Audiophilepure

General impressions of the Tonda D show the speakers to have notably excellent imaging, resolution, detail retrieval, transient behavior, dynamic contrasts, and undiminished energy as one goes higher in the frequency range. The sound is smack dab in the middle area of balanced playback, with an ever-so-slight tilt towards the cool side of neutral in my particular setup. Much of that ever-so-slight tilt can be attributed to my personal preference for a smidge more lower midrange fullness, and because my listening room refuses to overload with bass (a good thing, IMO), where a smaller and more enclosed space would fill that particular cup a bit more completely. None of these preferences detracted from my enjoyment of the Tonda Ds’ excellent performance during their time here.

The midrange driver in the Plural Evo is used as a “widebander” and operates over a frequency range from roughly 90 to 7500 Hz. In short, the midrange driver is asked to do a lot. Low octaves in the Plural Evos are handled by two 11-inch drivers. “The woofer gives weight to the bass and helps to match the speaker to the size of the room,” said Michael. “There’s no compromise and the Plural Evos can play all types of music and capture a wide range of volumes from orchestra to small scale ensemble. All of this distortion free,” he emphasized.

The woofer in the Plural Evos, unlike the Klassik Series speakers, is open to the floor. “This arrangement,” said Michael, “helps the speaker better integrate into smaller rooms and allows them to be placed closer to walls.” Note that the speakers come “left” and “right” and should be placed so the vent at the bottom is placed to the inside, not outside of each speaker. Everything matters and Plural Evo owners are provided with two pair of rectangular foam pieces, one a little wider than the other, to help tune the speaker to the room. “The narrower piece,” Michael explained, “gives a more precise sound vs the wider piece that give a fuller sound.” For instance, the narrower foam in my room resulted in a more two-dimensional, flatter and compressed sound relative to the wider piece of foam. (But as Gideon pointed out, the narrower piece of foam might be the better choice in a larger room.) Inserting the wider piece of foam all the way into the slot on the bottom of the speaker reduced the bass output and lead to a loss of detail; by contrast, pulling the wider piece of foam as far out as possible produced a more detailed yet less “breathable” sound. So, the final position in my listening room was somewhere between the two extremes.

10 years later, Bowers & Wilkins introduced the diamond series, dropping the N prefix and adding a D appendix to the model number. Oh boy, I still couldn’t really afford them, but just like before, the 802 model had me totally in awe. Hobo Hifi again kindly agreed to a home demo (thanks Hans-Peter Rietveld!) and this marked my first experience with the 802D. Oh, yes, this was something else! As good as the N804’s were, the 802D’s outperformed them in many aspects such as soundstage depth and layering, focus and precision, and mostly, treble refinement and air. While many people were imagining a diamond to sound hard and perhaps edgy, the 802D’s tweeter actually delivered smooth, refined, and liquid treble. Actually, the 802D’s treble performance was so remarkable that my good friend JW, a die-hard ribbon-lover, was impressed.