving precedence to neutrality and resolution. But with the Series 3, YG has made engagement and musicality its top priorities—and has enlisted science (particularly in the form of multi-domain computational modeling) to achieve those goals. The result is a speaker that is perfectly balanced top to bottom, is wonderfully revealing, and has banished all traces of its predecessors’ analytical nature.

A natural—not overwrought—warmth contributes to this speaker’s accessibility and likability, while its refinement at frequency extremes means there are no nasties to distract from the musical experience. For retaining the best of its past yet forging forward with new priorities—and brilliantly succeeding—the Hailey 3 is a cinch for a Golden Ear Award. (Forthcoming)

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$109,000–$175,000/pair

For the better part of my 54 years as an audiophile, I have avoided horn-loaded loudspeakers owing to horn colorations. Then I had the opportunity to audition a pair of the latest version of Avantgarde’s Trios, the company’s flagship all-horn system, in a private home, set-up, adjusted, and tweaked to the nines, with four (!) of Avantgarde’s massive horn-loaded Spacehorn woofers, buttressed by the biggest REL sub-bass system. One of the principal things that separates electronically reproduced music from the real thing is that in live music, the tone, the timbre, the basic character of voices and acoustic instruments do not change with changes in level. To a degree almost unique in my experience, this is also true of the Trios. In a large but not immense room I heard without question the widest dynamic range I’ve ever personally experienced from a home-audio system, also the freest and most effortless. At the other end of the loudness scale, tonal drop-out at very low levels is absolutely nonexistent. The Trios are probably not completely free from horn colorations, but such as may exist never intruded upon my enjoyment, appreciation, or involvement, which was total. Indeed, the overall tonal balance struck me as falling within the bounds of what I call “acceptable neutrality,” yet with a degree of life, vitality, vividness, presence, and tactility all but unprecedented in my experience of home audio. When Jacob Heilbrun concluded his review by stating that Avantgarde “has set a new benchmark for performance,” he was not overstating. When I first auditioned the Trios, I was impressed—long before the end, I was blown away…and still am. (346)

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$218,000

The ascendance of Acora Acoustics to the top echelon of high-end loudspeaker manufacturers has been exceptionally rapid. Famous for its use of stone enclosures, the Canadian company’s first products were introduced in 2018, and the 420-pound VRC, which will remain Acora’s flagship for the foreseeable future, was debuted at Capital Audiofest in late 2022. The VRC is Valerio Cora’s first commercial 3-way design, and the care (and expense) lavished on the crossover is every bit as impressive as the advanced techniques required to fabricate the granite cabinets. The VRC excels in all the usual audiophile parameters, but the speaker’s most impressive sonic characteristic may be its aural immediacy—a function of exceptionally clean and rapid transient response that impacts not only dynamics but also tonal specificity and naturalness. The VRC is a big loudspeaker—though not as large as the “flagship” models of other elite brands—and, not surprisingly, provides a commanding sonic presentation in a large space. What is surprising is that the Acora VRC was designed to perform as well in a much smaller quarters, my 15′ x 15′ room being a case in point. A variety of granite types are available for the enclosure, some involving additional cost. (349)

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$6900

The new speakers from Golden Ear deserve serious accolades. The T66s are an update of and an homage to the popular Triton speaker series of the pre-AudioQuest era, but they aren’t backwards looking. The T66s maintain the thin wind-swept form factor and feature the active DSP-controlled powered subwoofer units that are the hallmarks of the GoldenEar brand. They also include the AMT High-Velocity Folded Ribbon tweeter, two 4.5″ mid/bass drivers, two 5″ x 9″ quadratic subwoofers, and 8″ x 12″ quadratic planar back-wave-driven radiators. But the real updates are primarily on the inside, including a new crossover design, high-quality internal wiring, new binding posts, and a new adjustable base. Overall, the T66s feature a tight satisfying low end, without the need for hunting down a separate sub unit, while the midrange and the treble are locked in and lush. AudioQuest took everything that worked in the previous Triton series and refined it to the next logical level, so that the whole package is a clear sonic upgrade. Beautiful speakers and a real contender dollar-for-dollar with any speaker in this price range. (347)

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$249,975

The DARC 250 Mk II is a 4-way design with 60dB/octave crossover slopes on all drivers. This speaker system utilizes a ¾” pure-diamond tweeter, a 2″ pure-diamond high-midrange driver, a 7″ ceramic lower-midrange driver, and two 9″ back-coated aluminum woofers paralleled in a high-pass-filtered bass-reflex enclosure.

At the heart of the DARC 250 Mk II are complex and symmetrical 12^th-order passive crossovers that have 60dB/octave slopes. These steep crossover slopes allow each driver to play its intended spectrum of music with greater clarity and dynamic headroom, avoiding driver breakup modes and crossover-distortion characteristics that tend to reveal themselves much sooner in certain lower-order crossover designs using similar drivers. A vital component of the design of the DARC 250 Mk II are two compensating time-delay circuits used to counter the inherent inductor-induced group delay between the two diamond drivers and the ceramic midrange that results in generally observed smeared impulses and smoothed over transients. Implementing the Time-Delay-Control (TDC) circuit in the DARC 250 Mk II properly corrects this time-delay. The resultant output is a synchronous projection of sound into the listening room for a more precise impulse response that leads to better perceived instrumental attack without transient smoothing or energy robbing time smear.

