Audiophilepure

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“The Prime Pinnacles managed to keep all of the various aural events clear and distinct even during a complex action scene. The sound never became confused or muddled, and dialogue was clear and succinct always. I always caught the one-liners, even if I didn’t think they were all funny. Some bombed jokes aside, I enjoyed ‘Thor: Ragnarok,’ and the Prime Pinnacle speakers turned out to be an excellent platform to reproduce this epic soundtrack.”

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“Once you start listening to really big recordings, from the largest orchestral or choral works to the most extravagant soundtracks, the Kodo system’s characteristics really start to emerge, along with the way they shape the overall character of the sound. That planted sense of musical authority and absolute stability is key, but so too are other aspects of the performance. I’ve already talked about the natural perspective and dimensionality that the Gryphon speakers bring to the soundstage, a soundstage that can extend well beyond the width of the cabinets when called upon to do so, and is both beyond and utterly divorced from them. The Kodo towers stand as if mute and immobile, the music occurring in the space beyond them, but that very separation of speakers and sound imposes its own character on proceedings. Listen across a range of material and it soon becomes apparent that there’s a pervasive warmth to the Kodo’s acoustic that invests it with an inclusive sense of presence but also limits its internal spatial separation. While the stage is wide and deep, and it possesses both a tremendous sense of air and a firmly defined height for the band within it, the warmer balance and the overall perspective are both consistent with a midhall listening position — and a midhall position that’s more Disney or Musikverein than the more structured delineation of Davies or London’s Festival Hall.”

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“Grippy and with the kind of authority and punch you’d expect in high-quality floorstanders, it’s the ideal backdrop to the artful lead guitar and vocal detail every time Simon and his backing singers kick in. Each movement of his fingers up and down the fretboard, each sound as he changes chords takes you right into the studio.

There’s an even tonal balance as the song skips from gentle verse to upbeat chorus. With little audible sound from the speaker cabinets, there’s incredible clarity to the notes and a transparency that quickly makes us fussy about the quality of what we choose to listen to, with the 24-bit/96Khz wireless transmission more than enough to deliver the goods.”

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“Where the Kanta No1s came up short was put in bold relief when I compared them with GoldenEar Technology’s super-large Triton One.R floorstanders ($5999.98/pair), which were in my room because I was reviewing them at about the same time. I played Bublé! again. Even driven by the powerhouse Revelation Taurus Monos, the Focals couldn’t come close to the bass depth and power of the Triton One.Rs. No surprise there — built into each One.R is a 1600W amplifier that drives the speaker’s three woofers, assisted by four passive radiators. This results in bass that extends with power down to 20Hz, the very bottom of the audioband. The Kanta No1, tiny by comparison, stops at 40Hz, a full octave above that, and with a bit of a whimper. And when I drove the Focals from the 8 or 4-ohm taps of the JE Audio VM60s, the bass got a touch lighter. That told me that most people will likely be best served by the No1s if they drive them with a powerful amplifier — probably a solid-state model that can put out at least 100Wpc into 8 ohms, and handle an impedance that drops below 4 ohms without blinking.

But above the deep bass, with either the Revelation Taurus Monos or the VM60s, the Kanta No1s charged ahead of the Triton One.Rs by sounding a little more open, more free of their enclosures. The No1s also sounded a touch cleaner in the midrange and highs, which I particularly noticed with the Carpenters’ With the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (24/48 FLAC unfolded to 24/96 MQA, A&M/Tidal). The plucked guitar notes that begin “For All We Know” sprang more freely and cleanly from the No1s than from the Triton One.Rs — but it was the voice of Karen Carpenter, who enters at 0:38, that sealed the deal: its tightly focused aural image at the frontmost part of the stage sounded slightly clearer and more open through the Kanta No1s.”