Børresen X3 is a smooth operator
Børresen X3 loudspeakers The Børresen X3 followed the mighty Stratton Acoustics Elypsis 1512s into the listening room, it would be hard to imagine two such different designs. The Stratton is a metre wide, has ten and 12 inch drive units and costs over £80,000, the X3 is 34.5cm wide, has drivers that do not exceed […]
Goldenear BRX packs punch
Goldenear BRX loudspeakers It’s a bit of a novelty to have the Goldenear BRXs in my system, I can’t recall having had any of their loudspeakers through my hands before, although I’ve heard plenty and talked about Sandy Gross’ designs at various audio shows. Before establishing this label in 2010, he’s founded Polk back in […]
Thrills and spills with Q Acoustics 5040
Q Acoustics 5040 loudspeakers The new Q Acoustics 5040 has me wondering whether somewhere in their sound labs, Q Acoustics’ engineers have secret ingredients in bottles labelled ‘Thrills’, ‘Spills’ and ‘Miscellaneous audio wizardry’. I’ve now had the pleasure of listening to several different speakers from this Hertfordshire-headquartered company, and every time my opening and closing […]
Falcon M10 traditional modern
Falcon Acoustics M10 loudspeakers Having heard the phenomenal sound created by the Falcon Acoustics M10 mini monitor at both the Warsaw and Bristol hi-fi shows I was eager to try them in my own system. On both occasions they were being received with some rapture, and rightly so in my view. Harking back, in many […]
Stratton Elypsis 1512 defines dynamics
Stratton Acoustics Elypsis 1512 loudspeakers The Elypsis 1512 is the result of an industrial designer’s dreams and a loudspeaker designer’s expertise. David Fowler is a designer who’s worked on a wide range of products, from scuba gear to solar charging systems but he has long been a hi-fi enthusiast. A few years ago Dave heard […]
Revival Atalante 3: a high end bargain
Revival Audio Atalante 3 loudspeaker Life as an audio reviewer is always more satisfying when a product like the Atalante 3 sounds at least as good if not better in one’s own system as it did at a hi-fi show. Such it was with this two-way standmount from a relative newcomer to market. Revival Audio […]
Perlisten S7t: reflection free glory
Perlisten S7t loudspeaker To paraphrase the Rolling Stones, we can’t always get what we want, and I wanted to hear the Perlisten S7t a long time before these substantial loudspeakers arrived at the listening room. But it was worth the wait. There was a lot of noise around Perlisten on launch because the range arrived […]
Node Hylixa Signature for maximum musical reward
Node Audio Hylixa Signature loudspeakers Before the Node Hylixa Signature was a glimmer in its designer’s eye we made a factory visit to Node Audio in Cambridge. A review of the original Hylixa was published the following month and they were awarded our coveted Innovation Award. So why, you may ask, are we revisiting the […]
3 Square Audio Ayal: small box, big bass
3 Square Audio Ayal loudspeakers These 3 Square Audio Ayal loudspeakers should not do what they do. There. I’ve said it. I first heard and saw these diminutive Darth Vader-esque speakers at a recent audio show. I kept looking for… a larger speaker, a subwoofer, anything, but all I could find was this small, beautifully-finished, slightly unconventional-looking […]
Acoustic alchemy with Pearl Sibelius
Pearl Acoustics Sibelius loudspeaker The Pearl Sibelius is a rather different loudspeaker to the run of the mill, and in more ways than one. What you notice is that there’s only one drive unit, what’s less obvious is that the cabinet is made of solid oak and that it has quarter wave loading. The latter […]
B&W 705 S3 the speed of sound
Bowers & Wilkins 705 S3 loudspeaker The 705 S3 is the least expensive tweeter-on-top loudspeaker in Bowers & Wilkins 700 series which was relaunched in series 3 form last September. It replaced the CM series and added trickle down tech from the mighty 800 series Diamond with Continuum cones, Aerofoil bass drivers and Carbon dome tweeters. […]
Kudos Titan 606 for the long run
Kudos Titan 606 loudspeakers I have enjoyed a number of the Kudos loudspeakers during my tenure with the Ear so the opportunity to hear the Titan 606, the largest model yet to grace my listening room, was one I jumped at with enthusiasm. Regular readers may recall the positive impression that the C20 and the 10A […]