Seeing that Monitor Audio is celebrating its 50th birthday, it seems an ideal opportunity to look at one of the brand’s most popular models which has just has just been updated and relaunched. First launched back in 1999, the 7th generation Silver 100 remains a compact, two-way bass reflex design for stand-mount use, or bookshelf […]
Loudspeakers can sometimes be the make or break of a system. After all, having got the system nicely set up, the right front end, amplification and cables a house move brings a new room and the delights which came before evaporate, then the realisation dawns that, no matter what, despite the rest of the system […]
With JBL launching so many retro style models in recent years there is a tendency to forget that this is an up to the moment, technologically driven company that also makes modern loudspeakers. The brand has enviable heritage for sure but that doesn’t mean it can afford to keep on making speakers the way it […]
To my knowledge there are not too many hi-fi companies based in the Cotswolds, but it was the market town of Cirencester that Acoustic Energy moved to in 1995 after being founded in London back in 1987. The brand launched with the standmount AE1 which garnered much praise at the time and sold exceptionally well. […]
The Italians have always had a certain flair when it comes to things cultural and artistic; from da Vinci to Michelangelo, Monteverdi to Vivaldi, Versace to Enzo Ferrari. And that extends to contemporary loudspeaker design as well, as we shall see. At various hi-fi shows around the world, I have been wooed by the sounds […]
Celebrations are always exciting and we have a double one in the shape of Triangle’s 40th anniversary two-way standmount speaker, the £1,500 Comète. It has been created to mark the founding, by Renaud de Vergnette, of the brand and is a very special edition of a model which has survived 25 years of constant production. Rather […]
It hardly seems like two years since my review of the Audel Magika Mk2 loudspeakers was published and they were awarded a well-deserved 5 stars. So when John Simm, the UK distributor of Audel, asked me if I would like to hear the Magika’s smaller sibling, the Sonika Mk2, I was more than pleased to […]
Although I’d heard good things about RMB loudspeakers – and after all they’ve been around for a fair few years now – I’d never actually had the opportunity to hear a pair, let alone in the context of my own system. RMB take loudspeaker design very seriously, yet their approach and the visual aesthetic is […]
Having enjoyed other models from Acoustic Energy, I was excited when a brand-new loudspeaker arrived in the shape of the slimline AE109.2 floorstander; yes – that’s a ‘2’ suggesting an upgrade to the previous 109 model although, as we shall see, the new variant is more than just a cosmetic tweak, it’s pretty much a […]
In case you missed it, that was the sound of my jaw dropping to the floor. I have just unboxed and set-up the Concept 50s from Q Acoustics, stepped back to admire the view, and am frankly blown away by the sleek and elegant look of these floorstanders. Available in a choice of three high […]
For French loudspeaker brand Triangle, it all began in 1980 with the high-end 1180 floor-standing model followed a year later by the CX2, famed for having its tweeter outside the main cabinet and appearing like something of an afterthought. That was then and, still based in its purpose-built facility in Soissons, the company has grown […]
If a new product is exciting news for a reviewer then one from a brand-new company is even more so. Coppice Audio was officially launched at the UK Hi-Fi Show in Daventry last year where they showed pre-production samples of the floorstanding X2 and the two-way standmount X1 on test here. The most striking thing […]