Audiophilepure

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“Digitally sourced music gave further evidence of the Step Plus’s prowess. As I played CDs through an ATC CDA2 Mk.II CD player into the Parasound integrated amplifier, the Steps reproduced quality bass tonnage that was extraordinary. I’m not talking a merely passable low end, but deep, round frequencies. The best example of this was Forq, from the scrappy funk-jazz quartet of that name (CD, groundUP 8829514692). Forq includes members of Snarky Puppy, and their organ-generated robo funk sounds as if recorded inside a bass drum. Every ounce of bass-drum air—most plentifully produced by jazz drummers who don’t mute the drum—is present on this bass-grip-of-doom CD. Imagine Chic by way of the Meters and Tower of Power: Forq is that lowdown and dirty.”

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“I’m not sure if you noticed (from the photos or not) that the speakers are also tilted back. This, according to Todd, was for perfect time alignment of the drivers. Since smaller drivers are in effect faster, they are positioned further back than the woofers. I thought this was just for looks! Ends up it, too has a specific purpose.

The rear of the speaker has 4 binding posts, which offers great versatility if one would were to bi-wire, or even bi-amp these speakers. I love when manufacturers offer such flexibility. I took full advantage, too, and tried both bi-wire, single wire (with jumpers), as well as bi-amping. Every time it offered better sound. If you are interested in reading up on the benefits of bi-wiring, there are plenty of articles online that you can use at your leisure. I can say that without a doubt—there is a minor sound quality increase when wiring the S840 in this fashion. There appears to be a better distinction of the highs versus the lows. The best thing is, you can graduate to this eventually with these speakers being so versatile. I also opted to bi-amp using identical amplifiers which even then took it to a whole new level. These speakers are quite efficient however so bi-amping is definitely not necessary, but if you, for example, prefer tube sound on the highs and solid state on the lows, you can satiate that desire quite easily here.”

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“Depending on the music, the amount of bottom-end energy could be excessive and would call for tonal adjustments to the speaker. Hootie and the Blowfish’s “Use Me” continued the impressive demonstration of the U-4iA’s bottom-end capacity, but was so overtly present in the lower frequencies that it was in danger of overrunning the upper half of the spectrum. I adjusted the midrange and treble to +3dB to compensate and an acceptable balance was restored. To my ear, leaving the tonal controls flat brings a more “tube like” character from the Sound Lab, versus adjustment upward of them bringing out a touch of solid-state forwardness. Note that this effect can also be further increased or decreased to one’s satisfaction by proper selection of cables.

Another word about the Poem of the Chinese Drums; the U-4iA exquisitely renders the nuances of the mallet and drum skin interaction. With quite a large number of speakers, mostly dynamic or hybrid dynamic, the thump of the mallet whacking the drum comes off as a shuddering burst, an LF punch that has little character of other instruments such as piano and saxophone. To my delight, a splendid amount of the subtleties of the drum were retrieved by the U-4iA. Usually at that frequency, an electrostatic speaker coughs out a stressed throb, but the musical integrity of the LF created by the U-4iA was exemplary. This gave me the sense that it was more powerful than the rated 32Hz.”