YG Acoustics Carmel 3 Floor-standing Speakers Review
January 7, 2026 § Leave a comment
Its fully machined aluminum enclosure creates an inert platform that’s difficult to replicate with wood or composite cabinets. This structural rigidity reduces resonances, panel flex, and stored energy, allowing the drivers and crossover to operate with remarkable transparency. The hybrid silk-dome lattice tweeter, horn-loaded and mounted on a sculpted aerospace-alloy frame, offers controlled directivity, low distortion, and broad dispersion without the harshness or edge often associated with metal-diaphragm designs. Paired with the quick, piston-like aluminum mid-bass driver, the Carmel 3 delivers exceptional coherence and wide-band linearity that surpasses its compact size and two-way configuration.
Equally impressive is the engineering sophistication of the Ultracoherent™ crossover. This network is not just a standard second-order filter but a highly optimized assembly of direct-path and auxiliary components guided by multi-domain simulations. Bench measurements confirm these design choices: low harmonic distortion across the spectrum, dominant 2nd-order harmonics for a warm sound, excellent off-axis response thanks to the horn-loaded tweeter, and a well-managed spectral decay with only minor high-frequency resonances.

PMC twenty5.23i Active Review
January 2, 2026 § Leave a comment
https://www.hifichoice.com/content/pmc-twenty523i-active
Interestingly, something I’ve long regarded as a slight shortcoming of the 23i might also have been dealt with too. Pushing the speaker at high levels with bass-heavy music can result in the bass taking on a quality that isn’t so much the port becoming audible, but there being a sense of air moving to help achieve it. I had felt that this was a baked-in element of the performance and something that’s an acceptable trade-off for the sheer heft that the 23i delivers. The presence of the Bluesound NODE ICON on test at the same time – able to function as a preamp with Dirac room optimisation – demonstrates that this need not be the case. It tightens up the low-end of the PMC considerably, keeping the impact but tightening up everything to be even cleaner and more potent. I suspect that the same can also be achieved with a little room treatment if you’re invested in extracting the most from the PMC.

Arendal Sound 1528 Tower 8 loudspeaker $9500 Review
December 28, 2025 § Leave a comment
https://www.stereophile.com/content/arendal-sound-1528-tower-8-loudspeaker
The Arendal Towers will, in my judgment, perform their best in a comfortably large but not huge room. In a more open space, common in many homes today, the bass might come across as a little lighter than you might expect from eight serious woofers (four per side) working together. (If they do, just turn down the HF and midrange controls and turn up the volume to compensate.) Even in my large room, the bottom end was consistently clean and well-controlled. The Arendals’ rich, realistic detailing across the board was possibly the best I’ve experienced in my listening room, though also the largest, heaviest, and most expensive. If the size and the price of the Arendal Sound 1528 Towers don’t faze you, they’re well worth serious consideration

PureAudioProject Trio15 Horn1 Open Baffle Design Speaker $7490 Review
December 27, 2025 § Leave a comment
As I said, dynamics are where horns excel. The Trio15 Horns lived up to that expectation. From ppp to fff, the Trio15 Horns handled it all with aplomb. How many times did my wife and I sit down to listen at what we thought was a reasonable volume only to end up with a symphony orchestra at full tilt in our living room! Of course all this was at such a low distortion that we didn’t even realize how loud it was until we tried to talk to each other. My favorite demonstration of the incredible dynamics was not large-scale orchestra music, but a solo instrumentalist. The recent Michael Hedges compilation Beyond Boundaries, has several songs of him playing the harp guitar. These close-mic’ed recordings demonstrate the forcefulness of Hedges’ playing. No matter how many times I listened to these songs through the Trio15 Horns, I literately jumped every time Hedges banged out the bass line. Amazing!

The Ultimate DIY B&W Nautilus Speakers Build from $100 Edifier MR4
December 27, 2025 § Leave a comment
SVS Ultra Evolution Tower Speaker Review
December 24, 2025 Comments Off on SVS Ultra Evolution Tower Speaker Review
Though my original impressions about the Ultra Evolution Towers were that the placement for some bass de-emphasis might be tricky for some rooms, I found that it was easily controlled with tone controls or room correction software. Once that was done, I enjoyed my time with these smaller siblings in the SVS Ultra Evolution floor stander line. The black gloss finish was flawless, and the balance of the tweeter, mid, and woofers was very good, and for what I consider a truly full-range speaker. If you want to save some space and perhaps some coin, the SVS Ultra Evolution Towers deliver the sonic goods and are an excellent value.

Wilson Audio Sabrina V loudspeaker Review
December 16, 2025 Comments Off on Wilson Audio Sabrina V loudspeaker Review
https://www.hifinews.com/content/wilson-audio-sabrina-v-loudspeaker
Give the Sabrina Vs a chill-down with the gentle beats of Azimuth’s ‘Last Summer In Rio’ [Marca Passo; Far Out Recordings download], and they reward with a gorgeously rich and detailed sound. Here the bass and drums were crisp, tight and powerful, with the guitars and keys soaring eloquently above them – ideal listening during the heatwave at the time of writing.
The speedy, extended sound of the Sabrina Vs dovetailed well with the vocals and harmonies of the Eurythmics’ ‘There Must Be An Angel’, from the 2018 edition of Be Yourself Tonight [Sony Music download], where Dave Stewart’s multilayered scoring underpins Annie Lennox’s wonderful voice. And their ability to reveal fine production elevated the ‘Mamunia’/‘No Words’/‘Picasso’s Last Words’ sequence from the 50th Anniversary release of Wings’ Band On The Run album [MPL/Apple/Capitol 5543565].
It’s all wonderfully understated musicianship, and the Sabrina Vs, fed from the high-end dCS and Constellation hardware, made it so effortless and yet captivating right through to the distant reprise of ‘Jet’ and those lush strings.

New Wilson Audio Sabrina V Preview
December 14, 2025 Comments Off on New Wilson Audio Sabrina V Preview
PMC prophecy5 Floor-standing Loudspeaker Review
December 9, 2025 Comments Off on PMC prophecy5 Floor-standing Loudspeaker Review
I know that $6,500 for a pair of speakers is not in everyone’s budget. However, consider that when you purchase the PMC prophecy5 speaker, you are getting a hand-built, expertly-crafted loudspeaker from a family and group of dedicated audiophiles. When you consider the craftsmanship and the studio sound quality, you may well think, “This is a great bargain!” I sure do. My highest recommendation, and a must hear in this price range, or well above.

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