Audiophilepure

https://www.hifinews.com/content/kudos-audio-cardea-c20-loudspeaker

Unleash the third symphony through the C20s and I defy you not to be thrilled with the crisp detail of the orchestra and the great crashing weight of the organ from which the work takes its soubriquet. The orchestra has power enough in the opening movement, but when those big bass pipes start energising the air in the concert hall, the sheer slam of these speakers down in the bass, and the tinkling piano above, are equally breathtaking. What’s more, they manage all this exuberance and brio with total control, not even hardening up when the devil on your shoulder mutters ‘Wonder what that would sound like a bit louder…?’.

Common sense tells me that speakers this compact really shouldn’t sound so weighty, wide-open and totally compelling, let alone do so across a wide range of musical styles and partnering amplification. Clearly no-one told Kudos about common sense.

https://www.soundstagehifi.com/index.php/equipment-reviews/1634-psb-synchrony-b600-loudspeakers

Ideally, I wouldn’t have any preconceived notions about the outcome of these direct comparisons, but I can’t help it, I’m human. In this case, I knew going in that both of these competently designed speakers are engineered to sound neutral, following each company’s evolution of the NRC-derived frequency-response curve for in-room performance. So, did I hear similar tonality from top to bottom from both speakers? Yes, absolutely, with one key difference at the lowest reaches of the frequency spectrum—the PSBs easily outclassed the Revels in terms of bass extension, and also had slightly more impact and punch in the midbass region.

For example, when listening to Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me” through the PSBs, the first thing I noticed was the extra fullness in the bass, which gave more “feel” in the seat of my chair. Overall, the PSBs delivered a more satisfying listening experience. Please note that I consider the Revels to have good, solid bass for average-sized standmounted speakers—it’s just that the B600s are not simply good, but great in this regard. However, the rest of the frequency range was close to identical for both pairs of speakers, at least to my ears. The Revels might’ve exhibited a hair more sibilance than the PSBs on Raitt’s S sounds on the track, with the PSBs delivering a more relaxed sound, but it was close. Conversely, I think I heard more nuanced microdetail, or shimmer, as I like to call it, in the cymbal crashes through the Revels. But, honestly, I was splitting hairs—outside of the bass region, the two sets of speakers sounded very similar.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/psb-synchrony-t600-loudspeaker

This work by Latvian composer Eriks Ešenvalds features a solo cello and an off-stage viola. The cello represents the composer’s late grandmother, to whom the work is dedicated, and the viola her soul. The choir is presented as a halo around the cello and notes the dedicatee’s passing by singing “In Paradisum” from the Catholic Requiem Mass. Producer Erik Lichte and I had worked hard at the sessions and in mixing to achieve the appropriate ethereal texture in the sound of the singers. The choir did indeed sound ethereal with the PSBs, with good weight to the basses. Memory is a fickle witness, of course, but the viola didn’t sound as distant as it had been when I played this track on Jason Victor Serinus’s Wilson Alexia 2s or when I reviewed the Magico M2s I was using when I mastered the 24/96 files for the CD release. To put this comment into perspective, those speakers are much more expensive than the Synchrony T600: The Wilson costs $57,900/pair, the Magico $63,600/pair. (Returns may be diminishing, but that doesn’t mean they are not real.) Also, there was a little more soundstage depth with the USB/JitterBug-connected Ayre QB-9 Twenty than there had been with the network-connected MBL N31.

https://www.audiophilia.com/reviews/2021/10/18/nxcnsx8u0t6lc929c817vjasyy5g0c

Right away I knew I had a problem, the voluminous bass was overwhelming my modest listening room. It was troubleshooting time. So began a week of experimentation, first moving the speakers out significantly from the wall inch by inch (in the end I settled on 25 inches) and experimenting with various degrees of toe-in. I also experimented with the provided port plugs. Fully inserting the plugs seemed to make the speakers too anemic, inserting them about halfway was a much better compromise and will likely be the recommended route for anyone with a room smaller than mine, but I still favored the sound sans plugs, and changes in positioning helped balance things out. Image was the widest with no toe-in, but toeing the speakers in just a tad did help make the midrange more present. With the tricky positioning of this unique speaker mostly sorted, I sat down and did my best to analyze how these speakers portrayed music.

The PureAudioProject Duet 15 Prelude Loudspeakers

Toward the end of my audition time, I spent a spellbound evening glued to my seat listening to the Yes compilation, The Steven Wilson Remixes. Streaming beautifully from Qobuz via Roon Labs, every song had effortless dynamic impact and glorious 3D staging. The opus “Close to the Edge: The Solid Time of Change/Total Mass Retain/I Get Up I Get Down/Seasons of Man” was 18 minutes and 47 seconds of Prog Rock Heaven.

Yeah. Very good!

OB Wrap

Although Ze’ev Schlik says the Duet 15 Prelude could be a stepping stone, its performance in the Tune Saloon clearly demonstrated the Voxativ equipped Duet is anything but entry-level. It could certainly be an end-game for many. I’ll say this without hesitation: The Duet 15 Prelude is a first-rate loudspeaker that tickled every single personal sonic-fancy. I cannot imagine anyone with suitable equipment, and a properly sized listening space not enjoying it. As for me, I could live with this speaker, and be very happy.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/estelon-forza-loudspeaker

The 8″ aluminum sandwich midwoofer (also from Accuton’s “CELL” line) employs neodymium magnets, as does the 7″ CELL ceramic-membrane midrange driver. The tweeter is Accuton’s 1″, chemical-vapor–deposited inverted-diamond membrane tweeter. These three drivers are placed in a tight, vertical array with the lowest frequency driver near the baffle top and the tweeter in the lowest position, at ear height. The three upper drivers are positioned on the slightly concave baffle surface to produce distances from the listening position that are nearly identical. (One characteristic of the CELL series of drivers is that they all have the same acoustical center.)

Audiophiles critical of companies that don’t manufacture their own drivers might as well disparage automobile companies that don’t produce their own tires, which is all of them. It’s a silly distinction. You can argue for or against a company producing its own drivers or having a specialist like Accuton (parent company: Thiel & Partner) or Scan-Speak, for instance, manufacture them to its specifications, but overall, I think it’s a fatuous distinction (footnote 3).

Estelon does not provide the four-way design’s crossover frequencies, nor does it divulge the components used; what they do say is that the woofer networks are third-order while second-order networks are used for the midwoofer, midrange, and tweeter.