This post has been edited to add newly received information.
Having recently read Tom Fine’s review of Amphion’s flagship floorstanders, the Krypton3X ($25,000/pair), in the June issue of Stereophile, I was eager to hear them. As luck would have it, the Finnish speaker company’s display in one of the MOC’s four huge halls included a small, sound-proofed listening booth. Before heading inside, I encountered Amphion CEO Anssi Hyvönen, who founded the company in 1998.
"Finland is a quiet place," he told me, smiling wryly through the opening-day din. "It’s good for speaker building.
"Amphion’s roots are in home audio. We only branched out into the pro side 12 years ago. We don't see a sonic divide between the two. Being involved in pro audio gives our small company access to the software that continues to help us improve our designs."
To illustrate Amphion’s growing success, Hyvönen noted that Billie Eilish mixed her latest release, Hit Me Hard and Soft, on Amphion monitors. He also pointed to three newer, lower-priced Argon models: the 3X standmount ($4250/pair), 3LX floorstander ($5650/pair), and the 7LX floorstander ($7900/pair).
The 3X is a 22lb two-way design with a 1" titanium tweeter and 6.5" aluminum mid-woofer. It has an impedance of 8 ohms, 87dB/W/m sensitivity, and a frequency response of 38Hz–55kHz, –6dB. The 3LX is the 46lb floorstanding version of the same design, with identical drivers, a lower sensitivity of 85dB/W/m, and a frequency response of 30Hz–55kHz, –6dB.
The 60lb 7LX features the same "ultra-high resolution" 1" titanium tweeter found in the flagship Krypton3X. The speaker has an impedance of 4 ohms, 91dB/W/m sensitivity, and a frequency response of 28Hz–55kHz, –6dB. The 4-ohm impedance means that the 91dB/W/m sensitivity is achieved with 2.83V delivering more than 1W.
Through a NuPrime Fusion 8D DAC from Taiwan (shipping in July, price to be announced), the immersive setup delivered powerful and persuasive sound. On a two-channel recording of the third movement of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 8, highs sounded ideal, and the fastest passages were rendered with exceptional clarity. The system did such an excellent job of clarifying instrumental relationships that I thought the center channel was in use.
After the show, Hyvönen clarified the reasoning behind the set-up. "The whole idea of the system was to demonstrate that combining first-class two-channel and an immersive system is possible," he wrote via email. "One can achieve first-rate results with stereo, immersive music, and multichannel movie or gaming material. In Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 mode, all the speakers were playing while in stereo mode only the main front channels, i.e. the Argon7LX, were in use.
"The center channel was mainly used during movie material. Immersive music relies heavily on the use of phantom center created by the L and R channels; the center channel simply fills in."
Heard in the system in addition to the speakers: NuPrime MCX-800AD immersive audio processor ($3995), Fusion 8D 8-channel amp, Evolution Two-SE mono amp ($4199), AMG STA-SE stereo amplifier ($1999), H16-AIP HDMI audio decoder (renamed from H16-A, $799), and Amphion cabling.
