Stand Loudspeaker Reviews

WP also commented on the Petite's fine imaging. Fig.6 shows how the speaker's sound changes to its sides. The textbook rolloff in the top two octaves with increasing off-axis angle, coupled with an excellent match between the woofer and tweeter dispersion patterns in the crossover region to the sides, is always associated with excellent stereo imaging, in my experience.

Fig.6 Alón Petite, horizontal response family at 57", normalized to response on tweeter axis, from back to front: differences in response 90 degrees-5 degrees off-axis on tweeter side of baffle; reference response; differences in response 5 degrees-90 degrees off-axis on woofer side of baffle.

In the time domain, the step response (fig.7) reveals that both drive-units are connected with the same positive acoustic polarity, but as expected from the flat front baffle, the tweeter's output leads the woofer's by a fraction of a millisecond. Other than the on-axis step at 1kHz, the Petite's cumulative spectral-decay or waterfall plot (fig.8) is simply superb, clean and free from resonant problems.

Fig.7 Alón Petite, step response on tweeter axis at 50" (5ms time window, 30kHz bandwidth).

Fig.8 Alón Petite, cumulative spectral-decay plot at 57" (0.15ms risetime).

All in all, the Petite is a well-engineered little speaker and, provided care is taken over what axis the listener listens on, should offer a neutral, well-balanced sound.—John Atkinson