Neat Acoustics Orkestra loudspeakers A new speaker from Bob Surgeoner at Neat is not an everyday occurrence. Unlike the increasing number of manufacturers who feel a marketing necessity to churn out new models with alacrity, this County Durham company spends hundreds of hours listening and honing new designs before releasing them. Each new concept must […]
To my knowledge PMC is the only audio manufacturer of any repute to have used Townshend Seismic bases under its loudspeakers at a hi-fi show. It’s a brave move given the tendency for the audience at such events to ascribe disproportionate benefits to ancillary components. But PMC clearly understand the improvements that genuine isolation can […]
There is nothing quite like a German Physiks loudspeaker either in or beyond the audio world, the DDD driver with its omnidirectional dispersion remains distinctive and radical decades after its introduction. The first example of the Dicks dipole driver (DDD) was produced by German Physiks in 1992 but the development of this driver design dates […]
An offshoot of a better known speaker brand, the newest floorstander from 5degrees finds Trevor Butler enraptured by the finesse of a ribbon tweeter that he just can’t stop enjoying. This is my fifth, or possibly sixth attempt to commit this review to print. Why? Because before each one I thought I would just reacquaint […]
As a long term fact.8 user I was excited to hear that an upgraded version of the fact range was launching at the High End show in Munich last year but it wasn’t until a month or so back that I managed to get my hands on a pair of the new Signature facts. One […]
I have happy memories of Acoustic Energy from its inception back in 1987 and the AE1 mini monitors which founder Steve Tayler brought to me as a young, enthusiastic reviewer. It was a product that quickly became iconic. He was an Ealing neighbour of Virgin’s Richard Branson and I soon found myself helping the airline […]
Elipson has a significant legacy as France’s oldest surviving loudspeaker brand, it was founded in 1938 and remained in private ownership right up until 2008 but never pursued international markets. Whether this was because the distinctly Gallic styling of its products made them hard to sell or that the domestic market was sufficient for the […]
I first met Kevin Scott in my early days at Hi-Fi Choice, he was at least as keen on valves and vinyl as I was and selling Audio Innovations amplifiers with Snell speakers from a house in Nottingham. When Snell stopped making its classic valve friendly designs Kevin was left needing a speaker that was […]
It’s probably best not to wear socks whilst listening to the SCM40s – they’re only going to get blown off each time you fire-up these gorgeous floorstanders. Right from the outset, these hand-built speakers impress even before you get their drivers moving. They’re built using a curved cabinet design that adds a classic elegance, and […]
When Kudos launched the original Titan (now dubbed 808) it was a big step for the company. The biggest and most ambitious loudspeaker that Derek Gilligan had designed, it looked like that would remain the brand’s flagship, the only one of its kind. But then it spawned a smaller model, the 707, and then the […]
Once a loudspeaker company gets to a certain size it can start to use the tech developed for its most advanced designs in the more affordable ranges at the opposite end of the scale. It’s not exactly an economy of scale more an economy of research, it takes time and money to come up with […]
Back in the spring when the editor asked me if I fancied reviewing the new JBL L100s I didn’t have to think about it long. People of my vintage (not a word I use lightly in this context!) may have fond memories of those days in the early 1970s, when the original JBL L100 first […]