CARE ORCHESTRA SPIRITUAL BLUE EVO LOUDSPEAKERS REVIEW

Stuart Smith takes a listen to the Care Orchestra Spiritual Blue Evo floorstanding loudspeakers from Italy and costing €3200.

It’s been a few weeks of revisiting brands I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing in the past here at HiFi PiG Towers and one of those brands has been Care Orchestra, an Italian manufacturer of loudspeakers, an amplifier, and cables.

Rather than rewrite the whole introduction or save you going back to the review I did of their Celestial Deep Breath standmounts here’s a bit of information from that review about the company. Care Orchestra was a brand new name to me when they first got in contact but the fact is that the Milan (Italy) based brand launched in 2010 making “made to order and tailormade and crafted audio-video products”. Before we engaged with the company I went off to have a look-see at their website and the first thing that grabbed my attention was their use of interesting materials such as marble in some of their loudspeaker designs, though they produce an amp, a DAC, and a power unit as well as loudspeakers. This looked an interesting company that wasn’t simply churning out straightforward boxes. Indeed, reading through their website they make a point of saying that they work with architects and interior designers to create products that “best complements and represents the clientele” be that in homes, theatres, spas, conference centres, museums, or churches. I like this kind of thing and that whole attention of style and detail is, without wanting to evoke national stereotypes, very Italian.

The speakers we have here for review are their Spiritual Blue Evo floorstanders that cost €3200 inc VAT.

CARE ORCHESTRA SPIRITUAL BLUE EVO FIT AND FINISH AND FEATURES

It has to be said that this is a good-looking pair of smaller floorstanders (there is a bigger sibling in the shape of the Spiritual Violet Evo) with an interesting sloped shape to them that in some ways reminds me of the old Naim SBLs, though much more elegant looking. Their dimensions are 235mm x  934mm x 286mm. Fit and finish are excellent and they come with an integral stand/plinth, and there is one pair of very nice binding posts – when I reviewed the last pair of Care Orchestra speakers I said the binding posts were about the nicest I’d ever come across.

The speakers arrived in excellent wooden boxes and were excellently packaged.

The Spiritual Blue Evos are designed to be placed near to rear walls if that is what you need and one interesting feature is the inclusion of ports on the front of the speakers and then another on the sloped top/rear of the speakers and another one firing downwards. I’m not sure I’ve ever come across a configuration of ports like this before, but being able to position them near walls should be a major positive for many people who want the benefits a floorstander brings but don’t have the ability to pull them out into the room, as many speakers demand.

Here you can see the speakers sporting their perspex magnetic cover and where the front firing port is positioned

I got in touch with Jacapo at Care Orchestra to ask about this unusual arrangement and he came back with the following; “With regards to the 3 bass reflex tubes, everything is based on the principle of turbulence of fluids: having a smaller diameter with the same speed is a winning choice as it allows you to lower the Reynolds Number (proportional to fluid velocity and pipe diameter). So with a multi-duct solution, you can maintain a low value of this parameter or you can ensure a more “directional” and less turbulent motion.” And he continued “During the design of the Blue we actually wanted to check that there were no problems and we were pleasantly impressed by the result obtained in the low (bass) component thanks to this configuration. We placed the tubes in the front, the second towards the base, and the third upwards, giving form to what we called Hemispherical Bass Reflex.”

This is pretty cool stuff and it shows me a company that is not afraid to think outside the box with regard to innovative loudspeaker design.

The mid/bass driver is a SEAS Prestige unit made from woven polypropylene and the tweeter is from Scanspeak. The speakers are 88dB sensitive, present an 8 ohm load, and the volume of the speakers is 20.4 Litres. The crossover point is 2,900 HZ. Around the Scanspeak tweeter is a patented dual-ring radiator diaphragm. The response of the speakers is 42Hz to 42KHz.

Oh, and I almost forgot but these are ever so cool, you get two magnetic Perspex covers for the drivers. These do have holes drilled in them but I’d not be happy having them in place whilst listening to the speakers. However, they should do a good job of discouraging little folk from prodding the drivers.

