Audiophilepure

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“Change to a big orchestral work, such as Bernstein conducting the overture from his opera ‘Candide’ [Bernstein Conducts Bernstein; Sony Classical SS 89043, DSD64], and the R11s show all their abilities in one 4m 16s track. The opening is explosive and hard-charging, with a great impression of ordered chaos in both the writing and the sound. These speakers swiftly relax into the fluid, romantic middle section, then gather up the power for the closing, charging to the finish with especially notable punch in the percussion. It’s a compact, total thrill-ride – on some speakers it can sound rather thin and brash, but via the R11s, with their solid low-end power, it just sounds big and exciting.

That’s also true in the way the R11s handle piano which, with its combination of potential delicacy in the right hand and room-shaking ability in the left, is always a stern test of any speaker. Play Stephen Hough’s recording of Rachmaninov’s First Piano Concerto, with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Litton [Hyperion SACDA67501/2] and the power of the musical forces, and drama they generate, grabs you in an instant. Yet it’s just as easy to appreciate the balance and definition, and the superb soundstage image the speakers are casting, with the piano full-bodied before the orchestra.”

Read more at https://www.hifinews.com/content/kef-r11-loudspeaker-page-2#AMrYHm9gSUUlrWdG.99

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“I’m a drummer. Percussive sounds always capture my attention. I’m aware, for example, of the difference in sound between felt and lamb’s wool bass drum beaters. Felt beaters create a harder, more direct bass drum sound, while lamb’s wool is like soft cotton swooshing the head, moving its internal air more gently to create a softer sound. On Jersey’s title track, I heard the soft, warm sheen of a bass drumhead being driven by a lamb’s wool beater. The Forte was wonderfully transparent to this detail buried deep within the music.”

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What surprised me was that the two feeds sounded equally clean — I’d thought that the higher resolution via Tidal might result in cleaner sound than an MP3 via Bluetooth, but it didn’t. The Bluetooth stream had none of the objectionable artifacts highly compressed digital sound is often known for. But when it came to dynamics, bass punch and weight, spaciousness, and reproduction of detail, the Tidal stream mopped the floor with the MP3-Bluetooth — Winston’s piano sounded much more like a real piano in a real room. The fact that the Monitor SE 3000Fs — and the rest of this edition of System One — could do this speaks well for the quality of reproduction this system was achieving.”

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“The Prime Pinnacles managed to keep all of the various aural events clear and distinct even during a complex action scene. The sound never became confused or muddled, and dialogue was clear and succinct always. I always caught the one-liners, even if I didn’t think they were all funny. Some bombed jokes aside, I enjoyed ‘Thor: Ragnarok,’ and the Prime Pinnacle speakers turned out to be an excellent platform to reproduce this epic soundtrack.”

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“Once you start listening to really big recordings, from the largest orchestral or choral works to the most extravagant soundtracks, the Kodo system’s characteristics really start to emerge, along with the way they shape the overall character of the sound. That planted sense of musical authority and absolute stability is key, but so too are other aspects of the performance. I’ve already talked about the natural perspective and dimensionality that the Gryphon speakers bring to the soundstage, a soundstage that can extend well beyond the width of the cabinets when called upon to do so, and is both beyond and utterly divorced from them. The Kodo towers stand as if mute and immobile, the music occurring in the space beyond them, but that very separation of speakers and sound imposes its own character on proceedings. Listen across a range of material and it soon becomes apparent that there’s a pervasive warmth to the Kodo’s acoustic that invests it with an inclusive sense of presence but also limits its internal spatial separation. While the stage is wide and deep, and it possesses both a tremendous sense of air and a firmly defined height for the band within it, the warmer balance and the overall perspective are both consistent with a midhall listening position — and a midhall position that’s more Disney or Musikverein than the more structured delineation of Davies or London’s Festival Hall.”

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“Grippy and with the kind of authority and punch you’d expect in high-quality floorstanders, it’s the ideal backdrop to the artful lead guitar and vocal detail every time Simon and his backing singers kick in. Each movement of his fingers up and down the fretboard, each sound as he changes chords takes you right into the studio.

There’s an even tonal balance as the song skips from gentle verse to upbeat chorus. With little audible sound from the speaker cabinets, there’s incredible clarity to the notes and a transparency that quickly makes us fussy about the quality of what we choose to listen to, with the 24-bit/96Khz wireless transmission more than enough to deliver the goods.”

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“Where the Kanta No1s came up short was put in bold relief when I compared them with GoldenEar Technology’s super-large Triton One.R floorstanders ($5999.98/pair), which were in my room because I was reviewing them at about the same time. I played Bublé! again. Even driven by the powerhouse Revelation Taurus Monos, the Focals couldn’t come close to the bass depth and power of the Triton One.Rs. No surprise there — built into each One.R is a 1600W amplifier that drives the speaker’s three woofers, assisted by four passive radiators. This results in bass that extends with power down to 20Hz, the very bottom of the audioband. The Kanta No1, tiny by comparison, stops at 40Hz, a full octave above that, and with a bit of a whimper. And when I drove the Focals from the 8 or 4-ohm taps of the JE Audio VM60s, the bass got a touch lighter. That told me that most people will likely be best served by the No1s if they drive them with a powerful amplifier — probably a solid-state model that can put out at least 100Wpc into 8 ohms, and handle an impedance that drops below 4 ohms without blinking.

But above the deep bass, with either the Revelation Taurus Monos or the VM60s, the Kanta No1s charged ahead of the Triton One.Rs by sounding a little more open, more free of their enclosures. The No1s also sounded a touch cleaner in the midrange and highs, which I particularly noticed with the Carpenters’ With the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (24/48 FLAC unfolded to 24/96 MQA, A&M/Tidal). The plucked guitar notes that begin “For All We Know” sprang more freely and cleanly from the No1s than from the Triton One.Rs — but it was the voice of Karen Carpenter, who enters at 0:38, that sealed the deal: its tightly focused aural image at the frontmost part of the stage sounded slightly clearer and more open through the Kanta No1s.”

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“Jazz alto saxophonist’s Lee Konitz’ Billie Holiday tribute album, Strings for Holiday, sounded lovely. Konitz’s breathy and soulful sax was accompanied by a small string chamber ensemble. Stereo imaging was big and spacious.

Compared with the JBL Stage A170 tower speaker I reviewed in late June the RP-5000F’s sounded more immediate and clearer. The A170 countered with a richer tonal balance, the RP-5000F’s midrange was more neutral, more accurate, and the treble had more sparkle and brilliance. The A170 was more laid back, it sounded hazier than the RP-5000F.”

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“However, a favourite disc is the Lowell George solo album, Thanks I’ll Eat It Here[Friday Music], so I slipped it onto the turntable and was immediately impressed by the overall neutrality of the sound that was being delivered. Why pay more? I kept asking myself. I do have a pair of B&W’s 800 D3s tucked away in the speaker store, and they do have some advantages over this baby, no question. That they will deliver a (slightly) wider dynamic range, with rather better all-round distribution is impossible to deny, but I do find it difficult to justify a price differential of roughly 15×.

If there’s a better example of the loudspeaker being a slave to the rest of the system, I’ve yet to find it. Bowers & Wilkins’ 603 are entirely capable of reproducing just what they were being fed, no matter how high-end you go. However you look at it, the 603 is quite exceptional value for money.”