Quantcast
Channel: Stand Loudspeaker Reviews
Viewing all 220 articles
Browse latest View live
↧

Amrita AMRIT-MiniMonitor loudspeaker

May 11, 2017, 10:27 am
$
0
0
"Amrita" is Sanskrit for "nectar," and indeed, the Amrita owner's manual states that they are confident their speakers "will provide Nectar For Your Ears." Although this Iowa-based manufacturer offers a large range of loudspeakers, I decided that Stereophile should review their small AMRIT-MiniMonitor ($875/pair) after Martin Colloms mentioned in his report from the 1987 SCES in Vol.10 No.5 that it sounded "pleasantly balanced on both rock and classical material." We received a pair for review in the summer of 1988, but it turned out that only one was working, the other having a very restricted low-frequency response below 100Hz. After repeated requests for replacements, Amrita's John Andre personally delivered a pair to Santa Fe in the Spring of 1989. This time, both worked out of the box!
Fri, 12/01/1989
↧
Search

ProAc Response 1S loudspeaker

September 8, 2016, 11:56 am
$
0
0
994ProAcR1S.jpgHere's the deal: If you're the kind of listener who must listen to your stereo at levels that change the barometric pressure of your listening room, or if you can't enjoy reggae concerts because they don't have enough bass, then the ProAc Response 1S (revised) is definitely not the speaker for you. Read no further. Move on. Scoot.

Anybody left? Good. Now we can talk about a very special little speaker. In a way, I didn't even want to review the 1S. I mentioned to John Atkinson that I'd heard them at my buddy Ruben's house and enjoyed them immensely, but I'd been using a pair of $13,000 speakers to review an exotic amplifier and had, sad to say, become quite spoiled: bass down to 28Hz, 93dB sensitivity, and some of the most accurate soundstaging I'd ever heard—we're talking about some serious suffering for my art, here.

So when the ProAcs arrived at my house, I thought it unfair: unfair to me (I was gonna miss them big dogs), and unfair to the Response 1S. After all, does anyone remember who played after the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show?

Thu, 09/01/1994
↧
↧

Dynaudio Focus 200 XD powered loudspeaker

September 27, 2016, 10:44 am
$
0
0
The second I encountered Dynaudio's Focus 200 XD powered loudspeaker at the High End 2015 show in Munich, Germany, it called to me. I wasn't so much drawn to its unique functions—which I describe below—as by the fact that it could help fill the black hole left by the dismantling of my reference system for my move from big, badass Oakland, California to the small, magical town of Port Townsend, Washington.
Tue, 09/27/2016
↧

Crystal Cable Arabesque Minissimo Diamond loudspeaker

September 29, 2016, 11:59 am
$
0
0
I have been an advocate of small speakers since I began using BBC LS3/5a's in the late 1970s, continuing through Celestion SL6es in 1981, Celestion SL600s and SL700s in the late '80s, and B&W Silver Signatures in the mid-'90s. Yes, I do like accurate and extended bass reproduction—but you need a big speaker to be able to provide that, and, as the late Spencer Hughes, founder of Spendor, once remarked, "big speakers have big problems." I don't see the point of extending a speaker's low-frequency performance if the result is compromised soundstaging and midrange reproduction. And there is also the intellectual elegance of a speaker that is no bigger than it need be.
Thu, 09/29/2016
↧

Paradigm Control Monitor loudspeaker

December 1, 2016, 3:51 pm
$
0
0
If speakers were cars, the Infinity IRS Beta and B&W 801 Matrix would represent the luxury end of the mass market, with perhaps the Celestion SL700, Quad ESL-63, and MartinLogan Sequel II analogous to rather hairy, temperamental sports cars—the Porsche 911, for example. But most people don't buy Porsches, or even Lincoln Town Cars; they buy Hyundai Excels and Ford Escorts. In the same way, when the car is garaged for the night, they don't sit down in front of IRS Betas; in all likelihood they listen to their records with a compact two-way design. If competently designed, a small two-way can give a great deal of musical satisfaction, and, to take a current hobbyhorse of mine out for a trot, if a designer can't produce an at least competent two-way loudspeaker, he or she has no business trying to design larger, more ambitious models—there's nowhere to hide your lack of talent if all you have to play with is a tweeter, a woofer, a rectangular enclosure, and a handful of crossover components.
Fri, 12/01/1989
↧
↧

Rogers LS7t loudspeaker

December 7, 2016, 1:19 pm
$
0
0
The English loudspeaker manufacturer Rogers [no connection with the contemporary US company Rogers High Fidelity] has had an illustrious history since being founded in 1947 by veteran designer Jim Rogers. Absorbed by the Swisstone company in 1976, it has since gone from strength to strength, the main creative work now being done by the respected English engineer Richard Ross. Noteworthy for keeping the miniature BBC LS3/5a design in continuous production for nearly 15 years, Rogers also makes a range of polypropylene-cone woofers and midrange units which are used in other models in its range.
Fri, 12/01/1989
↧

