Audiophilepure

It is one thing to spotlight all the technical wonders of a high-end loudspeaker, and quite another to lose oneself for hours on end listening to it for the pure pleasure of doing so. In the last week of my review audition, Razz showed me its truest sonic intentions: forget the reviewer-speak, just play music! 

Greg Roberts has succeeded in building a smaller, less expensive speaker for the Volti Audio product line. Razz does indeed carry the Volti sonic signature, and that is a very good thing. Audiophiles looking for a speaker in the $5k price range—especially those with small to medium sized rooms—should definitely investigate this lively, lovable, and livable, loudspeaker.

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/sonus-faber-olympica-nova-iii-loudspeaker/

For her debut compact disc Fantasy, violinist Tessa Lark had the good fortune to be recorded by veteran engineer/producer Judith Sherman. Several of the works on the CD are unaccompanied, including a pair of Telemann Fantasias and Lark’s own Appalachian Fantasy. The tonal shadings created by the soloist on her 1683 Stradivarius are reproduced with realistic immediacy through the Sonus faber speakers—bow grabbing string, the resonance of the instrument’s hollow body, minute changes in bow pressure, the room adding body to the sound issuing from the violin. String quartets, solo wind instruments, and keyboard recitals are enthralling, utterly believable in tone and timbre—these loudspeakers are a chamber music lover’s dream. And aficionados of great singing will find the most distinctive voice rendered with every ounce of its character intact.

https://www.soundandvision.com/content/jbl-hdi-3600-loudspeaker-review

Easing into something a bit more subtle and quiet, I streamed harpist Mary Lattimore’s “Til a Mermaid Drags You Under” (16/44.1 FLAC, Tidal), a track from her latest release, Silver Ladders. The song’s dry, cascading layers of harp, mixed with reverb-heavy guitar (from Slowdive’s Neil Halstead), were conveyed with impressive clarity by the JBLs, and there was a notable sense of spatial depth. When the song’s bass synth drones are introduced about halfway through, the sound becomes anchored with a massive foundation that serves to enlarge both the horizontal and vertical scale. The HDI-3600 towers rendered this perfectly, disappearing into an endless-seeming soundstage that somehow reminded me of sitting in a planetarium.

https://www.hifinews.com/content/paradigm-persona-b-loudspeakers

This speaker sounds superb with anything you care to throw at it. The Marshall Tucker Band’s live recording of ‘Everyday (I Have the Blues)’ [The Marshall Tucker Band; 44.1kHz/16-bit FLAC] is ramshackle and riotous, the group at times clinging onto its blues rhythm with levels varying wildly. The Persona B conveyed it sublimely, placing crowd claps and whistles at the back of the soundstage, and capturing every half-pitch bend and leading edge of Toy Caldwell’s guitar playing.

Changing tack entirely, Chase & Status’s dance anthem ‘All Goes Wrong’ [Tribe; 44.1kHz/16-bit FLAC] benefited from the speaker’s precision timing and bass handling. The continuous deep notes that carry the chorus had a purity that spoke of a cabinet and driver working in perfect harmony. Less all goes wrong, more all goes right…

https://www.stereophile.com/content/bowers-wilkins-705-signature-loudspeaker

I always turn to solo piano recordings to judge a loudspeaker’s midrange quality. I recorded Canadian pianist Robert Silverman live in concert in 1992 with a spaced pair of omnidirectional microphones, so the stereo imaging on the subsequent CD (Concert, Stereophile STPH005-2) is diffuse (footnote 2). But Robert’s performance of Schubert’s six Moments Musicaux remains a favorite all these years later. The rich, warm tone of his Steinway that was captured by the microphones was reproduced in almost full measure by the 705 Signatures, only the lowest notes—in the middle section of the first Moment, for example—lacking body. However, the image of the piano was more forward in the low treble than I am used to, both with my Silverman recording and with Murray Perahia’s 2017 performance of Beethoven’s “Moonlight” piano sonata (24/96 WAV file, DG 4798353). This didn’t get in the way of the music, but it does suggest that the 705 Signatures won’t be an optimal match with source components or amplification that themselves have balances on the forward side.

The Klipsch Cornwall IV Speakers

“Addressing tastes of listeners who bought into certain buttoned-down principles promulgated by audio tastemakers who never negotiated the musical sea changes that occurred once the 70s revved into gear, the market overflows with speakers that nail classical, small-scale jazz, low-key Americana, and close-miked vocal music—only to run with their veritable tails between their legs when called to unpack information in dense, complicated recordings. All-rounder designs “are rarer. Cornwall IV excels with rock, metal, R&B, rap, electronic, and jazz. Still, the manners in which it handles classical and acoustic-based fare please, and hint at both delicacy and sophistication.

Not to suggest Cornwall IV suits everyone. It certainly does not—and will not suffice for those exclusively bent on critical listening and/or playing the role of recording engineer. But, if you listen to a variety of genres, place a premium on the sound of live music, value engagement over crack precision, possess the requisite space in your room, or, alternatively, want to construct a second system devised for concert-like experiences, you could do far, far worse—and will likely spend thousands more in the process

Mellow Acoustics FrontRo hybrid electrostatic loudspeaker

“Ultimately, this is a speaker for those who play music in rooms that don’t like loudspeakers! Electrostatics tend to thrive in large rooms, and the FrontRo is the exception. In small to mid-sized rooms where electrostatics usually struggle, the Mellow Acoustics FrontRo delivers a fine standard of performance, especially with speech. I’ve concentrated on vocals in part because the FrontRo shows how poor many loudspeakers are at reproducing the human voice, but it’s not simply designed for speech replay; a loudspeaker that gets the human voice right tends to get music right, and unless you are a fan of trouser-flapping, filling-loosening organ music or genres that include the word ‘dub’ played in barn-sized rooms, this is the antidote to rectangular wooden boxes and the limits they impose on sound.