Audiophilepure

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“Paradigm’s Premier 800F offers incredible sound quality, with a superclear midrange that made voices sound stunning, and enough well-integrated low frequencies to satisfy bass lovers — nor does driving it require a ton of power. For the price, it’s about as perfect as a speaker can be. It benefited from being driven by a high-quality amplifier, but as I found out, it also sounds superb with more modest amplification. It combines excellent dynamics and transparency, while its natural, pleasing sound quality throughout the audioband will suit all types of music without a misstep. Best of all, it’s a slim, relatively compact speaker that plays surprisingly loudly when required — and again, it does all this for only $1998/pair. The Premier 800F is the loudspeaker I’d buy today if I had $2000 to spend — and I’d even consider it at twice that price.”

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“Sonus Faber markets the Sonetto VIII as a “budget” loudspeaker. While I can’t exactly call any floorstander with a $6,500 USD price a “bargain”, even the blindest of men amongst us can see the luthier-level of finish carpentry crafted into this speaker. The breathtaking walnut veneer and real leather top panels on my review samples garnered universal praise. Despite its imposing size, the Sonetto VIII has an extremely high WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor).

Many speakers in the Sonetto VIII’s price range claim to offer superb bass. Truthfully, far too many of these sonic pretenders emit lower frequency noises that sound like little more than drunken duck flatulence.

To achieve greater articulation and accuracy in the lower registers, this floorstander uses a downward firing reflex port and outriggers with conical spikes. The outriggers are bolted to the bottom of each speaker with eight screws. The uniformity of bass excursion created by this circular port makes speaker placement a cinch to dial-in.”

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” The choir’s singing was quite lovely and ethereal, but, of course, that is mostly a matter of the original performance and also the sound engineering rather than the reproduction side of audio. However, the speakers were able to convey this intended sound and did nothing to inhibit the performance that I could detect. It sounded authentic. The 35XTi speakers made the choir sound like a collection of voices rather than a blob of vocal sound. The voices were unified when they needed to be and individually delineated when necessitated by the recording. Such gorgeous music given such a crystal clear rendition was very much an aural delight. Every music lover should check out the album ‘Mass Transmission,’ and when they do, they ought to listen to it a high-fidelity sound system on the level of the 35XTi speakers.”

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“The Spectral 40th’s midrange and top end were the best I’ve heard in my room. Focal’s ad copy describes the speaker’s sound as “vibrant” and “expressive,” and I agree. The midrange was quite forward but also impossibly smooth, and oozing with detail. Voices leapt from mixes, but never sounded edgy or irritating. There was an organic, reach-out-and-touch-it quality to the midrange that, though it may not have been perfectly flat, was intoxicatingly beautiful. I’d never quite heard this level of realism in my room before. Images of voices effortlessly floated in space with eerie palpability, with no hint of strain or cabinet colorations to spoil the illusion. I was in love”

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“The A3 is an important loudspeaker, and not just for Magico. In truth, the audio world already knows this… the lengthy hiatus between the A3’s launch and this, its first review in an English language high-end magazine, is simply down to the sheer number of A3s ordered every time they are demonstrated. There’s a reason for that. This isn’t ‘discount Magico’ or ‘Magico-lite’, and it isn’t even ‘Emporio Magico’: the A3 is a top-class Magico loudspeaker in its own right. It’s the one to beat at the price… and far beyond.”

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“This is a matter of personal preference, of course, but I think listeners with my taste in speakers may find the L100’s forward treble to be a mixed blessing. Yes, it contributes to that wonderful imaging and holographic sound staging mentioned above, but it also changes the sound of some albums I know like the back of my hand. I found the beloved (but less-than-spectacularly recorded) Rumours by Fleetwood Mac all but unlistenable through these speakers, mostly because Lindsey Buckingham’s tenor vocals sounded downright wrong to my ears, especially during the verses of “Go Your Own Way.” And I say this while also fully admitting that the jingle-jangle guitars and Mick Fleetwood’s pounding drumline sounded like a gift from the heavens.”

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“There is very good news afoot for those that aspire to join the Sonus faber family, or perhaps upgrade from a past model. The Olympica Nova line opens up serious high end sonics to a broader audience via accessible prices, while offering a sonically rich, musically balanced performance. Sonus faber has managed to capture some of the magic I heard in the Aida 2, and yet created a line of speakers that truly stand upon their own merits. Beautiful design through an edited use of material (the Olympica Nova come in matte natural walnut and a darker wenge wood) wins the day. A compact foot print making room integration a breeze—and did I mention those sonics?

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“I loved the Focal Spectral 40th. It exhibited the finest midrange I’ve heard in my room, and a near-perfect top end. Men’s and women’s voices were reproduced with a spooky vibrancy and presence and, more important, with no hint of glare or edge. I found its seemingly impossible marriage of a very upfront, detailed, and forward-sounding midrange to a buttery-smooth ease of sound absolutely intoxicating to listen to. The top end had superb “out-of-cabinet” extension, and delicate decay. On a few tracks that leaned toward sibilance, I did wish for 1-2dB less energy in the highest octaves, but this also reflects my personal preference for a downward-sloping response between 2 and 16kHz, a range in which the Focals measured essentially flat. But in this regard, my reference Bowers & Wilkins 705 S2 speakers, playing unequalized, are far worse. The Focals’ bass was tight, fast, ample, and completely satisfying, without ever booming in my relatively small room”