Opera Classica Prima V2 speakers Preconceptions are never stronger than when reviewing Italian loudspeakers. There’s an expectation about how they will look, the breed nearly always taking its cues from expensive, hand-crafted Italian furniture, heavy on the wood and leather. How they will sound is just as much of a lazy cliche: smooth, warm, organic, […]
Arke Audio Mikros speakers If a new product excites a reviewer, it does the more so when it’s from a totally new brand, and so we welcome Arke Audio into the audiophile arena with its growing range of passive loudspeakers. Joining the company’s two-way Solos launch model comes the more compact Mikros (from the Greek, […]
Bowers & Wilkins 707 S3 Prestige Edition speakers We tend to think of tweaks or small upgrades to products being the domain of smaller companies, often run by one or two people who won’t let it lie when it comes to squeezing maximum performance out of their creations. This desire to make an audio component […]
Dali Rubikore 6 speakers When I think of Denmark I think of stylish people, in minimalist houses, all with great furniture, great hair, great faces. Ok, I’m being silly but having visited Copenhagen several times over the years, my positive stereotype is fairly well founded. The Dali Rubikore 6 only cements my conviction, with its […]
Oephi Ascendence 2.5 speakers Oephi speakers have become a familiar sight in my listening room over the last few months, yet the Ear has not been alone in handing out plaudits to this Danish brand. Many of us in the industry feel that Joakim Juhl’s designs are genuine game changers. I, for one, have written […]
Xavian Unica speakers Not long ago, I had a great time reviewing a pair of Xavian Grande Unica loudspeakers. This time, the owner of Xavian brought me a pair of Unica monitors. The same idea, the same kind of wood, and the same drivers — minus the second woofer. Roberto Barletta makes his Unica speakers […]
Revival Audio Atalante 7 Évo speakers We are used to seeing small and medium sized speakers from Revival but the Atalante 7 Évo is a whole other kettle of drive units. There must be some other three-ways around that run a 15 inch bass driver but the only one that comes to mind is the […]
Creek Cymatics 6 speakers Creek Audio is famed for its electronics, founder Mike Creek launched his first amplifier the Creek 4040 in 1982. It’s a brand which has consistently provided great electronics for a reasonable outlay and that amp was the foundation of many a starter hi-fi system. Mike’s association with loudspeakers commenced when he […]
Dali Sonik 5 speakers One of the more rewarding aspects of being a hi-fi reviewer is finding a seriously affordable loudspeaker that does a great job anchoring a price appropriate system but grows and then conspicuously over-delivers when the source and amp are upgraded as they might be in a real-world system building scenario. It’s […]
ATC EL50 Anniversary active speakers ATC saves the EL appellation for its most ambitious designs and has used it only once in the past for the EL150 in 2006. For the EL150 and the new EL50, ATC has dropped a conventional box design, typical of ATC’s pro and domestic ranges, for something more elegant and […]
Xavian Grande Unica speakers Since 1994, the Czech Republic has been home to Xavian Electronics, a loudspeaker company led by designer Roberto Barletta. Formerly based in Prague and now in Hostivice, Xavian manufactures its loudspeakers in-house using solid wood. The Natura series is inspired by the Czech countryside, and one of the models is the […]
Oephi Ascendance 2 speakers Back in 2022, the Ascendance model name marked the access point to Oephi’s ecosystem of speakers and cables, a ground zero crucially assembled to express the Danish company’s deeply embedded ‘sonic purity’ values at an ‘accessible price’. These core values in turn were further refined to great effect by the Transcendence […]