Loudspeakers

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Loudspeakers
Cambridge Audio Aero 6 - £650
 |  Jan 15, 2015  |  0 comments
Back in the November 2013 issue (377) we reviewed the £350 Cambridge Audio Aero 2 standmount loudspeaker. The Aero 6 is a larger, floorstanding version of the same design, deploying identical drive units with the far larger cabinet volume that comes from having a big box that sits securely on terra firma! Many will expect the Aero 6 to be better, then; after all, it’s nearly twice the price and has far more air inside its capacious cabinet. Trouble is, in doing a floorstanding version of a smaller standmount speaker, you open yourself up to a problem that’s never easily solved, especially in budget designs, which is how to keep the cabinet under control. The thing is, that bigger box might let the bass driver move air easier, but there’s also the worry that it will also move the cabinet.
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Loudspeakers
Dynaudio Excite X34 - £2,000
 |  Jan 15, 2015  |  0 comments
Eagle-eyed readers will no doubt have spotted thatan almost identical looking Dynaudio floorstander graced these pages back in the October 2013 issue and earned itself a prestigious Recommended badge. That speaker was the Xeo 5, an active design with a wireless receiver. Its cheaper passive cousin, the X34, comes minus the Xeo’s internal amplifier, freeing it up to be drivenby one of your choosing. The X34 model shares air-moving hardware with the Xeo 5, so you geta pair of Dynaudio’s 5in MSP (magnesium silicate polymer) long-throw woofers with aluminium voice coils and die-cast aluminium frames.
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Loudspeakers
Spendor A6R - £2,495
Hi-Fi Choice  |  Jan 15, 2015  |  0 comments
One of the best things about Spendor is that when its ranges are refreshed, it’sa worthwhile update. The company’s MD Philip Swift ‘gets it’ that buyers aren’t always taken in by the addition of an alloy trim ring, a five percent more expensive crossover capacitor and set of gold-plated spikes. So when it does something,it’s worth sitting up and taking notice. Any ‘R’ version (as it’s ‘Revised’) really is worth paying attention to.
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Loudspeakers
Neat Acoustics Motive SX1 - £1,885
Ed Selley  |  Jan 12, 2015  |  0 comments
British audio companies often adopt a more relaxed pace of evolution to their product ranges compared with some other countries and with speakers in particular, models and ranges can go many years without replacement. Neat Acoustics’ loudspeakers are a classic exampleof the‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ approach – models like the Petite and Elite have been membersof the range almost since the company’s founding, albeit with continued upgrades. So, when the company decides to carry outa refresh, the result is always going to be interesting. This time it is the affordable Motive range that has been given a good going over after eight years (with some more subtle updates during that time).
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Loudspeakers
MAD 1920
Hi-Fi Choice  |  Jan 09, 2013  |  0 comments
MAD’s world MAD - acronym for My Audio Design – is one of hi-fi's more interesting and idiosyncratic operations, says Paul Messenger My Audio Design is one of hi-fi ’s newer and more surprising operations. It’s headed by Timothy Jung, a British entrepreneur who combines youth, enthusiasm and imagination with a passion for making loudspeakers here in Britain. And some of its designs are indeed MAD – check out the extraordinary Royal Salute! The inspiration That’s certainly not the case with the 1920. Despite its curious name, this loudspeaker is conceived as a tribute to the classic BBC LS3/5A sub-miniature, which continues to enjoy cult popularity and a succession of lookalike models from several manufacturers.
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Loudspeakers
Audiosmile Kensai - £1,503
Ed Selley  |  Mar 13, 2012  |  0 comments
Little wonder Channa Vithana enjoys the musical delights of AudioSmile’s diminutive Kensai standmount loudspeaker. . . Most loudspeakers remain a disappointment to me, as so many manage to strangle the life out of music – there are only a precious few I’ve heard that truly satisfy in the music-making stakes.
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Loudspeakers
Castle Richmond Anniversary - £580
Ed Selley  |  Mar 13, 2012  |  0 comments
Stand and deliver Castle's special Anniversary version of the Richmond promises more than previous incarnations, says Ed Selley Castle has been making the Richmond speaker for almost as long as it has existed as a brand. Indeed, the design has survived the takeover of the company by International Audio Group, and weathered the arrival of the newer and highly regarded Knight 2 (HFC 338). Now Castle has launched an Anniversary version of the Richmond seen here. It’s still recognisably a Richmond –the layout is a rear-ported two-way, with the main driver inverted over the tweeter.
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Loudspeakers
Guru QM10 Two - £1,795
Ed Selley  |  Mar 13, 2012  |  0 comments
Second coming Guru’s original QM10 was a true music maker, but never the greatest all-rounder. With this in mind, Jason Kennedy greets the new QM10two As we discovered in Hi-Fi Choice 317, the original Guru QM10 was a little charmer; even sat next to far more expensive boxes it could carry a tune like few others. Still, it wasn’t the world’s most transparent two-way and when fed with serious amounts of power had a habit of going out to lunch. In short, what it needed was a beefed up drivetrain, the means by which it could move air more forcefully.
