Diapason Ares Excel speakers
Having revelled in what several bookshelf Diapason loudspeakers from Italy can achieve, I was intrigued to note an inexpensive floorstander in the catalogue, the only other one being a £55,000 design and (way) over my pay grade. The Ares Excel is probably the narrowest floorstanding loudspeaker I have ever used (5 inches), its proportions make it truly elegant such that it will fit almost invisibly into any setting.
Heritage of music
Diapason Italia was founded by a musician who almost turned professional and would have if it hadn’t been for loudspeakers. As it was, Alessandro Schiavi spent time designing and crafting exquisite violins for orchestral performances and only later, using this knowledge and skill, he began shaping loudspeaker cabinets to personify those same musical qualities.
Born in Udine, Italy in 1965, Alessandro moved to Brescia to study organ composition at the Conservatory music school, where he developed his love of music and feeling for pure, natural sound. At the young age of 15 he also studied electrical engineering and, by 17, had become interested in recording live music. He began work recording for the International Piano Festival of Brescia and Bergamo, before moving to work with some Italian recording labels.
Before creating a new model, Alessandro’s design phase is followed by intensive prototyping and testing, and culminates in a lengthy and very personal tuning process. The bookshelf models, including those I have tested before, are made from Canaletto walnut from North America which has been aged for at least 25 years to limit natural fibre variations before the staves are cut for the cabinet.
At Diapason, loudspeaker production is methodical and in several phases that take several months. Each cabinet is assembled using individually-cut staves, to create an overall design that provides the best acoustics and aesthetics, thanks to the solid wood grain. Cabinets are then left to rest for months, to allow the wood to settle into the shape created, just as a good musical instruments demand.
Design
The Ares Excel benefits from a high-density fibreboard cabinet because it ensures optimal acoustic balance for the larger dimension panels involved. It has a smart Canaletto walnut veneer and natural wood finish to the rear of the reflex-ported box and is proudly made in Italy.
The two drive units in the 94cm high cabinet are from Diapason’s favourite and long-standing supplier, SEAS and comprise their 110mm direct-drive woofer with polymer cone and a 26mm silk-dome tweeter made to the company’s specifications. The two units cross over at a somewhat high 4.4kHz. Direct-drive refers to the way the main driver is connected to the amplifier without a low-pass filter in the crossover network. This will improve low-frequency transients and was originally seen in the first Epos designs way back in the eighties. It does, however, require a well-behaved woofer, so is not always a suitable approach.
Meanwhile, the high-pass crossover circuit is hardwired with Van den Hul CS cable in oxygen-free silver plated copper, which is said to avoid the deleterious sonic effect of printed-circuit boards, and uses high-tolerance (1%) components in the network, all the capacitors are polypropylene. Perforated metal grilles are available as an optional extra and add a sophisticated finish to the product, not least protecting the drive units from little fingers and over-zealous dusting.

The Ares Excel has a lowish 6 Ohm nominal impedance, dipping to 3.3 Ohms around 250Hz so amplifier matching will need to be considered. This figure also means that the realistic sensitivity is lower than the quoted 88dB; but no matter because most modern amplifiers offer more than sufficient power to drive a speaker like this.
Installation
The slender Ares Excels, with their diminutive dimensions were placed about a foot from the rear wall and clear of side walls. Connection was initially to my Hegel H190 streaming amplifier but later changed for the H600 which is known to better tolerate lower impedance loads not to mention producing a glorious 520W/ch into 4 Ohms .
Sources were an internet tuner, satellite receiver and Qobuz streaming using an Auralic Aries G1. Very soon after first listening I was aware that the sound was rather more lacklustre than I had expected. A quick in-room check of the frequency response removed any trial-and-error positioning and a modest toe-in solved the issue which was down to a midrange dip, emulating perhaps but accentuating the famous ‘BBC midrange dip’, and a gentle if early roll-off of the top-end. These loudspeakers do benefit from toe-in. They could be placed a considerable distance apart without creating an hole-in-the-middle effect; far wider than I had imagined. In this way they generate an enormously wide soundstage from their slender proportions.
Sound quality
The first thing to say is that the Ares Excel may be compact loudspeakers but they are capable of creating a huge sound, at least in my modest listening room. In fact, Diapason say they come into their own in small spaces.
While not monitors in the broadcasting use of the term, they are described as such and manage to differentiate well the different miking used for solo piano across a range of recordings. But they don’t do this in a distracting way which reduces the output to analytical proportions. Throughout, they remain very musical in bringing the performance to the listener, or transporting the listener to the recording. I spent an enjoyable morning with Mozart’s complete piano concertos courtesy of Alfred Brendel, Walter Klein and Peter Frankl.
The overall balance is laid-back, by which I mean it is easy-on-the-ear, completely unfatiguing and allows for long periods of enjoyable listening. The result is to lessen the harshness of some raucous rock and pop recordings although, by the same measure, voices can appear slightly further back in the overall mix, noted with TV dramas.
Give the Ares Excel a poor recording and it will expose it for all that it is. This was very noticeable with some old analogue soundtracks on seventies sitcoms, almost to the extent that I thought there was a fault somewhere in the audio chain. Conversely, with well-recorded material these little Diapasons are adept a re-creating a musical masterpiece with high resolution, bringing out the natural sound of acoustic instruments. Sure, there is no deep bass but, in the rooms the Ares Excels are likely to be used, such frequencies can be nothing but problematic. I noted that my known room mode around 55Hz was not excited whereas this can often cause issues.
A long-time fan of SEAS tweeters, the treble unit in the Diapason Ares Excel did not fail to delight. The tops are very clear, clean and bright enough to complement the rest of the sound produced. Detail extraction is incredible given the price of the overall package.
Every loudspeaker designer sets an optimum listening-level for a particular model to work best at. Given its likely setting, the Ares Excel works fabulously at lower SPLs and, only when the volume is increased to neighbour-annoying levels is there a hint of mild compression. This became apparent with the harsh rock of Europe and The Final Countdown from the eighties.
Small drivers are known for being able to reproduce great mid-bass with a real punch, really making a kick drum come alive for example. This was noted with Rihanna’s Umbrella where the low drum frequencies are more normally simply buried in the overall musical spectrum.
Before the panel left, we tried, appropriately enough, an Italian track through Italian loudspeakers and settled down to Black Box’s Ride on Time (1989) which is the only record to be deleted, re-recorded and reissued while it was number one in the UK charts. This all related to legal rights over samples of Lolita Holloway’s original track. The Ares Excels handled this music with aplomb, demonstrating that they are far from one-note bass transducers. Their timing ability was also confirmed and the sound was big, with near 3D properties that filled the listening space and ensured high levels of listener involvement.
Conclusion
The Ares Excels clearly present the Diapason ‘house’ sound that I’ve enjoyed from several of their designs over the years. They are incredible value and even more so when you factor in the saving of a pair of suitable stands. Unlike larger, more complex floorstanding designs which revel in reproducing thunderous bass, the Ares Excels are capable of finesse and great detail retrieval while providing the usual bookshelf traits of being agile and capable of mastering complex rhythmic arrangements.
The Ares Excels is a well-engineered design which, with suitable amplifier partnership, is capable of producing an engaging, endearing and beautiful sound that does justice to the very best recordings of acoustic music. Their balance also take the harshness out of more raucous material which can often be fatiguing. All in all these domestically friendly ultra-slim towers have an awful lot going for them.