Piega Premium 301 Gen2 loudspeakers
You could be forgiven for thinking that Piega sounds like it should be based in either Spain or Italy, but in fact it’s a Swiss company, based in Horgen on the shores of Lake Zurich. Piega was founded back in 1986 by Kurt Scheuch and industrial designer Leo Greiner, who shared a passion for hi-fi. Greiner’s two sons, Manuel and Alexander, have been at the helm since 2018.
Although I have been aware of the company for some time, the Premium 301 Gen2 is the first of its products that I have reviewed. Its speakers are handcrafted in its Swiss factory and the company prides itself on build quality, and I have to say that when I unpacked them, I was impressed by their feeling of solidity and quality and the sleek, stylish looks of the black, elegantly curving aluminium cabinets.
Piega has a range of passive speakers as well as active wireless models with built-in amps, all feature the signature combination of aluminium cabinets and ribbon tweeters, from the £1,100 Ace 30 to the Coax 811 at £26,400. The Premium Gen2 range was introduced in February this year and was designed by Stefan Hürlemann. It consists of the Premium 701 Gen2 three-way floorstander (£5,600) and the 301 Gen2 two-way standmount model seen here and priced at £2,500 in silver, or £2,750 in black or white.
The Premium 301 Gen2 features two brand new drive units – the RM 01-24 magnetostatic ribbon tweeter and a 140mm FSD-M bass/midrange driver. These new drivers are housed in a curved-profile extruded aluminium cabinet, with an internal wooden matrix and its own exclusive damping material, borrowed from the flagship Coax series. The speaker sits on four slightly compliant pads which provide a slight degree of isolation from the loudspeaker stand, and help to stop them moving about.
The RM 01-24 ribbon tweeter, named after its inventors Roger Kessler and Mario Ballabio, is a true ribbon and uses a thin foil membrane as the radiating surface rather than the more conventional dome attached to a voice coil. It boasts an innovative magnet arrangement in front of and behind the ribbon, which is said to reduce distortion to a minimum. Piega says that the ribbon driver is around 50 times lighter than a conventional dome tweeter, making it easier to control and thus capable of a better transient response and dynamics. The 140mm bass/mid driver is also new and the cabinet is reflex-loaded using a rearward-facing port.
The sweet spot
I placed the Premium 301 Gen2s on a stout pair of 60cm (24in) Kudos stands and initially positioned them around 30cm from the rear wall in my 5.7 x 3.6m (19 x 12 ft) listening room and 40cm from sidewalls, slightly toed-in. It did not take me long to decide that they were, for my tastes, a little bass heavy in that position and so I moved them a further 15cm from the rear wall, where I felt they sounded much better balanced.
I listened to the Piegas with a variety of amplifiers, including the Audio Note Meishu Tonmeister, Chord Electronics Ultima Integrated and a Sugden A21. With an efficiency rating of 89dB, the 301 Gen2 should work with amplifiers of a wide range of power ratings, from the Audio Note’s 10W to the Chord’s 125W. Source components included the Audio Note CDT-Five CD transport and DAC 5 Special, Hi-Fi Rose RS151 streamer and Audio Note TT3/PSU3 turntable with Arm Two and Io1 cartridge through an AN-S9 transformer. Speaker cables were the QED Supremus Zr.
My first task after finding the sweet spot for them in my room was to decide whether they sounded better with or without the grilles in place. I find that most speakers perform better without grilles, even when they are just a layer of thin fabric stretched over a wooden or plastic former, but I discovered that behind the fabric fronts, the Piega grilles have a curved and perforated metal plate. Removing them relies on you finding the little magnetic puller supplied in a cloth bag, but the rather minimal manual does not mention this. However, once I had sussed out what it was for, the puller removed the grilles easily. After a quick listen, I decided the 301 Gen2 sounded much better without grilles, so that was how I used them.
Seamless
I have heard many speakers that attempt to combine a ribbon or AMT (air motion transformer, which uses a rather larger folded foil diaphragm) tweeter with a dynamic bass/mid driver, and have discovered that doing it seamlessly in a way that creates a natural sound from the highest to the lowest frequencies is not easy. Many therefore sound disjointed.
Not so with the Premium 301 Gen2. Piega has done a wonderful job of integrating the two drivers to create a seamless transition and integrated sound. The result is a sweetly balanced speaker that makes the most of the benefits of the two types of driver. Not only were drums, cymbals, hi-hats and percussion clean, detailed and punchy, but the bass extension and control achieved were in my opinion exceptional for such a small box. On Minute by Minute from guitar legend Larry Carlton’s Discovery album, that deep, sinuous, driving bass line was beautifully delivered – weighty, agile, tuneful and controlled and it really drove the track along with great verve. Carlton’s guitar was nicely voiced and I could hear how he shaped each note.
Going for a complete change, I tried Red Lights in the Rain, my favourite track from guitarist/singer/songwriter Stephen Fearing’s Secret of Climbing album that he did with Rega. A speaker has nowhere to hide with this. It is just him and his Manzer Cowpoke acoustic guitar. The Piegas conveyed his distinctive vocal style while capturing the guitar’s body resonances and the twists and turns of his nimble-fingered playing.
Back to jazz and a quick blast of the title track from pianist David Benoit’s Freedom at Midnight album. Here, the Piegas gave his piano excellent presence and rose to the challenge when he really hit the keys hard. Abe Laboriel’s fluid, growling bass line was tight and deep and the feast of percussion from Jeff Porcaro and Lenny Castro was sweetly presented, with great subtlety and detail and no harshness or tizziness.
A good female vocal will always test the mettle of a speaker, and so I reached for Linda Ronstadt’s superb Hasten Down the Wind album, choosing the track Lo Siento My Vida. The track opens with two guitars, one left, one right, and the Piegas conveyed these with great openness, articulation and revealed the differences between the two guitars well. Ronstadt’s vocals were open and packed with emotion, and when she really pushed it on the choruses, the Piegas conveyed the power and purity of her voice without any harshness or glare.
Difficult to fault
I threw many different albums at the Piegas while I had them on test, from classic rock such as Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp to masterfully executed jazz from Miles Davis and Fourplay, and quite frankly never found them lacking, never found serious fault with them at their asking price, and thoroughly enjoyed their performance on a wide variety of music.
They have a sweetly balanced yet detailed and nimble sound, capable of conveying the rhythmic impetus of a good drum/bass/percussion rhythm section, while handling a lead vocal, guitar, piano or saxophone with great clarity, articulation and poise. The 301 Gen2 is dynamic yet sweet, never displays any harshness or unpleasantness at high frequencies, and on top of all that has deep, tightly controlled bass that could fool anyone into thinking they were listening to a speaker twice its size.
At £2,500/£2,750 a pair, they offer outstanding performance and more than hold their head up against some of the top players at the price. If they are within budget you’d be crazy not to consider them, they punch well above their weight.