CES 2015

Morel's new Octave 6 bookshelf loudspeakers ($2500/pair) employ the kinds of new technologies I believe are leading today's audiophiles into some fresh, open, and I would say newly transparent realms of musical enjoyment. Driven by Hegel H300 amplifiers ($5500), the Morel Octave 6s played with a strength and precision that speakers of even the recent past could not achieve.

The Octave 6 woofers utilize a 6" mid-bass unit with an oversize 3" aluminum voice-coil, a hybrid neodymium/ferrite motor, and a damped polymer cone. These new Morels and the big (250W) Hegel amps delivered music with a rich warm tone and a tuneful extended bass that emphasized instrumental drive and body. No moderately-priced system at CES played music more tangibly or realistically than this Hegel-Morel combo.