Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews Budget Component Reviews

MartinLogan Montage loudspeaker

Kalman Rubinson, John Atkinson May 22, 2005 First Published: May 22, 2005

This lapsed fan of electrostatic speakers finds it curious that, while MartinLogan is the predominant representative of this technology in the US, I had never auditioned an ML design in my home. I've enjoyed many Janszen tweeters, a KLH 9, an AcousTech X, Stax ELS-F81s, and I've dallied with Quad">http://www.stereophile.com/loudspeakerreviews/416">Quad ESL-63s. But as dumb luck would have it, the first MartinLogan speaker to reach me, the new Montage, is a hybrid model.

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

Monsoon Audio FPF-1000 loudspeaker

Kalman Rubinson May 01, 2005 First Published: Oct 01, 2001

I used to be an audio cheapskate even worse than Sam Tellig. Anytime I saw an interesting device for sale, I immediately began to figure out how I might build it for myself for a fraction of the cost.

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

Linn Akurate 242 loudspeaker

Art Dudley Apr 17, 2005 First Published: Apr 17, 2005

In 1985 or so, a middle-aged audiophile who lived in New York City called to invite me to come listen to his stereo: It was, he assured me, the best in the world. All he wanted was the pleasure of my opinion, for which he offered the princely sum of $100. (As I learned in the months and years to come, this same audiophile called virtually every other audio writer in the metropolitan area whose phone number he could get hold of, making the same offer.)

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

NHT Evolution T6 loudspeaker system

John Atkinson Apr 17, 2005 First Published: Apr 17, 2005

Twelve years ago, loudspeaker manufacturer NHT launched its model 3.3, a floorstanding, full-range design that Corey Greenberg summed up in the March">http://www.stereophile.com/loudspeakerreviews/1293nht/index2.html">March 1994 Stereophile as doing "everything I want a He-Man reference loudspeaker to do...I find myself without a single area of performance I've heard bettered by any other speaker." The NHT">http://www.stereophile.com/loudspeakerreviews/1293nht">NHT 3.3 basically combined a high-performance monitor with a sideways-firing subwoofer in the same enclosure, and when I first saw NHT's Evolution T6 system at the 2002 CEDIA convention, I was reminded of the classic 3.3, but a 3.3 updated for the needs of home theater as well as music. And despite inflation and the incorporation of a line-level crossover and a pair of monoblock amplifiers to drive the subwoofers, a two-channel T6 system costs the same as a pair of 3.3s: $4000.

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

MartinLogan Quest Z loudspeaker

Dick Olsher Apr 10, 2005 First Published: Oct 10, 1993

MartinLogan's Gayle">http://stereophile.com/loudspeakerreviews/145/index7.html">Gayle Sanders has almost single-handedly raised the electrostatic/dynamic hybrid loudspeaker to a position of prominence in the High End. First, there was the MartinLogan Monolith (reviewed in Vol.8 No.3 and Vol.9 No.3), followed by the much more affordable Sequel (reviewed in Vol.11 No.12, Vol.12 Nos.8, 9, and 12, and Vol.14 No.2). Then came the subject of this review, the Quest, and most recently the diminutive Aerius, reviewed">http://www.stereophile.com/loudspeakerreviews/312">reviewed by JA elsewhere in this issue.

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

Vienna Acoustics Mozart loudspeaker

Robert Deutsch Mar 27, 2005 First Published: Jan 27, 1997

Vienna is a beautiful city known for many things, but the design and manufacturing of audio equipment is not one of them. Waltzes and strudel, yes; loudspeakers, no. One exception is Vienna Acoustics, a company that has introduced a line of loudspeakers named after composers: Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and Haydn. At the 1996 Las Vegas WCES, Sumiko, US distributor of Vienna Acoustics products (footnote 1), demonstrated the second-from-the-top Mozart, and Stereophile reviewers as diverse in their approaches as Jonathan Scull, Tom Norton, and Sam Tellig (as well as yours truly) were unanimous in our admiration of the sound.

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

Verity Audio Sarastro loudspeaker

Michael Fremer Mar 20, 2005 First Published: Mar 20, 2005

Over the past year or so, a parade of expensive loudspeakers has passed through my listening room (footnote 1), each claimed by its manufacturer to deliver the real musical deal. Like the people who designed them, these speakers have come in all shapes, sizes, and personalities. While the designer of every one of these speakers has claimed "accuracy" and "transparency" as his goal, the truth is, any concoction of pulsing cones, ribbons, sheets of Mylar, or whatever that's bolted into or on top of a box makes music because it is a musical instrument. How could it be otherwise, when all of these accomplished and expensive loudspeakers have sounded very different from one another, and made me feel different while listening to them?

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

Triangle Magellan Concerto loudspeaker

Paul Messenger Mar 20, 2005 First Published: Mar 20, 2005

I don't know whether Sam Tellig or I first discovered the delights of some slightly idiosyncratic loudspeakers made by Triangle—Tree-ON-gle, if you add the relevant accent—in the northeastern corner of France. I do recall feeling quite relieved to find that I wasn't the only hi-fi writer who liked and wrote about them.

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

Hales Design Group Concept Five loudspeaker

Wes Phillips Feb 27, 2005 First Published: Jan 27, 1997

Paul">http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/117">Paul Hales does things differently. "I set out to build a true reference speaker," he asserted when I asked him about the, er, concept behind his Concept Five loudspeaker. For a mere six grand? The other guys don't even blink at $20k, $30k, even $70k statement speakers.

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews Audacious Audio

Mårten Design Coltrane loudspeaker

Michael Fremer Feb 20, 2005 First Published: Feb 20, 2005

"So what kind of music do you listen to?" I heard myself asking Leif Mårten Olofsson, designer of the Coltrane, Coltrane Alto, Duke, Miles II, Mingus III, and Monk loudspeakers, before I could take it back. The small company, headquartered in Göteborg, Sweden, where Volvos are made, has been building and marketing loudspeakers for the past six years, though Olofsson confesses he's been building them for 30 years, ever since he was 12.