Trenner & Friedl Sun loudspeaker

December 27, 2016, 4:49 pm
$
0
0
Roughly half the size of a breadbox—remember those?—the Trenner & Friedl Sun ($3450/pair) is arguably the smallest stand-mounted loudspeaker presently available for serious home listening: only 8.5" high by 6.25" wide by 5.5" deep and weighing just 7.5 lbs. The Sun is the entry-level model from this Austrian loudspeaker manufacturer, and its ported, solid-birch cabinet is designed and built to golden-ratio proportions (footnote 1) It has a single, coaxial driver from SEAS and a crossover made by Mundorf. The Sun boasts a frequency response of 55Hz–25kHz, +0/–3dB; friends of mine have heard the speaker plumb remarkable depths when paired with the right amplifier. And though they're barely bigger than a pair of Audeze LCD-4 planar-magnetic headphones, the Suns do play louder!
Tue, 12/27/2016
↧

Bowers & Wilkins 805 D3 loudspeaker

February 16, 2017, 9:40 am
$
0
0
I have had a long relationship with Bowers & Wilkins. The first B&W speaker I spent serious time with was the DM-6, the infamous "pregnant kangaroo," which was reviewed by Allen Edelstein in December 1977 and which I borrowed for a while after interviewing the company's founder, John Bowers. Ten years later, when I met the woman who was to become my third wife, she already owned a pair of B&W Matrix 801s, a speaker reviewed by Lewis Lipnick in December 1987.
Thu, 02/16/2017
↧
Search

Aerial Acoustics 5T loudspeaker

February 21, 2017, 4:07 pm
$
0
0
Long-lived loudspeaker models are rare. So it's surprising that the two-way, stand-mounted Model 5, the smallest speaker made by Massachusetts-based Aerial Acoustics, was revised just once between 2015 and April 1997, when Robert Harley favorably reviewed it and it cost $1800/pair. The revised 5B was equally favorably reviewed by John Marks in July 2009. This kept the original's 1" titanium-dome tweeter and sealed-box woofer loading but replaced the 7" polypropylene-cone woofer with a 7.1" laminated-fiber–cone woofer. Despite more than a decade's worth of inflation, the price rose only slightly, to $2400/pair.
Tue, 02/21/2017
↧
↧

Wharfedale Diamond 225 loudspeaker

February 23, 2017, 11:56 am
$
0
0
In the United Kingdom, the first seeds of perfectionism in audio separates were sown by Goodmans Industries, founded in 1925. Then, in 1930, Garrard (est. 1722) produced its first commercial gramophone. Shortly thereafter, England experienced the Great Slump, the British name for the worldwide catastrophe known in the US as the Great Depression. Near the beginning of this economic downturn, in 1932, Gilbert Briggs founded Wharfedale Wireless Works—and the first British "high-fidelity" audio amplifiers began being manufactured by H.J. Leak & Co. Ltd., founded by Harold Joseph Leak in 1934.
Thu, 02/23/2017
↧

Ohm Acoustics CAM 16 loudspeaker

March 7, 2017, 9:35 am
$
0
0
I like Brooklyn. I even got married under the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge! (Almost the exact spot where Cher's grandfather let his dogs howl at the moon in Moonstruck. And if you're ever in the Park Slope area, check out McFeeley's for brunch.) I could be forgiven, therefore, for having a soft spot for any Brooklyn manufacturer, including Ohm Acoustics. Except that the only Ohm model I have heard was the omnidirectional Ohm Walsh 5 (favorably reviewed by Dick Olsher in Stereophile in 1987, Vol.10 No.4, and 1988, Vol.11 No.8), and the omni principle is something that I have never found to work, or at least to give me what I feel necessary in reproduced sound. The Ohm Model 16, however, is one of three more conventional Coherent Audio Monitor (CAM) speakers intended to offer good sound at an affordable price: $300/pair
Sat, 04/01/1989
↧

Dynaudio Contour 20 loudspeaker

March 24, 2017, 12:36 pm
$
0
0
The soul of a loudspeaker cannot be exclusively characterized by such unmeasurable, reviewer-friendly declarations as "lush tonality,""gossamer textures,""clear-water transparency,""microdetail," or "pacey dynamic rhythmic expression." Neither can it be fully described by such measurable characteristics as anechoic frequency response, dynamic impedance, or step response. More than anything else, a loudspeaker expresses its full character in how and where it directs the listener's attention. What a loudspeaker emphasizes—what it reveals, what it obscures, what it forces the listener to notice and think about—that is a loudspeaker's soul.
Fri, 03/24/2017
↧

DeVore Fidelity Gibbon 3XL loudspeaker

March 29, 2017, 10:48 am
$
0
0
Forty years ago, when I first had money enough to buy serious [ahem] consumer audio, there were a few good turntables available, from Thorens, Garrard, Ariston, some others. Today is the golden age of turntables: ask Mikey, if not antiquarian Artie. And loudspeakers! In 1970, models were few, and most were mediocre. Today, you can have a great loudspeaker for a song.
Tue, 06/01/2010
↧
↧

