The Testing

These basic kits are 1 metre high and in raw ply with bare drivers. Other finishes will be available from Stefan.

Positioning is possible back to the wall for ‘storage’ and low volumes, but for a decent listen you will have a favourite placement although they are not fussy.  White noise and pink noise showed a slightly bright balance with an in-room distribution with less beaming than expected possibly due to the very shallow cone design. Frequency sweep was heard as giving a smooth top end and a (surprising) amount of sub 60 Hz- the cabinetry works well.

If you want the max then point them at you at same distance away as they are apart, or cross them at your toes for a wider sweet spot and a nice off axis balance.

The kit used included valve amps and big studio transistor amp and budget NAD /Rega from Hana moving coil and Ortofon 2M black moving magnet cartridges and similar level CD players.

Higher Quality is heard at once – these are very revealing speakers!

On the valve amp the difference between 4 and 8 ohm speaker settings was significant – 4 ohm preferred. Leads were 4mm Van Damme.

Their musical character is clean and clear with intense detailed layering and impressive dynamics (courtesy of Mark Fenton’s rapid reacting spider). But the word that tries to describe it is – ‘coherent’ and ‘seamless’ – meaning the individual instruments & vocals sort of hang nicely defined as fully formed separate items and make up a stage set which can extend further in all directions, up, back, left and right, out  from the boxes (depending on structures adjacent). The critical comments are made after thirty plus hours of playtime –  the special spider had a break in point after which time  the sound was placed outside the boxes so singers manifest full height in room.

Volume capability easily filled the 5mtr rooms and that’s when the cone excursions, claimed to be 8 mm, were seen in action. Of course, booming renditions of heavy bass rock concerts are not achievable by two smallish cones but they offer a satisfying rhythmic presentation with good vocals (if recorded!).

These beauties deliver a good spread of complex orchestral works .They have the accurate tonality required, and detailed presentation to illuminate the music’s construction and emotion. Massive climaxes are delivered at the volume level most domiciles would consider loud, but not at 200 watt RMS speaker pressure through Berlioz ‘March to the Scaffold‘ and ‘Witches Sabbath’ in his Symphony Fantastique is punched out with full macabre venom (Bernstein/ NYP).