It is so appropriate to be testing a Rogers-made BBC loudspeaker design since the company was so closely linked with the broadcaster’s transducer development and manufacture decades ago. Indeed, the original bass unit of the LS5/9 (under scrutiny here) was a collaboration between BBC engineers and Rogers at a time when the Corporation had lost […]
This is a review I have delayed writing for the simple reason that I did not want to return the product to the manufacturer because I was enjoying it so much. But that procrastination is preventing me from sharing news of how great a product Acoustic Energy have created in their AE500 two-way stand-mount loudspeaker. […]
A couple of years back I moved into a larger listening room with timber framed walls, lots of insulation and cement panel and wooden cladding. It doesn’t have the tendency found in brick builds to bounce the bass back at you which means no bass boom and pretty even low end. The drawback is that […]
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 […]
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 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. […]
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 […]
The reincarnation tale of a genuinely classic loudspeaker reads almost like a thriller. Two retired men started a project to bring back the BBC developed LS3/5a loudspeaker, originally designed for nearfield monitoring in mobile studios to judge voice recording during interviews. That little monitor somehow survived all others and in the Far East it has […]