René waxes lyrical about a giant slaying, flax powered slice of affordable high end with a totally new Focal sound. Over a year ago I listened to and greatly enjoyed the Focal Aria 948 loudspeakers, the biggest model in the Aria range. The Aria 905 is the smallest speaker that Focal has made with a […]
Small is beautiful. This elegant Japanese desktop proves that size need not limit musical enjoyment nor aesthetic style.Desktop speaker systems take many forms but none as elegant as Eclipse’s ovular TD-M1. Not only does it have looks but it ticks all the boxes as far as audio technology is concerned too: active drive from an […]
Somehow I have never managed to experience one of the great BBC loudspeaker designs like the LS3/5a or the LS5/9. Although I have heard many speakers that claim to come close to these originals from the likes of Harbeth, Rogers and Spendor. So when the chance to lay my hands on a pair from a […]
Ask most people the question: “Does size matter?” And the answer will be: “Yes it matters; loudspeakers should be small, preferably invisible”. The sonically sensitive however, have no concern about size at all and could live happily with anything from a Bose Acoustimass to a Focal Grand Utopia. But to deal with domestic circumstances we […]
Look around any audio shop or AV outlet in any country and you find loudspeakers all over the place. In all sizes, from very cheap to extremely expensive, some are painted while a lot are veneered or look like they are covered in real wood. So why in the world would anyone start another brand […]
The moment four talented minds decide to get together to develop an active loudspeaker system, based on all the knowledge they have accrued, you expect something special. Grimm Audio is a Dutch company established by Eelco Grimm who is experienced in building studios, Guido Tent of Tentlabs is well known for his D/A converters, Bruno […]
In an attempt to foil my fellow reviewers and audio loving friends I got my hands on one of the very first pairs of PMC twenty.26 loudspeakers that came to the Netherlands. This model was introduced to mainland Europe at the High End Show 2014 in Munich and is the latest member of the twenty […]
When I discovered that the Cambridge Audio Aero speakers were equipped with a BMR driver my interest was more than usually piqued. This type of driver is a pretty rare beast, you can find it in Naim’s Ovator speakers and on one other speaker that I know of, so the fact that Cambridge have put […]
Hanging loudspeakers on a wire from the ceiling is nothing new. Neither is the use of reflectors under or above driver cones to create an omnidirectional sound pattern. But a combination of both techniques in one design is different. NACSound is the only company offering these sorts of speakers. Originally based in Italy, now stationed […]
‘Man suffers most from the suffering he fears’. That quote came to mind when I left the Dutch distributor for Guru loudspeakers. I had promised the editor a review of the largest Gurus, a brand that I only knew from hi-fi shows here and abroad. I never got excited about the performance at the shows, […]
Some things will never change and we have little need to alter them. An instrument played in 1977, the year Dudley Harwood started his loudspeaker company, will sound the same in 2013 given the same room and the same conditions. So, if we were able to reproduce the instrument plausibly on a Harbeth loudspeaker then, […]
I used Focal loudspeakers in my own system for the 15 years up to 2010. Over that time different cone materials from Focal have all made their mark; first impregnated paper with a polyglass coating, later yellow Kevlar was in use and finally the W-cone in the Electra and Utopia series showed up. The W-cone […]