Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

After a year spent exploring the best that can be obtained from minimonitor loudspeakers, I embarked on what will be an equally long examination of what floorstanding towers have to offer. I began with the Sonus">http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/1207sonus">Sonus Faber Cremona Elipsa ($20,800/pair) in December 2007, followed in 2008 by: in February, the KEF">http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/208kef">KEF Reference 207/2 ($20,000/pair); in April, the PSB">http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/408psb">PSB Synchrony One ($4500/pair); and in May, the Magico">http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/508mag">Magico V3 ($25,000/pair). For this review, I've been listening to a speaker aimed at those with shallower pockets than are required even for the PSB: the Avalon NP Evolution 2.0, which costs just $1995/pair.

The conventional wisdom in publishing is that magazines are dependent on scoops—that getting the news out to the readers first is of primary importance. Yes, being timely with what it has to say is important for any publication. But soon after I joined Stereophile in 1986, a series of negative experiences with review samples that were little better than prototypes led me to rethink the need for scoops. As a result, I decided to impose restrictions on what we chose to review; this would allow us to focus the magazine's review resources on products that were out of beta testing and were ready for prime time, and, most important, would be representative of what our readers could audition for themselves at specialty retailers, confident in the knowledge that what they heard would be what we had reviewed.

Today, as every Saturday, I brought my daughter to the stables where she has her riding lessons. But this time was different. As we pulled up the long gravel driveway, we found ourselves dodging a riderless horse, moving at a trot across our path. It turned out that the very cold weather had caused a latch to malfunction—"gate won't close, railing's froze"—and five horses had gotten loose.