Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

My girlfriend, bb, and her garden friend Casey were hanging on the bed in my room as I installed NEAT Acoustics' diminutive Iota Alpha floorstanding speakers. Casey said, "Herb, what kind of speakers are those? They look like lawn dwarfs."

I told her to shush her smart-ass mouth. "These are serious British-made high-end audiophile speakers—and they cost $1995/pair!"

Then bb chimed in: "I like them! . . . better than all those other speakers you have. These don't dominate the room. They leave space to move around. If their wood finish matched the floor, they would just vanish into the floor. Then, if I wasn't playing music, I could push them back against the wall."

"That's a very good point," I said. "I'll quote you in my review."

A few hours later, I realized that maybe you can't just move the Iota Alphas around like that. Not unless you mark the floor so that you can put them back precisely where they sound best. In Ken Micallef's review of them in the February 2017 issue, he said, "The Iota Alphas were the most difficult speakers to position for optimal sound quality that I've ever had. . . ."

As bb and Casey raved about the beauty of Georgia O'Keeffe's handmade clothes on display at the Brooklyn Museum, I set the 19"-tall Alphas about 7' apart and 24" from the front wall. Remembering what John Atkinson had written in his See Measurements section accompanying Ken's review—"an 8 ohm rated amplifier would have no difficulty driving the Iota"—I attached them to the 8-ohm taps of a 35Wpc PrimaLuna ProLogue Premium power amplifier.

Then I put on Tom Waits's Mule Variations (CD, Epitaph 86547-2) and sat cross-legged on the floor. All the way through "Cold Water," I kept moving around. I couldn't decide how high my ears should be, or how far from the speakers. No matter how or where I sat, it felt wrong. Stereo imaging was vague, and the lower midrange and upper bass (80–200Hz) were conspicuously absent, making Waits's dark, whisky-smoked voice sound bright and high-pitched. Not acceptable.

Reviewer anxiety dominated my next two days. I moved the Iota Alphas again and again—right, left, forward, back—until they ended up exactly where Ken had said to put them: "14" from the front wall and 95" from the listening chair"—and 5' apart, with their tweeters on the outside. I also discovered that the Iotas sounded more tight and meaty when connected to the PrimaLuna's 4-ohm taps.

Finally, Tom Waits sounded more like himself. Bass was a bit fluffy, but above middle C (262Hz), the Iota Alphas produced finely wrought, transparent sound—even at 90dB and louder! "Get Behind the Mule" was reproduced strongly and effectively—Waits's voice seemed almost perfect in tone, as did Smokey Hormel's guitar and Charlie Musselwhite's harmonica. But with "Cold Water"—and several classical piano recordings—I kept thinking something was still a little amiss between 80 and 200Hz.

It was time to let Robert Silverman's New York Steinway D, well recorded by John Atkinson et al, tell me if my ears were lying. I played Beethoven's Variation 22: Allegro molto, from Beethoven's Diabelli Variations (CD, Stereophile STPH017-2). Right away, I felt better. Left-and right-hand piano octaves seemed equally balanced. Musicality, clarity, and boogie were obviously the Iota Alpha's strongest virtues. But something in the crossover region between the Iota's downfiring woofer and 4" midrange driver still attracted my attention. I pulled out Editor's Choice Sampler & Test CD (Stereophile STPH016-2) and took a few measurements.

JA's Fender bass guitar in track 1 sounded surprisingly tight and real. Likewise, Carol Wincenc's flute in the Mozart Quartet in D, K.285 (track 3), sounded enjoyably breathy and true to life. "Dual-Mono Pink Noise" (track 18) showed me how the position of my head mattered. The warble tone tracks showed the Iota Alphas to be almost ruler flat between 250Hz and 10kHz. But, lo and behold, there it was: just as in JA's quasi-anechoic response, a narrow, 6dB peak at 100Hz. The 50-100Hz octave was up maybe 3dB, and at the other end of the audioband the tweeter was already losing power by 10kHz.

