Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

Sort By: Post DateTitle Publish Date
Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
Audio Physic Kronos loudspeaker
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 13, 2004  |  First Published: Jun 01, 2004  |  0 comments
Thirty-one flavors may work for an ice-cream chain, but a speaker manufacturer who sets out to please every sonic palate ends up with a serious identity crisis, pleasing no-one. From its inception in 1985, Audio Physic, based in Brilon, Germany, has been an event-oriented speaker company. Founder and original chief designer Joachim Gerhard focused much of his attention on providing listeners with the sensation of "live" by emphasizing coherent three-dimensional imaging and soundstaging—though not to the exclusion of timbral accuracy. Except for the Medea, based on a Manger driver (a fascinating design nonetheless), every Audio Physic speaker I've heard has fulfilled the company's mission statement.
Continue Reading »
Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
Aerial Acoustics Model 20T loudspeaker
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 18, 2004  |  First Published: Apr 01, 2004  |  0 comments
Loudspeaker design is an art and a science. Anyone who tells you it's only one or the other is probably building or listening to some awful-sounding speakers. Design a speaker in an anechoic chamber for the "theoretical" world, and there's no guarantee it will sound good in the real one. Even building a speaker that excels at "real-room" measurements doesn't guarantee that it will sound all that convincing when reproducing music. We can't measure everything, and what we can measure can't be reliably ranked in terms of what's important to most listeners.
Continue Reading »
Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
Isophon Europa II loudspeaker
Larry Greenhill  |  Apr 18, 2004  |  First Published: Apr 01, 2004  |  0 comments
Unless you've been on active duty in the Middle East, you're aware that Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab is back in business. During Stereophile's Home Entertainment 2003 show in San Francisco last June, Kal Rubinson and I played hookey to visit MoFi mastering engineer Paul Stubblebine's recording studio, at 1340 Mission Street. As we sat spellbound, Paul played the original four-track, ½", 1-mil master tape of Stanislaw Skrowaczewski and the Minnesota Orchestra's legendary 1974 recording of Ravel's Boléro and Daphnis et Chloé (footnote 1). Stubblebine fed the four discrete channels from the specially modified ReVox reel-to-reel deck to a modern surround system. The master tape produced the cleanest, purest sound I had heard in a long time.
Continue Reading »
Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
Sonus Faber Cremona loudspeaker
John Atkinson  |  Mar 14, 2004  |  First Published: Mar 01, 2004  |  0 comments
"The Sonus Faber Cremona is the finest cabinet-built speaker I have heard for under $10,000/pair," wrote the usually reticent Sam Tellig in the January 2003 Stereophile. "Bravissimo...Molto, molto bene" he added to his paean of praise for the Italian speaker manufacturer's founder and chief engineer, Franco Serblin.
Continue Reading »
Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
Piega C8 LTD loudspeaker
Larry Greenhill  |  Jan 18, 2004  |  First Published: Jan 01, 2004  |  0 comments
John Atkinson's track-by-track written evaluation in the July 2003 issue of his new Editor's Choice: Sampler & Test CD (Stereophile STPH016-2) drew me like a magnet. Here was a reviewer-editor putting into words his musical perceptions, gathered while he served as the engineer for the various recordings sampled on this compilation. JA's dual roles of writer and engineer merge complementary perspectives, yielding what should be useful descriptions of the sonic values of some of my favorite reference CDs. As I was about to start my review of Piega's new hybrid loudspeaker when I read this article, it was only natural to test whether this Swiss full-range speaker could deliver "what you should hear."
Continue Reading »
Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
Legacy Audio Focus 20/20 loudspeaker
Paul Bolin  |  Jan 18, 2004  |  First Published: Jan 01, 2004  |  1 comments
I was introduced to Legacy Audio at the CEDIA Expo in September 2002, and I'll long remember it. A pair of Legacy's huge new Helix loudspeakers anchored the company's silent display, and I was irresistibly drawn to them. Sales manager Bob Howard introduced himself, and, after a few minutes of chatting, introduced me to Bill Dudleston, Legacy's founder and chief designer. Within two minutes, Dudleston had told me "I don't design speakers for hi-fi people. I design speakers for people who love music."
Continue Reading »
Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
Meadowlark Swift loudspeaker
Art Dudley  |  Jan 25, 2004  |  First Published: Jan 01, 2004  |  0 comments
Like most people, I'm not interested in long, windy essays about audio reviewing, having barely enough time and interest for audio itself. But I do perk up when the debate turns to the audio reviewer's purpose in life: Should I write about everything that crosses my path, or should I limit my attention to those products that interest me, and that stand a chance of being good?
