CES 2006

Penaudio's Tommi Forss was excited about the Finnish company's new Alba ($4000/pair). "We wanted a smaller floorstanding speaker than our Serenade, but a larger speaker than our Charisma, so we used the 1" SEAS Excel fabric dome tweeter from the Serenade and the 7" SEAS treated paper cone midrange/woofer in a compact time-aligned cabinet."

Penaudio uses WBT connectors, air-core inductors, Alpha Core foil caps in the tweeter crossover, polypropylene caps everywhere else, and Goertz M11 wiring.

We thought they sounded lively and solid in a small hotel bedroom, driven by CIA D-100 power amplifiers.