SOUND QUALITY

I’ve been using a Jean Hiraga Le Monstre of late in the system and so it seemed sensible to start proceedings off using this amp, and I didn’t see the need to swap it out for the duration of my time with these speakers. I played mostly digital files using a well-sorted streaming system based around a Stack Audio streamer, Russ Andrews switch and whatnot, a fully fettled Lampizator DAC (I can’t give the model as it is a one off), Leem Libra preamplifier, and with Tellurium Q, Way, and Atlas cables.

A top firing port is an interesting concept

Other colours are available

The first thing that grabbed my attention about these speakers, and it surprised me somewhat, was the amount of bass that these relatively small speakers kick out into what is a pretty big room. Playing Paul Kalkbrenner’s 7 album had the little speakers really digging deep into the recording’s bottom end. The speakers go down to 41Hz according to the specs (+/- 3dB) and I don’t doubt this to be the case, though drop off below 45Hz was pretty steep. On the aforementioned album, I actually found the bass to be a bit much and so I switched to another bass-heavy track in the shape of Dusty Kid’s Laimos and this was a lot better. Again the speakers go deep with the 41HZ bass burst proving to be no problem for these speakers. Bass was also quite tight but not as tight/fast as I’ve experienced with some other speakers, though we are talking about a €3K set of speakers here and overall I’d say their performance is excellent in the bass on this record. However, one swallow does not a summer make and so I popped on Gui Boratto’s Please Don’t Take Me Home from his Abaporu record and yep, these perform very well down low and that initial thought that I had of the bass being overly dominant soon vanished – I actually noted that these are a nicely balanced loudspeaker on this kind of electronic music. Actually, they are really nice sounding in this system and room and feel to be a much bigger speaker than they actually are on well-produced electro/techno.

Moving onto something a little more hectic and Body Count’s Body Count album I found that whilst just bass and drums were playing everything sounded very coherent and correct. In fact, the energy and speed between the rhythm section was really excellent to listen to and that bass does go low and yet fast. The drum solo on There Goes The Neighborhood sounded dynamic and with excellent movement between the speakers that give an excellent portrayal of being sat in front of the kit, even at volume. However, when the whole band was playing as one things became a little more confused with the speakers taking a leaning towards a more pronounced upper-mid and lower-bass performance at the expense of a more top to bottom presentation. On this kind of music and when everything was playing at once I felt that the speakers became a little less surefooted than with the previous (and more sparse) material. This is not as uncommon a voicing as you would think and it is in this band of frequencies that I find many speakers aimed at a more audiophile market really come into their own. Now don’t get me wrong, the Body Count record was far from bad to listen to and I did listen to and enjoy the full album whilst happily taking notes,  but it would be remiss of me not to mention what I heard whilst listening critically.

A close-up look at the speakers

I decided to explore more frenetic tunes, much to the chagrin of Clio, the HiFi Pig cat who promptly took herself to another part of the house. Bad Brains Banned In DC found its way onto the music centre and whilst I still think there was a propensity for the speakers to be a little forward in the mids and upper bass, they still do make for an exciting and enjoyable listen. Again the slam and dynamics of the drums were fantastic to listen to, with Sacred Love’s drums sounding live and exciting. The effect with the speakers set up as they are, about three metres apart and me a similar distance away was akin to listening to a gig about halfway down the ground floor and perhaps looking down a little on the stage – if that makes sense.

Now, despite my previous comment about these speakers not really being 100% at home with hardcore and the like, I found myself listening to a lot of this kind of music and really enjoying it…go figure! One record I particularly enjoyed was Bush’s more grungey than hardcore Sixteen Stone and especially Glycerine where I found the overdriven guitar to have just the right feel and texture and with the strings coming out into the room in a very satisfying manner. Eels’ Mental off the Beautiful Freak album had the speakers managing to straddle the line between the stripped-back parts of the song and the more full-on parts very well and, again, it was the interplay of the rhythm section that I really enjoyed and this got me wondering what these speakers would be like if they were bigger, but then Care Orchestra do the Spiritual Violet Evo with an extra mid/bass driver.