Continue Reading »
Floor Loudspeaker ReviewsBudget Component Reviews
Horn Shoppe Horn loudspeaker
Art Dudley  |  Jan 25, 2004  |  First Published: Jan 01, 2004  |  0 comments
Like most people, I'm not interested in long, windy essays about audio reviewing, having barely enough time and interest for audio itself. But I do perk up when the debate turns to the audio reviewer's purpose in life: Should I write about everything that crosses my path, or should I limit my attention to those products that interest me, and that stand a chance of being good?
Continue Reading »
Floor Loudspeaker ReviewsBudget Component Reviews
Moth Audio Cicada loudspeaker
Art Dudley  |  Jan 25, 2004  |  First Published: Jan 01, 2004  |  0 comments
Like most people, I'm not interested in long, windy essays about audio reviewing, having barely enough time and interest for audio itself. But I do perk up when the debate turns to the audio reviewer's purpose in life: Should I write about everything that crosses my path, or should I limit my attention to those products that interest me, and that stand a chance of being good?
Continue Reading »
Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
PSB Platinum T8 loudspeaker
John Atkinson  |  Nov 16, 2003  |  First Published: Nov 01, 2003  |  0 comments
The talented loudspeaker engineer is a man who is always in competition with himself. When PSB's Paul Barton put the finishing touches on his Stratus Gold model back in 1990 (footnote 1), I'm sure he had more ideas in mind that he could have used in a flagship design. Yet the Gold offered so much performance at such a competitive price—$2000/pair in 1991, rising to $2100/pair by 1997, then $2400/pair for the the Gold i, an evolutionary development—that it was not surprising that Barton applied his talents to developing ranges of more affordable speakers, such as the best-selling Alpha and Image series.
Continue Reading »
Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
Tannoy Dimension TD12 loudspeaker
Art Dudley  |  Nov 16, 2003  |  First Published: Nov 01, 2003  |  0 comments
My friend Harvey Rosenberg, who had more clever ideas in a day than most of us have in a lifetime, was a Tannoy loudspeaker enthusiast. I, on the other hand, had little experience with the brand before 1995, when Harvey invited me to come over and hear his then-new Tannoy Westminster Royals.
Continue Reading »
Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
Wilson Audio Specialties WATT/Puppy 7 loudspeaker
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 14, 2003  |  0 comments
When I interviewed recording engineer Roy Halee (Simon and Garfunkel, The Byrds, The Lovin' Spoonful, etc.) at his home in Connecticut back in 1991, he pointed to his pair of monolithic Infinity IRS loudspeakers and said, "When I want to listen for pleasure, I listen to those." He then pointed to a pair of early-edition Wilson Audio Specialties WATT/Puppys in a second system set up in the corner of his large listening room. "When I want to hear what's on a recording I've made, I listen to those." It was obvious: Halee respected the Wilsons, but he loved the Infinitys. Not surprising, since Dave Wilson designed the WATT section to be a highly accurate portable monitor, and monitors are designed for respect, not love.
Continue Reading »
Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
Audio Physic Virgo III loudspeaker
Brian Damkroger  |  Sep 14, 2003  |  0 comments
I was riding BART home from Home Entertainment 2003, thinking about the day—the new products, the old friends, the rooms with really great sound. It's a long ride from downtown San Francisco to Livermore, so I next got to thinking about all of the hi-fi shows I've attended over the years and which companies, year after year, always seem to have good sound. At the top of the list were Audio Physic and its US importer, Allen Perkins' Immedia.
Continue Reading »
Floor Loudspeaker ReviewsAudacious Audio
Focal-JMlab Grande Utopia Be loudspeaker
Paul Messenger  |  Sep 14, 2003  |  0 comments
I reviewed JMlab's Mezzo Utopia loudspeaker in the July 1999 Stereophile (Vol.22 No.7). By chance, the Mezzos had followed a pair of B&W Nautilus 801s into my listening room, and the substitution had proved rather interesting. For all their many fine qualities, the 801, with its 15" bass driver, was distinctly bass-heavy in my room, whereas the 11" drivers of the Mezzos seemed just right in this regard.
Continue Reading »
Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
Audes Jazz loudspeaker
Kalman Rubinson  |  Jun 15, 2003  |  0 comments
When I first got into hi-fi, stereo was just over the horizon and imported products were still rare. The inexpensive ones came from Japan, and you could find them, often with names that changed from week to week, in the open-air displays in and around Cortlandt Street in lower Manhattan. The more expensive brands were European, primarily British, and beyond my financial grasp.
Continue Reading »

Pages

X