But forget my anxious-reviewer mishegas. All those technical observations—and a lot more critical listening—showed me exactly how the Iota Alphas were delivering lively, tuneful, reasonably accurate reproductions of music that were bigger and stronger than I ever would have imagined: Every one of the 14 musical tracks on Editor's Choice was reproduced with obvious verity. Now I felt I had to hear how they could handle difficult recordings. And at this point I replaced the PrimaLuna ProLogue Premium amp with First Watt's J2, a 25Wpc solid-state power amp, driven by the Pass Labs HPA-1 headphone amplifier-line stage.

It would be fair and wise to judge your hi-fi system entirely by how it reproduces the voices of Barbara Hendricks and the women of the Paris Chorus, with Daniel Barenboim conducting the Paris Orchestra, in the supremely delicate filigree of Debussy's La damoiselle élue (LP, Deutsche Grammophon 2531 263). Debussy based this early, Wagnerian-styled work on "The Blessed Damozel," a romantic poem by the 19th-century English poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The narrative presents the ecstatic post-death voice of Rossetti's preternaturally beautiful mistress, Elizabeth Siddal, who was famously the muse of the entire Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, as she laments that she cannot enjoy heaven while her lover is still on earth.

Any audio component that comes even close to delivering the full poetic and mystical essences of this spacious and evocatively textured work is worthy of every audiophile's attention. Well, folks, the Iota Alphas came more than close. They expressed all its delicacy and romantic charm. While they placed the chorus in its proper place, they seemed to struggle with defining or outlining the voices of individual singers. The focus was slightly off.

Apprehending the full vision of La damoiselle élue requires a sharp lens. In an attempt to retrieve every last iota of instrumental and choral detail, I experimented with toe-in—and discovered that KM was also correct about toeing in the Iotas until I couldn't see their side panels from my listening seat. Even so, clarity of aural image was not a strong point of these speakers. Nor could the soundstages match in size those thrown by my Falcon Acoustics LS3/5a ($2200/pair) or KEF LS50 ($1500/pair) speakers—especially in terms of height.

An Experiment in Brit-fi
Suddenly, I had an urge to hear how the NEAT Iota Alpha would compare to the two other British speakers just mentioned: the KEF LS50 and Falcon LS3/5a.

With that beautiful Debussy recording, the KEF LS50s couldn't match the fey, romantic charm of the Iota Alphas—but in turn, the Alphas couldn't match the KEFs' tangible solidity and more accurate tone. Staring into the space between the stand-mounted LS50s, I "saw" a more life-size, more corporeal Barbara Hendricks. The choir had more detail and mass.

When I played "Cold Water" from Mule Variations through the LS50s, I could feel Tom Waits in front of me—he had weight, and his body stood almost at his proper height. That never happened with the NEATs. Compared to the Iota Alpha, the KEF LS50 is a he-man audiophile speaker that delivers some bass punch, big soundstages, and Cartesian-graph imaging.

All you folks who want sound reproduction that's accurate to the source need to hear a 12"-high audio magnifying glass called the Falcon Acoustics LS3/5a: Down to about 100Hz, it will give you a high-resolution aural picture of whatever is on the recording. On Mule Variations, Waits's voice seemed 100% perfectly toned. In "Pony," his guitar sounded almost real, and his pronunciation of "po-nay," and the way John Hammond's harp bit into the air, made the Iota Alphas sound vapid, the LS50s thick. Unlike the NEATs or KEFs, the Falcons were hyper-detailed and extremely cinematic—they made "What's He Building?" into a psychedelic horror-movie vision.

Conclusions
These three Britspeakers reproduce music very differently; which you might prefer will come down to your personal taste and domestic requirements. To my taste, NEAT Acoustics' Iota Alpha delivered the most generally attractive musical presentation of the three. It was always smooth and easygoing; it did pace, rhythm, and timing better than most speakers; and, best of all, it communicated charm and poetics in a unique and satisfying way.

After all this, it's more apparent than ever that Ken Micallef is not only a good writer but an astute audio reviewer; and I see the NEAT Iota Alphas as being very good, quasi-audiophile, set-them-up-once-and-forget-them, Herb-and-bb-live-happily-ever-after loudspeakers.—Herb Reichert