The DARC 250 Mk II has three sets of adjustments that can help with in-room setup and/or personal sound preferences. The first are individual high-frequency and low-frequency shelf adjustments of ±1.5dB from a 0dB reference for the pure-diamond tweeter and woofers. The second in-room-selectable option is the novel Bass Extension adjustment that allows six different bass level settings between 30Hz and 70Hz, where room-related bass issues tend to arise.

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$258,421

This full-range four-way ribbon speaker from Spain is simply one of the world’s greatest loudspeakers. It has an uncanny ability to make reproduced music sound like the real thing, with a beautiful rendering of timbre, image tangibility, an expansive and detailed spatial presentation, and an ability to portray the physicality of instruments with lifelike transparency, resolution, and transient speed. The impression of an instrument or vocalist existing in your listening room—right there—is spooky. The way images float in space, completely detached from the loudspeakers, is unlike that of any dynamic loudspeaker. The instant the music starts, there’s a sudden frisson of excitement as this remarkable loudspeaker brings the music to life. What’s more, it does all this while belying the stereotype of ribbons being difficult to drive and lacking bottom-end oomph. With 94dB sensitivity and bass extension to 22Hz, the Caravaggio is remarkably easy to drive, will play loudly, and will deliver fabulous bass weight and low-end dynamic authority. Indeed, I drove it to satisfying listening levels with a 20W single-ended triode amplifier. In its combination of sound quality and technical performance, the Caravaggio is a sui generis creation. The only caveat is that you need to be able to position these big dipole panels well out into a room to realize their performance. But if you have the room and the budget, the Caravaggio will bring music to life with stunning realism. (350)

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$94,000

The Vandersteen Audio Model Seven XTRM is the culmination of 47 years of continuous development that can trace its fundamental design principles to Vandersteen’s Model Two from 1977. It incorporates innovative thinking that separates it from other “cones-in-a-box” loudspeakers. For one example, this four-way system has an integral 400W amplifier to drive the dual 11″ side-firing woofers, along with an 11-band equalizer built into the speaker that helps smooth the speaker’s in-room bass response. This feature, along with Vandersteen’s foolproof technique for accurately setting that equalizer, results in a bottom end that is big, robust, and powerful yet doesn’t sound thick, heavy, or bloated—regardless of your room. The drivers are Vandersteen’s patented balsawood/carbon-fiber sandwich; the crossovers are first-order to assure perfect time alignment and phase coherence; and the enclosure is a tri-laminate design to suppress resonances.

If I had to sum up the Model Seven XTRM with one word, it would be “involving.” The sheer timbral beauty, fabulously muscular bass with no bloat or boom, and treble detail without brightness, all add up to a speaker that makes you want to continue the listening sessions long into the night. The Seven’s ability to sound at once smooth and relaxed yet richly detailed is a rare quality; most speakers lean one way or the other, the so-called “romantic” vs. “analytical” dichotomy. Vandersteen speakers have a reputation for falling on the romantic side of that line, and I would agree with that generalization. But the Seven’s great achievement is that this smoothness and ease don’t come at the expense of detail. You don’t appreciate the Vandersteen’s resolution by listening for it or pointing to it. Rather, it sneaks up on you in the listening session when you recognize a previously unheard musical gesture, a newfound contribution by a player in the back of the mix, the realistic inner detail of an instrument or voice, and other musically communicative aspects of the sound that make listening to music involving. The Model Seven XTRM is a relative bargain in the world of top-echelon loudspeakers and an easy choice for a Golden Ear Award. (348)

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$30,000

New on the scene in the U.S., the Diptyque 160 MKII is a planar-magnetic panel speaker measuring 63″ tall by 21″ wide and weighing 110 pounds. The 160 MKII come standard in white or black paint with leather accents in black, white, caramel, or chocolate. It is 87dB sensitive and has a frequency response of 30Hz to 22kHz. The Diptyques are what I would consider a two-and-a-half-way design with two identical bass cells and one 22″-long ribbon tweeter. Aesthetically inoffensive considering their size, these tall wide panels give you that classic, seductive planar speed, resolution, and massive stage, which grab you and hold tight. The Diptyque’s low-frequency extension and dynamic punch eliminate the usual need for a small sub with planars. Combining pace, rhythm, speed, and an ideal tonal and timbral palate, the 160 MKIIs entice and reward. They may be new to the scene, but they are the real deal. Golden Ear well deserved. (Forthcoming)

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$38,000

I recently welcomed a pair of Rockport Atria II’s into my home as a step towards my addition-by-reduction system overhaul (I’ll go into that way more in an upcoming REL 6-pack review). The Atria II is Rockport’s lowest-priced model at $38k. It uses a triple-laminated, constrained-mode-damped enclosure with a solid 4-inch-thick front baffle. Rockport focuses on immense stiffness and minimum resonant signature in all its cabinets, and their performance benefits proportionately as a result. The simple 3-way design utilizes a waveguide mounted beryllium 1″ tweeter, a custom 6″mid/bass, and a 9″ carbon-fiber-sandwich cone woofer, designed and developed from the ground up by Rockport Technologies. The drivers play with a scale that belies their size and offer exceptional resolution, texture, detail, realism, and impact. The Atria II creates an expansive wall-to-wall stage with depth, height, and energy, and its capacity to convey information beyond the first layer of musical presentation—to recreate the air and presence of the venue itself—is, at times, almost unnerving. Their performance, in my room, engaged and enraptured in a way that very few other (much more expensive) speakers could. If that doesn’t justify a Golden Ear, I don’t know what does. (Forthcoming)

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