Released in January, the Q7 Mini Monitor is the latest addition to Falcon Acoustics’ Complete at Home range of loudspeakers that’s making high-end audio more affordable by selling kits directly to the customer. An updated version of the original Q7 that Malcolm Jones designed and sold for many years, the new model exploits improvements in […]
Italian speaker makers have always had a thing for solid walnut, the stuff must grow on trees over there, and it certainly makes for a beautiful and extremely solid cabinet, as a rule it’s used on standmounts but for the first time in its extensive history Sonus faber have built a floorstander from this lovely […]
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 […]
It’s nearly fifty years since the first embryo of what’s become one of the most talked-about audio products, and still new editions of the infamous BBC mini monitor are being born. Has there been another audio component to have provoked so much emotive comment, or given rise to so many myths and misunderstandings as the […]
Diapason is a brand which consistently creates loudspeakers to my taste, for that is what transducers principally are: to the listeners’ taste. This is why I paid a visit to their northern Italy production facilities to see the hand-made creations come to life, and theirs is always a room at hi-fi shows which I make a bee-line […]
Launched at the last High End event to be staged in Munich, the 2019 show, the Micra III Excel is the latest addition to Italian specialist Diapason’s Classic Series. At the Bavarian event it was somewhat overshadowed by other announcements from this manufacturer, but I knew it was a model worthy of further investigation. And, […]
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 […]
To have the SCM7 two-way bookshelf as an entry model in an expansive range speaks volumes about ATC’s ability to create natural-sounding loudspeakers which are not only British designed but also British built and based on their own, proprietary drive units. This company has gained a formidable reputation in both professional and hi-fi circles, and […]
The IMF 100 is an interesting project for Falcon Acoustics. A few years back owner Jerry Bloomfield decided to build an LS3/5A, the classic BBC monitor that has been around for years but which in Jerry’s opinion hadn’t been done properly because KEF were no longer making the drive units that were designed for it. […]
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 […]
Another under-rated Polish loudspeaker brand has Trevor Butler enraptured by its evolving dynamics as he puts Sveda Audio’s active Blipo monitors through their paces. The four boxes which arrived from Sveda Audio filled my exterior porch but thankfully Greg from UK distributor G Point Audio was on hand to help me unpack and assemble these […]
Italian heritage, crafted in the Czech Republic, finds Trevor Butler sampling a compact two-way which really gets the feet tapping. Xavian is a company which has interested me for a while, and whose Classic Series visually resemble the BBC-style monitor loudspeakers I so adore, especially now that it has launched this compact infinite baffle, or sealed […]