Dynaco A-25 loudspeaker

April 13, 2017, 10:30 am
$
0
0
Everyone knows that a lot of serious music listeners—that is, those who listen to music instead of using it as a conversational background—have neither the space nor the money for a pair of typical floor-standing speakers, and must make do with bookshelf-type systems that are actually small enough to put in a bookshelf. But while the typical audio perfectionist will freely admit that there is a place in the audio sun for these dinky little speakers, he cannot really take them seriously, particularly when they're priced significantly under $100 each.
Mon, 12/01/1969
↧

Amrita AMRIT-MiniMonitor loudspeaker

May 11, 2017, 10:27 am
$
0
0
"Amrita" is Sanskrit for "nectar," and indeed, the Amrita owner's manual states that they are confident their speakers "will provide Nectar For Your Ears." Although this Iowa-based manufacturer offers a large range of loudspeakers, I decided that Stereophile should review their small AMRIT-MiniMonitor ($875/pair) after Martin Colloms mentioned in his report from the 1987 SCES in Vol.10 No.5 that it sounded "pleasantly balanced on both rock and classical material." We received a pair for review in the summer of 1988, but it turned out that only one was working, the other having a very restricted low-frequency response below 100Hz. After repeated requests for replacements, Amrita's John Andre personally delivered a pair to Santa Fe in the Spring of 1989. This time, both worked out of the box!
Fri, 12/01/1989
↧
Search

Monitor Audio R300/MD loudspeaker

June 9, 2017, 11:43 am
$
0
0
The Monitor Audio R300/MD ($669/pair) debuted at the 1988 SCES in Chicago. English company Monitor Audio is one of the pioneers in spreading the use of metal-dome tweeters in relatively low-cost loudspeaker systems. The tweeters they have designed in conjunction with SEAS and British manufacturer Elac may have now found their ways into a number of designs from competing manufacturers, but there is no doubt that Monitor leads the way. The new R300/MD features a new ¾" version of the SEAS 1" aluminum-dome unit Monitor introduced with their R652/MD (reviewed in Vol.10 No.5), in conjunction with an 8" doped paper-cone woofer.
Sat, 04/01/1989
↧

Kii Audio Three loudspeaker

August 17, 2017, 12:34 pm
$
0
0
At the risk of offending nearly every designer and manufacturer of loudspeakers, I think we have not seen anything really new in a long time. Casting a gimlet eye at Stereophile's "Recommended Components" reveals some electrostatic and planar-magnetic models, a few horns, and lots and lots of cones and domes in boxes. Those cones and domes have voice-coils inductively driven by permanent magnets, and overwhelmingly use passive crossovers. Innovation in speakers mostly takes the form of advancements in materials science and, to a much lesser degree, cabinet shape. All helpful, but not revolutionary.
Thu, 08/17/2017
↧
↧

JBL 18Ti loudspeaker

October 12, 2017, 10:00 am
$
0
0
Introduced in 1985 as the smallest model in JBL's "Ti" range, the 18Ti ($590/pair) shares with its larger siblings, like the JBL 250ti (recently reviewed by J. Gordon Holt), a high-tech tweeter that uses a one-piece ribbed titanium-foil dome/surround just 25µm thick. This is both rigid and of very low mass, pushing its first-breakup mode up to the region of 30kHz. The tweeter is mounted above the polypropylene-cone woofer, offset a little to one side to make room for the 45mm diameter port (though the speakers are not supplied as a handed pair). The 10-liter internal volume box is well-constructed from 20mm chipboard, covered in real-wood veneer.
Sat, 08/01/1987
↧

Devialet Diary

October 19, 2017, 3:46 pm
$
0
0
It's day five of our planned month-long stay à Paris, late April through most of May. My wife is here for work—for me, it's strictly for pleasure—and we're enjoying Paris's rich, sensual goodness: food, museums, architecture, coffee, people, food. And yet, earlier today, when we were out for a walk—we've been walking close to 10 miles each day, exploring the city—I realized that my life here has been missing something important.
Thu, 10/19/2017
↧

Totem Acoustic Signature One loudspeaker

December 28, 2017, 9:34 am
$
0
0
New York City, 1989: I had a music and audio-guru friend named George, who worked at both Tower Records and Stereo Exchange. Every Saturday I'd slip him a Grant and, over the following week, he would choose $50 worth of used Tower LPs he thought I should own. One midweek afternoon, on my way home from work, I dropped in on George at Stereo Exchange, to chat and maybe see what was new. Grinning, he led me to a back room and pointed to a pair of small speakers mounted on stands. "Tell me what you think of these." He walked out and left me to listen alone.
Thu, 12/28/2017
↧
Viewing all 220 articles
Browse latest View live
Search
<script src="https://jsc.adskeeper.com/r/s/rssing.com.1596347.js" async> </script>