Entering a crowded market place, French brand Elipson goes head-on to compete with some stiff competition with its latest two-way stand-mount. Trevor Butler takes a listen to see if there’s any chance of entente cordiale. When the single carton containing a pair of these French speakers arrived I have to admit that I was a little apprehensive. […]
There are several ways to start a loudspeaker company, the classic approach is to toil away in the shed until you develop a loudspeaker that sounds great and hopefully appeals to other music lovers as well, build a few pairs and try to sell them into the trade and slowly build up a customer base. […]
Getting the best out of loudspeakers is as much about finding an amplifier that works as anything else. It’s a nuisance that you can’t match amps and speakers by looking at the specs, all they really tell you is approximately how much power is needed, but the crux of a really good combination has little […]
It’s all well and good finding high end products that sound great but let’s face it, with the prices charged they should be good almost regardless of circumstances. The real challenge in audio reviewing and buying of course is finding products that work well and don’t cost as much as a car. And if you […]
I had a lot of fun with the last .21 model from PMC, the twenty.21 is small and energetic with a lot of charm, a genuine pocket rocket of a speaker that makes up for its limited bass extension with superb timing and musicality. So when the twenty5.21 turned up I was expecting the same […]
When you make as many loudspeakers as Bowers & Wilkins do it must occasionally get difficult thinking up new range names. Before the 700 series there was the CM or compact monitor series that sat between the 600 and 800 ranges, a range that grew out of one model in a distinctly organic fashion. So […]
Introduced in 2016 the Dynaudio Contour 20 is the smallest member of a range that keeps the longstanding Contour name alive for Dynaudio. Evolution has not only changed the size but also the drivers, the looks, the materials and the crossover into a modern product, looking extremely fresh for the Danish who have always been […]
I imagine that even the youngest readers will have heard of the most famous BBC monitor speaker the LS3/5a, originally developed in 1975 for use in mobile recording vans to monitor speech. It was the successor to the LS3/5, and created because KEF no longer made the necessary drivers. The ‘a’ version made use of […]
I heard a pair of the new Totem Sky monitors on a visit to a dealer, it was only a short listen but long enough to recognise the sheer quality and make me want to hear them at home. A couple of weeks later I picked them up and since then they have been making […]
Active loudspeakers are hot, once the preserve of studio monitoring, speakers with built in amplifiers can be found across the board from Bluetooth boxes through soundbars to serious hi-fi. A brand that has been nibbling away at the affordable end of the audio market is Audioengine, an American company who’s direct approach at the Munich […]
When Prism Sound launched their first consumer product the Callia DAC they chose Mark Knopfler’s British Grove studios to do it in. The venue has more than its fair share of ATC monitors (they have the big ones of course) but the character of all ATC speakers is much the same, warts-and-all detail resolution of […]
I was well aware of the reputation of the British brand Q Acoustics prior to these products. It wins lots of awards and I’d heard them at several shows, so when I was offered the chance to hear them at home I got greedy and took both Concept 20 monitors and Concept 40 floor standers. […]