Stand Loudspeaker Reviews

One of my favorite and, hence, most familiar recordings is Cyrus Chestnut's 1994 debut album Revelation (16/44.1 WAV CD rip, Atlantic Jazz, 82518-2). Nicely recorded by our friend Jim Anderson, this whole album is a delight. In particular, I am fascinated by track 3, "Lord, Lord, Lord," where Chestnut's lilting, rolling expository interacts with bassist Christopher J. Thomas in bopping syncopation, underpinned by Clarence Penn's solid drive on drums. The piano is up front, the bass behind with drums over on the left, and there's just enough space for them to fit quite convincingly at the front of my room. The FR5s made it just big enough to be live—and so clear that they could be here.

All's well with these small ensembles, but what about bigger soundstages? Consider the delightful El Retablo de Maese Pedro (Master Peter's Puppet Show), a chamber opera by Manuel de Falla, in a recent recording with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra led by Pablo Heras-Casado (16/44.1 CD rip, Harmonia Mundi HMM 902653). This recording features three voices—tenor, bass-baritone, and boy soprano (footnote 3)—and a 37-piece orchestra including timpani, percussion, and harp, all of which de Falla employs liberally. From the opening bell (literally: a bell) to the end, the FR5 presents this panoply of instruments set 6'–8' back and arrayed laterally widely beyond the speakers. I could discern the individual instruments of the ensemble, and the FR5s seemed to mitigate some of the forwardness I've heard from this recording with other speakers. The space (Auditori de Girona) seemed large and somewhat reflective; it is, I looked it up. The voices, too, were distinctive and natural.

All this seemed more than mildly surprising to me given the size of the FR5s. Also, it was quite easy to disassociate these small speakers from the big music they created.

If the relatively tiny FR5s can do this, let's take off the gloves and see what they can do with one of my favorite thrill rides, the 3rd movement of Berio's Sinfonia. I chose my favorite stereo version with Peter Eötvös and the Göteborgs Symfoniker (CD, Deutsche Grammophon 002894790342), a piece that cries out almost literally for multichannel (footnote 4). It is a marvelous mélange in which, Berio said, "the presence of Mahler's Scherzo" runs "through a constantly changing landscape, disappearing from time to time underground, only to emerge later totally transformed." Interspersed are quotations from Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Pousseur, Brahms, and Boulez, while eight voices come at you from every side to react to and comment on all that's going on. This is the scherzo to end all scherzi.

With the volume up, as the event deserves, the FR5s did a fabulous job. The large orchestra was spread deep and wide, and the solo voices were up across the front from speaker to speaker and a bit beyond. Each voice was clearly defined and naturally balanced, and the FR5s had no problems with the wild dynamics. My only cavil is the lack of impact of the low bass—which is hardly surprising, and I was never aware of any tonal imbalance.

I could not resist another guilty/not guilty pleasure: Andreas Vollenweider's White Winds (16/44.1 CD rip, Columbia MK-39963). Again, the FR5s created a vast soundstage with immaculate detail, evidenced by the water drips and splashes that pass from left to right on the opening track. Everything seemed open and spacious, and the impact of Vollenweider's low strings was solid and weighty. The acoustic and synthesized lows were full, too, but they lacked weight and definition. Of course, that judgment comes from experience with larger speakers. I wonder if people without such prior experience would miss it.

Reflections
I lived with the FR5s for several weeks, and they were equally pleasing with the Benchmark, NAD, and Buckeye amplifiers (footnote 5). My listening space, at 500+ft², is probably larger than most spaces these speakers will end up in. Yet unless I pushed them hard or tortured them intentionally, say with organ music, their small size was not relevant. Similarly sized speakers I've experienced have had their own unique attractions but demand accommodations. These didn't.

An example is the similarly sized and priced Bowers & Wilkins 705 S3, which I enjoyed, but as I noted in my review, with those speakers, "elevated upper midrange and treble contributes to its perceived clarity and soundstage." The FR5 does not offer such highlighting, yet it achieves equal clarity and an even more generous soundstage.

The FR5 seemed completely smooth and natural throughout its frequency range, but I found it slightly depressed in the upper midrange when compared side by side with KEFs—both the Blade Two and the LS60. This characteristic became a virtue with forward recordings, such as with the de Falla described above. The boy soprano was almost tolerable.

Though very good, the FR5s can't perform miracles. Like the 6.5" midwoofers in the B&W 705s, those in the FR5s, even aided by those passive radiators, could not compete in bass extension with larger speakers. Moreover, when driven at high levels with low-frequency content, their output is affected—somewhat coarsened—well up into the midrange. It's just physics.

The solution—my solution anyway—is to add a subwoofer or two. Adding a pair of KEF KC92s and an 80Hz crossover produced an Aha! experience. On the Berio and Vollenweider recordings, low notes that were only hinted at previously were now felt. I was also pleased to note that at high listening levels, no matter the source, there was an added clarity, subtle but greatly appreciated, throughout the midrange, probably because the FR5 midwoofers were no longer also responsible for producing the lowest bass.

Conclusions
It is hard to criticize the performance of the Aspen FR5s. Placement is not difficult (although the rather specific setup instructions in the manual didn't work well in my room), and they are equally satisfying with a wide variety of music. They offer excellent treble detail without brightness, fine voice delineation without emphasis, and generous bass for their size.

Most impressive is the FR5s' spacious soundstage, revealing tonally balanced voices and instruments with music intimate or massive. These speakers may be small, but they do not sound small. Listening, there's a sensory disconnect between their modest visual presence and the sounds they produce, which seem unconstrained. They consistently achieve one of audio's elusive goals: They disappear into the music.

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Footnote 3 :I've heard this piece in a number of performances and I am always annoyed by the petulant whining of the boy soprano but, clearly, I cannot criticize any of them, including the young man on this recording, for performing what de Falla put in the score.

Footnote 4: Readers with multichannel options are forthwith directed to Ludovic Morlot and the Seattle Symphony's spectacular recording on SSM1018 in the 24/96 5.1-channel format.

Footnote 5: The Buckeye amps are in for review.