Audiophilepure

The Legato Duos are still extraordinary values–what they do for less than $10K remains staggering. The Sonner Audio Allegro Unum, however, connects with me in the way that only high-quality, high-performance two-way monitors can. A lot of that has to do that added coherence between the drivers, the simplicity of the crossovers, and the ability to disappear easily into the room. Heck, most decent monitors do all that. I think what sets these apart from the others is the Sonner Audio design team’s  attention to voicing  by listening to different capacitors/resistors/inductors and internal wire to match well with the speaker drivers. As I mentioned in the Legato Duo review, the team is constantly changing the designs so they can discover sonic improvements. They’ll change the radii on one of the curved surfaces of his speaker enclosures, find something worthwhile to explore, then redesign everything else around that finding. Gunny has an electrical engineer on the team who worries about the fundamentals–Gunny is a supreme lover of music, and he just wants to deliver the finest version of it he can.

So where the Nico Evo exemplified the best in a smallish, standmounting loudspeaker – coherence, speed, imaging, invisibility – the Emma Evo takes those qualities and adds scale, weight and another layer of colour and texture. You still get all the pace, coherence and clarity, the limpid, lucid vision into the heart of the music, but you also get a bit more of that heart. It’s pretty clear that if there’s a ‘house sound,’ both the Emma and the Nico Evos conform to it. The Emma Evo isn’t a large loudspeaker, though neither is it small, but because of the sheer levels of insight and detail there’s no real sense that you’re being short-changed on large-scale performances, and small-scale stuff just invites you right in to share in the intimate, immersive music-making experience. They respond to a little tweaking, and they’ll reward quality in the upstream elements of your system, they’re just so very communicative of what’s going on. They are proof that in moving from stand-mount to floorstander you don’t have to compromise on the strengths of a superlative small loudspeaker, you can just add other qualities on top if you do it right.

https://www.soundstageultra.com/index.php/equipment-menu/1182-t-a-elektroakustik-solitaire-s-530-loudspeaker

T+A’s Solitaire S 530 is different than any other loudspeaker I’ve heard in more than a decade of reviewing high-end gear. It looks different, what with its 33.5”-long magnetostatic line-source tweeter and seven midrange drivers aligned in a line array next to it. And it sounds different, projecting sound in such a focused and concentrated fashion that it takes some getting used to. But the results are profoundly, stupefyingly good. The borderline full-range design is able to conjure a more convincing, coherent, and realistic musical experience than any other loudspeaker I’ve reviewed over the years. In fact, T+A’s Solitaire S 530 is the best loudspeaker I’ve ever heard. Sadly, my review samples are going back to T+A, but I can assure you they will live long in my memory.

The Stella Utopia EM Evo acquitted itself well during the evaluation period, with impressive transparency, lightning quick transient response, near unlimited dynamic playback capability, excellent lateral soundstaging and imaging, very good image height, and great instrumental separation to complement very tight, controlled, and refined bass response. The Ash Grey finish on the evaluation pair is as beautiful to look at as the sound produced by the speaker. Since the current version Stella’s introduction in 2018, many new upper-high-end speakers have entered the market from several manufacturers. Today, these Stella Utopia EM Evos continue to produce excellent sound that is competitive with all of them. Go listen and hear for yourself how Stella(r) sounding they can be.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/tad-ce1tx-loudspeaker

My definition of the word “best,” as applied to audiophile speakers, would include expressions like “extremely well-sorted” and “exposes everything” and “flawless tone.” This thought struck me now because exactly these words passed through my head over and over during the hundreds of hours I spent listening with the TAD CE1TX’s. These luxuriously appointed standmounts specialize in converting tiny signal currents into moving air with atomic-clock precision—all by itself, a captivating phenomenon to witness. But what elevated these new TADs to a level of performance I’ve rarely experienced from any speakers, anywhere, at any price is the coexistence of that atomic-clock precision with an innate ability to present instruments and voices in a most agreeable, seductive manner.