Where these speakers really came into their own was with the likes of Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson’s masterpiece Winter In America. Your Daddy Loves You had the flute having the right feel to it and being well back in the mix and Scott-Heron’s voice having just the right feeling of him moving from almost whispered to more a more powerful presentation – the illusion of him walking into a darkened room with a nightlight on to speak to his daughter was clear to see and a delight to experience. Pretty much a perfect rendition of this song for a smaller pair of speakers. There’s balance and poise to these speakers that the Celestial Deep Breaths I reviewed here had but I don’t think that the Spiritual Blue Evos have the same level of sense of space and soundstage to them, which I remember being exceptional on the Deep Breaths. What they do have over and above the CDBs is that they go a good deal lower. In a similar kind of vein, Shuggie Otis’ Inspiration Information was underpinned by a solid bass line and on which the rest of the track was allowed to shine and with the added bonus of good positioning in the soundstage, if not as expansive as some. The slight confusion heard on the hardcore tracks was not at all evident! If you listen to a lot of this kind of jazz/funk tunes then these speakers are an excellent choice!!

View from one of the listening spots

The same was true when listening to Miles Davis and Flamenco Sketches with the speakers being able to convey a live feeling to the listening experience and with excellent detail, clarity and positioning of instruments, though again this was pretty small (ish) scale – the halfway down the auditorium and looking down on the stage kind of thing again. However, this was an excellent rendition of this tune with every element being there and well presented. Again, I’d say that if you listen to this kind of music, these are an excellent choice of loudspeaker for small to medium sized rooms. What I also noted here was that I didn’t feel the need to crank the volume up at all and this sort of emphasised that late night jazz club feel to the recording. As I’m typing up my notes it springs to mind that these speakers would be right up Alan McIntosh that writes for HiFi Pig’s street. Kurt Elling’s Beauty Of All Things had the piano sounding excellent and fading with a very natural reverb in this room and the vocal projected a decent way out in to the room. Overall with the tunes I mention above the words I want to use when describing the Spiritual Blue Evos are natural and unforced and with the ability to react quickly to react to changes in tempo and volume.

And in another position we tried

QUIBBLES

I don’t think these speakers are natural bed-fellows for hard rock, hardcore and the like.

CONCLUSION

These are a very nice speaker at what I would consider a fair price, with the caveat that I don’t think they suit frantic rock-orientated music particularly well. However, with the tunes that they do suit – jazz, funk, and lighter rock material – they are really lovely to listen to and with an effortless charm to their presentation that makes you want to listen to music.

They are a smaller speaker and this shows with regards to the scale at which they present the soundstage – I refer readers again to my comment of feeling I was sat half way down the auditorium and looking slightly down on the stage.

The speakers are most prominent in the 100 to 500 Hz band in my opinion, leading to a slightly pushed upper bass and lower mid-band presentation.

Bass response is very good for a speaker of this size and on when the rhythm tracks on tunes play to themselves they are a fab listen.

Overall I really enjoyed my time with the Care Orchestra Spiritual Blue Evos and I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending them with the caveats I’ve outlined in my review of them. Positioning is easy and they performed well with the excellent quality but relatively low-powered Hiraga Le Monstre and I suspect they would respond well to decently powered valve amplifiers. They have good bass response but not so much that it overpowers in our larger room.

AT A GLANCE

Build Quality:

Excellent build

Great binding posts

Nice looking

Small in stature

Sound Quality:

Very little not to like overall

Good bass extension and bass with speed

Tend to get a little muddled on some more busy tracks

Nice soundstaging

A very pleasant listening experience

Major in upper-mid and lower-bass

Superb on more simple material

Effortless and relaxed sound

Value For Money:

About right for the build and sound quality

We Loved:

Easy to position

Easy to drive

Good overall sound quality with little not to like

Cool covers for the drivers

Nice looking and compact

We Didn’t Love So Much:

Can get a smidge confused on heavy and busy tunes

Price: €3200 (Inc VAT)

Elevator Pitch Review:  A small and easy to position, particularly when close to back walls, the €3200 Care Orchestra Blue Evo loudspeakers are a delight to listen to on all but the most hectic and heavy tracks. Bass response is good, tight and fast and they are excellent through the mids.

SUPPLIED BY CARE ORCHESTRA

Stuart Smith