Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

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Audacious Audio Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

Magico S5 Mk.II loudspeaker

John Atkinson First Published: Jan 18, 2017
"Dammit!" No sooner had I praised small loudspeakers while dismissing large speakers as potentially having "large problems," in my review of the Crystal Arabesque Minissimo Diamond in the October issue, than I had to eat my words. Only days after that issue had gone to press, Magico's VP for Global Sales & Marketing, Peter Mackay, and CTO Yair Tammam, arrived at my place to set up a pair of the Bay Area company's floorstanding—and very large—S5 Mk.II loudspeakers.
Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

Snell Music & Cinema Home THX reference system

Thomas J. Norton First Published: Jul 01, 1995
When I requested the Snell Music and Cinema Reference System for review, plus the new Snell Type A Music Reference System for evaluation, little did I know what I was letting myself in for. I lost count of the number of large shipping cartons delivered to my garage—though I'm sure the delivery man didn't. Except for the subwoofers, all the individual pieces are relatively small. But together they form a system that definitely demands both attention and a large room to sound its best and to keep it from visually overpowering the space.
Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

MartinLogan Masterpiece Renaissance ESL 15A loudspeaker

Jon Iverson First Published: Dec 22, 2016
I prefer and have owned electrostatic speakers for most of my audiophile life. Depending on your point of view, this makes me either the most qualified or the least appropriate writer to review MartinLogan's new electrostatic loudspeaker, the Masterpiece Renaissance ESL 15A.

Oh, I've flirted with dynamic speakers. I've owned and loved—and ultimately, when I was an audio retailer, sold—models from Revel, Thiel, Vandersteen, and many others, while my long-term choice has been electrostats. And while I've spent plenty of time with electrostatic speakers from Acoustat and Quad, I've ended up owning MartinLogans: Sequels, Quests, ReQuests, and, currently, Prodigys.

Audacious Audio Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

Bang & Olufsen BeoLab 90 loudspeaker

Kalman Rubinson First Published: Dec 20, 2016
Bang & Olufsen's BeoLab 90 is not a loudspeaker to take on lightly. Though its size—49.33" high by 28.9" wide by 29.4" deep—and weight (302 lbs each) meant a major disruption of my listening room, which is also our living room, my wife assented. Its price of $84,990/pair puts it far beyond anything I might consider buying—and the complexity of the BeoLab 90, which has its own dedicated amplifiers and DACs, makes it impossible for a reviewer—or consumer—to directly compare it with any other loudspeaker. So be it.
Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

Auditorium 23 Hommage Cinema loudspeaker

John Atkinson First Published: Dec 13, 2016
It's no secret that deputy editor Art Dudley is an anachrophile (footnote 1). After expounding on the virtues of vintage audio gear in his October 2016 Listening" column, he spent no fewer than seven pages of our November issue raving about the sound quality of Auditorium 23's expensive Hommage Cinema loudspeaker, from Germany. (The Hommage Cinema costs $49,995/pair, plus $5495 for the necessary AcousticPlan NT-1 field-coil power supply.)
Floor Loudspeaker Reviews J. Gordon Holt

Magnepan MG2.5/R loudspeaker

J. Gordon Holt, John Atkinson First Published: Jun 01, 1988
888maggie.promo300.jpgNow there's a Magneplanar speaker to fill the price gap between the $2000 MGIIIa and the $1225 MGIIc. The '2.5/R is priced almost exactly midway between them, which explains the unusual model number.

Like all the other single-panel Magneplanars, these are attractive enough in appearance to be surprisingly unobtrusive in the room, despite their imposing 6' height. Apart from the wooden endcheeks, they are covered with fabric grille all the way around, which could be a cosmetic liability as well as an asset: Domestic cats love to climb up fabric stretched tightly over wood (as at the bases of these) and, given the opportunity, will have these speakers in shreds in no time. Magnepan recommends spray-on cat repellent; I have to tell them that some cats don't seem to mind its odor as much as most people do.

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

Monitor Audio Platinum PL300 II loudspeaker

Robert Deutsch First Published: Oct 27, 2016
Monitor Audio's Platinum PL300 II loudspeakers weigh 120 lbs each, and my listening room is on the second floor, but I was spared the heavy lifting. The speakers were delivered by Sheldon Ginn, Jeffrey Ginn, and Jamie Arseneau—respectively, the VP of Sales and Marketing, Account Manager, and Service Manager of Kevro International, Monitor Audio's North American distributor. We set up the PL300 IIs, ensuring that the distance from each speaker to my listening seat was the same, then optimized the toe-in: the speakers ended up almost directly facing the listener position, close to where I'd had Wilson Audio's Sabrinas.
Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

Thiel Audio TT1 loudspeaker

Thomas J. Norton First Published: Aug 23, 2016
Thiel Audio's CS3.7 loudspeaker was launched, to much fanfare, in 2006. Like most of Jim Thiel's designs, the CS3.7 received universal praise, but it was Jim's swan song. No one could predict that he would pass away in 2009, undoubtedly leaving on his desk many future designs.

But more was in the cards for—and from—Thiel Audio. The company was sold in 2012 to a private equity company based in Nashville; soon thereafter Thiel Audio moved to that city from Lexington, Kentucky, where Jim had co-founded it in 1977. Thiel's longtime president, Kathy Gornik, left, and for a while the company's directors came and went as if through a revolving door.

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

PSB Imagine T3 loudspeaker

John Atkinson First Published: Jul 21, 2016
I am a big believer in supporting events promoted by specialty audio retailers. They reinforce the idea that audiophiles and manufacturers—even reviewers—are parts of a vibrant community that believes that listening to music with the highest possible quality is one of the more important things in life. The "Music Matters" evenings arranged by Audio Advice in North Carolina, Definitive Audio in Seattle, and Listen Up in Colorado exemplify that idea, and it was in April 2015, at Listen Up's Denver store, that I used a pair of PSB's new Imagine T3 tower speakers to play the audience some of my own recordings. The T3 superficially resembles PSB's Synchrony One, a speaker I very favorably reviewed in April 2008, and I was equally impressed by the new flagship—impressed enough to request a pair for review.
Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

Dahlquist DQ-12 loudspeaker

Robert Harley, Thomas J. Norton First Published: Apr 01, 1990
The DQ-12 is the latest loudspeaker from Dahlquist employing their "Phased Array" technology, first used in 1973. The company was formed that year by Jon Dahlquist and Saul Marantz to produce the DQ-10, a loudspeaker that enjoyed a long and successful life. When I sold hi-fi in a retail store in the late 1970s—we stocked Dahlquist speakers—the DQ-10 was among the more prominent audiophile speakers, prized for its imaging abilities.

In 1976, Carl Marchisotto joined the company, designing support products for the DQ-10 including a subwoofer, variable low-pass filter, and a passive crossover. Jon Dahlquist is no longer actively involved with the company; Carl has now assumed the engineering responsibilities at Dahlquist and is the designer of the latest group of Phased Array loudspeakers (footnote 1). This new line, introduced at the Winter 1990 CES in Las Vegas, encompasses three models: the $850/pair DQ-8, the DQ-12 reviewed here, and the $2000/pair flagship, the DQ-20i.

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