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Loudspeakers
Acoustic Energy, Reference 1 - £1,500
Ed Selley  |  Jan 09, 2012  |  0 comments
High-class baby Massive construction is just one of the key features that singles out Acoustic Energy’s Reference 1, says Paul Messenger Back in 1988, Acoustic Energy made a very impressive debut with its original AE1, a small Proaudio-oriented speaker that, at the time, essentially re-invented the concept of the modern highperformance miniature. The company has undergone numerous changes since then. Its original founders have long since moved on and the company is currently owned by Malaysian interests, which also provides a source for inexpensive production. The perennial AE1 The AE1 and a number of variations on its theme have been reviewed in Hi-Fi Choice on a pretty regular basis down the years.
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Loudspeakers
PMC, Twenty.23 - £2,095
Ed Selley  |  Jan 09, 2012  |  0 comments
Twenty’s vision PMC’s new twenty series applies some of the lessons learned while developing the upmarket fact models, says Paul Messenger PMC achieved its 20th anniversary last autumn, celebrating the fact by launching a brand new four-strong ‘twenty’ series of models that are intended to fill the gap between its regular ‘i’ series of domestic hi-fi speakers and much more costly ‘fact’ models. In truth, the twentys are priced much closer to the ‘is’ than the ‘facts’, this compact floorstander starting at £2,095 for the real wood veneered version. (There’s a choice of three here, including oak, walnut and amarone, though the highgloss Diamond Black finish costs an extra £210. ) That compares with a current price of £1,525 for the GB1i, its nearest equivalent in the standard range.
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Loudspeakers
Spendor S3/5R2 - £850
Ed Selley  |  Jan 09, 2012  |  0 comments
Figure of speech Spendor has updated its legendary S3/5R2. Ed Selley finds out if the classic character has survived the improvements Few speakers have a pedigree quite as long or distinguished as the LS3/5 standmount speaker. Originally designed for the BBC to monitor outside broadcasts, it’s impressive performance won many fans. So when the BBC requirement ceased, Spendor took over; a success record that has resulted in the latest iteration, the S3/5R2.
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Loudspeakers
Amphion Argon 1 - £1,179
Ed Selley  |  Dec 23, 2011  |  0 comments
Amphion Argon 1 An unconventional standmount from one of hi-fi’s newer companies, based in Finland Amphion is a relatively young brand, founded in 1998 and brings some interestingly different techniques to the party. The most obvious of these is the large waveguide that surrounds the tweeter and matches the diameter of the bass/mid drive unit. This has several implications. The prime purpose is to control the tweeter’s directivity, presumably to avoid the directivity discontinuity that usually occurs in the transition from bass/mid driver to tweeter.
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Loudspeakers
Dynaudio Excite X16 - £1,020
Ed Selley  |  Dec 23, 2011  |  0 comments
Dynaudio Excite X16 This chunky and solidly built Danish speaker has a larger than average main driver Denmark’s Dynaudio operation is one of relatively few brands to enjoy success in both the professional and domestic hi-fi speaker markets – one often notices Dynaudio speakers furnishing BBC TV studios, for example. However, that’s partly due to the high-power handling conferred by the use of extra-large-diameter voice coils on many of its bass/mid drivers. A feature that doesn’t appear to be a part of this new Excite range, which seems to be more obviously oriented towards the price-sensitive home hi-fi marketplace. The X16 sits one rung above the smallest model in the Excite range, which explains why the speaker is a little larger in both volume and main driver than the group average.
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Loudspeakers
Quadral Aurum Megan VIII - £995
Ed Selley  |  Dec 23, 2011  |  0 comments
Quadral Aurum Megan VIII This very solid compact features a ribbon-type planar tweeter and a complex alloy main driver diaphragm Little known here in Britain (though we did review a couple of models about five years ago), Quadral is apparently the third most successful hi-fi speaker specialist in Germany, which must mean that it’s a good size operation by any standards. The Aurum range is actually a higher performance sub-brand of the main Quadral operation, with its own website and an extensive range of ten loudspeakers, plus some electronics. We reviewed the Altan VIII standmount quite recently (HFC 350), so now it’s time to cast an ear over the somewhat smaller Megan VIII model. The family resemblance is unmistakeable and build again seems very solid indeed.
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Loudspeakers
Spendor SP3/1R2 £1,695
Ed Selley  |  Dec 23, 2011  |  0 comments
Spendor SP3/1R2 Classic 1970s styling distinguishes this relatively large model from the pack Spendor was founded by an ex-member of the BBC’s Research Department more than forty years ago, primarily to make broadcast monitor loudspeakers, but that original – and with hindsight very radical – design soon became just as much of a favourite amongst hi-fi cognoscenti. So much so that, despite changes in ownership and the development of numerous models that look better suited to domestic environments, those original monitors remain the inspiration behind Spendor’s Classic R2 range of traditionally styled models. The five models in the Classic R2 range are all standmounts with ‘picture frame’ front baffle edges around inset grilles. They cover a wide range of enclosure and driver sizes, but all feature Spendor’s traditional approach to enclosure construction, using relatively thin but well-damped panels, albeit now executed in MDF, rather than birch ply.
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