Audiophilepure

However, if you need something more conventional to get your bass fix, and include a great woman’s voice in the bargain, listen to Jennifer Warnes’ cover of Leonard Cohen’s track “Way Down Deep” on her The Hunter album. The Stenheim Two.Five does a remarkable job of mixing her voice and the deep, textural percussions. Imaging from the Two.Five with an incredible “wall of sound” is sublimely fulfilling.

Of course, this led me to pull up Leonard Cohen, the man himself. In My Secret Life is a beautiful melodic song from his Ten New Songs album from 2001. Cohen’s voice contrasts his backup singers and is mesmerizingly elegant, the Two.Five gives this track such depth and richness.

Because of this whole “reviewing” thing, I’ve been given the opportunity to listen to and experience several speakers that I would have otherwise passed over. This is a speaker that would have fallen into the passed-over category. And that would have been a shame. The Revela 2 is a stout, 3-way floor-standing speaker. It features twin 6.5″ woofers, a 6″ midrange driver, and a single 2.5″ ribbon driver taking care of the high frequencies. The speaker stands a hair over 37″ tall and weighs 60 lbs. The Revela is available in piano walnut and black piano gloss. And retail for $4495.00 USD.

The PlatiMons deliver an excellent sense of timing and musical pace. When at Chris’ house the other night listening to his setup of the new Skyanalog REF cartridge, the same thing was going on with his reference system when we listened to Kind of Blue. All of the instruments were blended as they should be, yet all occupied their own space without being buried under one another. It’s one of those deceptively simple aspects of musical reproduction that sometimes you don’t even notice until it’s wrong.

These speakers always present a lack of blur in musical transients and high frequency decay. Cymbals and percussion sound natural, along with stringed instruments. Some of the metal cabinet speakers auditioned here have exhibited a great sense of dynamic energy yet impart their own sense of tonality to the music being presented. The PlatiMon speakers do not fall victim to this. Listening to them for days on end is an exceptionally pleasant experience. So much so, that I did purchase the review samples to use as an ongoing reference.

https://www.soundstagehifi.com/index.php/equipment-reviews/1857-estelon-aura-loudspeaker

That splendid tonal balance was not perfectly neutral, but it was as neutral as I’d want it to be. Listening to female vocals, I could detect a slight emphasis in the upper midrange regardless of amplification. This bias, in the 1000Hz to 4000Hz range, both on- and off-axis, was also revealed in our measurements. But this isn’t a bad thing. Lana Del Rey’s wispy vocal on “White Dress,” the opening song on her Chemtrails Over the Country Club (16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC, Interscope / Polydor Records / Tidal), was perhaps a touch more prominent than usual, but it had dazzling immediacy and a wonderful clarity I did not sense with other speakers. A less obvious effect of the heightened upper midrange, albeit still noticeable, was on Stevie Nicks’s vocal in “Dreams.” With most systems, her voice seems buried in the mix. Through the Auras, however, with either amplifier, her voice was more present, and the whole song sounded a little more spacious in the midrange. Not all female vocals were boosted in this way, though. Tracy Chapman’s singing voice is a bit lower in pitch than Nicks’s and Del Rey’s. Playing “Fast Car” and “Baby Can I Hold You” for some friends one afternoon, from her eponymous debut album (16/44.1 FLAC, Elektra Records / Tidal), I was taken aback by how natural her voice sounded—it was as natural as I’ve ever heard it.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/tekton-moab-be-loudspeaker

I’d always loved the expansive midrange and upper-bass purity that the latter produces, and so it was with the new version. It’s just that there was audibly more of it this time. Case in point: My Dutch shepherd often keeps me company in the listening room, where nothing seems to spook him—he learned long ago to just tune out the music. But when I played “Pillar I,” from the Grammy-nominated album Seven Pillars by Sandbox Percussion (24/96 FLAC, Aki Rhythm Productions/Qobuz), his ears shot up and he cocked his head in surprise. I agree with the dog: The Moabs painted the snares and kicks and bells on this standout track with great vividness and realism.

https://www.theaudiobeat.com/equipment/wilson_audio_sasha_v.htm

Regarding the price of such an experience, I’m always bemused when someone asks me whether speakers that cost as much as a luxury motorcycle, for instance, are worth the price. Given that I don’t hold a degree in macro or microeconomics, nor do I have any experience running a manufacturing business, my opinion about what constitutes a fair price should be taken with a huge grain of salt. But I do wonder why some people would be so outraged that a cutting-edge speaker that requires a team of experts to design and takes weeks to manufacture would be expensive. Rarely are these people outraged when they’re told that a high-performance motorcycle can cost $50,000. I suspect that most people who purchase Sasha Vs will be devoting significantly more time listening than they would touring the country on a Ducati. It all comes down to priorities.