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.

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

Paradigm Reference Studio/100 v.3 loudspeaker

John Atkinson Feb 06, 2005 First Published: Jan 06, 2005

Like the Reference Studio/60, which was enthusiastically">http://www.stereophile.com/loudspeakerreviews/1204paradigm">enthusiasti… reviewed in the December 2004 issue by Kalman Rubinson, Paradigm's floorstanding Reference Studio/100 is now available in a v.3 version. The '100 is the flagship model in the Canadian manufacturer's Reference line. Its earlier incarnations, the original Studio/100 and the Studio/100">http://www.stereophile.com/loudspeakerreviews/252/">Studio/100 v.2, were reviewed by Tom Norton and Robert Deutsch in the August 1997 and June 2000 issues of Stereophile, respectively, and both writers were well impressed at how much sound quality could be wrought from this competitively priced speaker design. Bob Deutsch, in particular, referred to the v.2 as a "a serious high-end contender, and a formidable one for just about any speaker in its price range and even well above."

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

Acoustic Research AR-1 loudspeaker

Larry Greenhill Feb 06, 2005 First Published: Jun 06, 1999

Experienced reviewers know that shows are the wrong environments for critical audiophile listening. Convention centers—especially the one at Las Vegas—are huge, cavernous airplane hangers, not the intimate listening rooms reviewers thrive in. Extraneous sounds from subwoofer blasts and the constantly milling crowds leak in to sully the music. Booths set up by manufacturers on the show floor have very thin, flexible walls, and no bass treatment.

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews Audacious Audio

Sonus Faber Stradivari Homage loudspeaker

Michael Fremer Jan 18, 2005 First Published: Jan 18, 2005

Yamaha once made a loudspeaker shaped like an ear. I felt sorry for the guy (especially if he was an audiophile) who had to write the ad copy explaining why a speaker shaped like an ear would sound better than one shaped like a shoebox or a wedge of cheese. An ear-shaped loudspeaker makes about as much sense as an eyeball-shaped television. But what about a loudspeaker that is designed like a musical instrument?

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

NHT 3.3 loudspeaker

Corey Greenberg, Thomas J. Norton Jan 02, 2005 First Published: Dec 02, 1993

When Ken">http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/232">Ken Kantor helped to found Now Hear This, Inc. (most commonly referred to by its initials, NHT) in 1986, he brought with him a wealth of design and production experience learned from stints with NAD and Acoustic Research. He also brought a desire to build and market products that a wide range of people could afford. NHT began by producing small, two-way designs distinguished by the angled front baffle which remains the company's trademark. The latter is no gimmick, but was designed to optimize the loudspeakers' radiation pattern, a matter of keen interest to Kantor ever since his undergraduate thesis work at MIT. This interest continued at AR, where he was responsible for the MGC-1 loudspeaker—probably his best known pre-NHT loudspeaker design.