Audiophilepure

https://www.hifinews.com/content/bw-703-s3-loudspeaker

Play to its strengths, with the quiet, string motifs of ‘Winter 2’ from Max Richter [Recomposed… Vivaldi: The Four Seasons; Deutsche Grammophon 4862769], or the aforementioned Doors tracks, and the 703 S3 appears to be the steal of the century. With the more congested midrange mania of Motörhead’s ‘Killed By Death’ [No Remorse; Sanctuary Records 2748857], however, you might seek a little more snarl and edge.

A counter to this minor quibble is the ability of the 703 S3s to respond to a serious push. Fed the massed strings, thrilling woodwind and forceful brass of Beethoven’s Symphony No 9, performed by the Berlin Philharmoniker/Herbert Von Karajan [9 Symphonies; Deutsche Grammophon 96kHz/24-bit], the speakers punched back with a big, detailed but composed performance as I dialled up the volume. Evidently B&W’s 703s S3s are themselves something of an ode to joy

https://www.whathifi.com/reviews/wilson-benesch-act-3zero

Take a step back and you’ll find the 3Zero’s tonal balance is superbly judged. To our ears, it is as neutral as they come with both frequency extremes integrated so well that it becomes hard to talk about them as separate entities. This is a wonderfully unified sound that rivals what we hear through the very best electrostatic designs and is made all the more impressive by knowing that there are no less than five separate drivers involved. Note, those very same electrostatic designs can’t match the Wilson Benesch in punch and attack.

Our time with these speakers is a blur of music as we work our way through our collection, finding musical treats around every corner. Poor recordings are revealed as such without the speakers going out of their way to make things worse, while better recordings such as Kind Of Blue by Miles Davis or Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall burst through with musical energy firmly intact. 

I loved my time with the LSX IIs. The best pieces of equipment get slotted into my listening room and basically disappear if I’m not actively taking listening notes and comparing them to other gear. They become the medium through which I’m enjoying music and nothing else. The LSX IIs vanished almost the second they were set up, and I got over the brief learning curve and really dove into what they can do. After a day, their novelty wore off, and I found myself listening to music for the fun of it, and that’s really the biggest takeaway from this entire review. I was delighted by their sound, their ease-of-use, and all the important improvements KEF worked into the LSX IIs. If anyone’s looking for a pair of wireless speakers that can do just about anything at a genuinely reasonable price, these should be at the top of the list.

 It is not as easy to achieve the wall of sound experience with dynamic speakers having fewer woofers. Some listeners enjoy the perceived fullness that the additional woofers create despite the slightly additive effect of the multiple wavelaunches. Having switched dozens of times from speakers with a minimal number of drivers to those having multiples, I have never experienced a line source type speaker that does not have slightly less precision in the bass due to the multiplication of bass drivers. However, I also have never heard a speaker with minimal drivers create that wall of sound with the fullness that multiple drivers afford. It is a design principle that one either enjoys and accepts or does not enjoy and rejects. I appreciate the virtues of both and so regularly hear both types of designs. I feel they are both legitimate expressions that capture different aspects of sound reproduction.

https://www.soundstageultra.com/index.php/equipment-menu/1176-kharma-elegance-db7-s-loudspeaker

Finally, on Amber Rubarth’s “Hold On,” my Reference 3s produced a more relaxed rendition of the California-born singer-songwriter’s vocal performance. Both the opening cello and violin lacked the alluring sheen and brilliance that the Kharmas were able to conjure, though the KEFs did do a similarly nice job of recreating the instruments in space. I felt as if I were peering through each Reference 3 and could see the respective instruments in my mind’s eye. But at what cost? They just didn’t sound as dynamic. And while my KEFs’ stereo image of Rubarth’s vocal was the full equal of the Kharmas’, I missed the latter’s zest and greater sense of dimensionality.

 I normally measure distortion using an 85dB signal across the bandwidth at my listening position, which would be about 94dB at one meter from the speaker. For the Line Array Majors, a 95dB signal at the listening position was used – a full 10dB above the normal test. This was loud enough that I wore earbuds for protection while taking the measurements. This is a slow sine wave, and not an enjoyable listen. It’s also a very difficult test for a speaker.

Let’s look at some distortion data from 80Hz and up. The black line is the frequency sweep, and the blue line is the THD+N. Any point with a 40 dB or greater spread between the lines is 1% THD or less. At 80-160Hz, we saw nothing higher than 1.47% THD. Above 160Hz, the THD was below 0.5%, hitting a low of 0.14% at 1,000Hz. This is an astonishing performance and dovetails perfectly with the listening results

https://www.stereophile.com/content/klipsch-la-scala-al5-loudspeaker

The Klipsch La Scalas have been in constant production for 59 years, longer than all but a tiny handful of audio products, and this is surely not an accident. (Happily, it also means that secondhand examples, available for a fraction of their current price, are relatively common.) They aren’t perfect, and they require a large room and a suitable amplifier, but they offer the closest thing I’ve heard to a musical performance taking place in my home. They do this as reliably with solo viola as they do with Minor Threat. Best of all, they provide as direct a route as I’ve found to hours of musical engagement—to embodying what Sakuma-san described as “endless energy with sorrow,” to which I would add love, rage, humor, and elation. $13,198 is an investment, but it will buy you some of the most sonically irrepressible and musically communicative speakers in the known cosmos. They just may sustain you for life.

https://www.hifinews.com/content/alta-audio-alec-loudspeaker

As an example, the bass guitar on Simply Red’s ‘Sad Old Red’ [Picture Book; Elektra EKT27 960 452-1] was superb – each note lithe, clean and crisp, along with hand movements along the fretboard. In contrast, on the Cigarettes After Sex track, the bass strings sounded indistinct and somewhat bloated. Moreover, the bassline on Jenny Jones’ ‘Blessed Northern Daughter’ [Go! Discs GODX 103] was gently glossed over, although the weight and punch of the kick drum went some way to disguise it.

Conversely, the vocal ‘pop’ in the second verse of ‘Somewhere, Somebody’ from Jennifer Warnes’ The Hunter [Private Music 261974], which is usually firmly in subwoofer-only territory, was easy to hear. In addition, the rib-tickling bass underpinning ‘Turning Ground’ on Caroline Lavelle’s Spirit [N-GRAM Recordings 4509 98137 2] was present and correct, and didn’t modulate the vocals at all – an unwanted effect I have heard before through lesser designs. When the Alecs get it right, they get it very right indeed.