Audiophilepure

https://www.hifinews.com/content/franco-serblin-accordo-goldberg-loudspeaker

As cultured and refined as was Franco Serblin, the Accordo Goldberg standmounts sounded better the louder they were played. It reminded me, too, of another conversation with Franco, who was no head-banger. He posited that every CD, LP or tape has an optimum playback level, clipping, breakup or distortion notwithstanding. Listening to harmonica so life-like that the SPLs seemed merely incidental, I understood what he meant, grabbing a harmonica of my own to hear the reeds and the levels.

Steely Dan’s Can’t Buy A Thrill [Analogue Productions CAPP134SA SACD] turned the clock back to the first time I heard the saxophone break in ‘Dirty Work’, with just the right balance of rasp and honk. Likewise, pace/rhythm/timing junkies would revel in the opening bongo patterns of the same album’s ‘Do It Again’, delicious beats with the sounds of the heads almost shimmering. As for the vocals, I started imagining what an LS3/5A would sound like with a couple of octaves extending the bottom, and another 10dB added to the levels.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/ta-solitaire-s-530-loudspeaker

I loved my time with the S 530s. They reminded me why I was sold on line source and planar speakers so many years ago. My experience with these speakers went a long way toward demonstrating that the shortcomings I thought of as inherent in a line source design aren’t inherent at all.

Hearing the Solitaire S 530s made me regret that I wasn’t aware of T+A speakers sooner. The S 530 is every bit of what I’d expected, based on what I knew about the company and their digital components: a super-premium product that, while certainly handsome, was more about technology, execution, and performance than beauty for its own sake. I’d love to have heard previous Solitaire models like the fully active OECs, with their glowing tubes, or the fully active, fully digital AD4, to better understand the R&D path that led to the S 530s.

https://www.hifinews.com/content/sonus-faber-lumina-v-amator-loudspeaker

While Sonus faber’s floorstander looks imposing in the pictures, the speaker is neither huge nor massively weighty, standing just under 105cm tall and, at 22.5kg, about light enough for one-person set-up, adding convenience to the room-friendliness. Positioning is no trickier, in no small part due to that downward-firing port. I spent some time moving the Lumina V Amators backwards and forwards in the room, finding very little difference wherever I placed them, and concentrated instead on experimenting with toe-in for the most coherent stereo image. Again, I was unable to effect any huge changes in this department, so stuck to my usual positioning with the cabinets aimed just slightly in front of the listening position.

With their rated 89dB sensitivity, 4ohm nominal impedance and a 50W minimum power requirement, these are not especially demanding speakers, and worked well with the various amplifiers I tried, ranging from Audiolab’s 9000A [HFN Aug ’23] up to my vintage Naim NAC 52/NAP 250 set-up. I should mention that magnetic grilles are provided, but it would be a shame to cover up the understated dark wenge or more exotic gloss red and walnut wood finishes on offer!