Loudspeakers

Sort By:  Post Date TitlePublish Date
Review: David Price, Lab: Keith Howard  |  Mar 21, 2019
hfncommendedWith its unique Manger Sound Transducer full-range driver, this high-end floorstander is as unconventional as it looks

It is refreshing to see that there's still a place for purple prose in press releases. While so many documents describing new products are rather dry, German company Manger does things differently. It talks about its 'technological masterpiece' opening up 'a new horizon' and of 'goose bumps' triggering emotions and 'touching the heart'. Such flowery fluff might sail over the heads of hardened hi-fi hacks, but it's hardly necessary because the £11,429 P2 needs no hype at all. In practice, it's an intriguing, thought-provoking design featuring transducer technology that's far from run-of-the-mill.

Review: Ken Kessler, Lab: Keith Howard  |  Mar 21, 2019
hfnoutstandingAn audio fantasy realised: the return of a bona fide, BBC-approved LS3/5a to match the original – Falcon Acoustics applies provenance and purism to the project

Handing me a pair of 'new' LS3/5as always elicits mixed feelings. Part of me wants the speaker back in production so badly that I tend to go soft on the latest contender. My dark side says it's impossible without KEF drivers, but that was to overlook Falcon Acoustics' pedigree. This brand offers kits and drivers plus the reincarnated LS3/5a we have here, selling for £2350-£2500 per pair depending on finish. It also has a secret weapon in its gene pool: Malcolm Jones.

Review: Andrew Everard, Lab: Keith Howard  |  Mar 19, 2019
hfnoutstandingWith its D series, Wharfedale yet again aims to redefine the art of the possible in budget loudspeaker design

There's something very special about a bargain hi-fi product able to defy expectations with a surprising level of performance. It stood the original Wharfedale Diamond speakers in good stead in the early 1980s, and continues to be a hallmark of the range to this day, in the Diamond 11 series [HFN Dec '17]. So it's intriguing to see the company launch another budget speaker series to run alongside the Diamond 11s, in the form of the D300 lineup.

Review: James Parker, Lab: Keith Howard  |  Dec 01, 2018
hfnoutstanding.pngKEF says 1000+ changes have gone into its new R Series, so how does this translate to the only standmount loudspeaker in the lineup? We listen to what the R3 has to say...

Who needs shifts in the weather when you can judge the time of year by hi-fi launches? Those of us who exist in the twilight world of hi-fi reviewing, and are strangers to Vitamin D, didn't need a chill in the air and the first signs of yellowed leaves swirling around to know it was autumn – instead, a flurry of press releases announced new or revamped speaker ranges, as the big names prepared for another season of long evenings and hunkered-down listening.

Review: Andrew Everard, Lab: Keith Howard  |  Dec 01, 2018
hfnedchoice.pngThe latest Utopia flagship has improved drivers and cabinets – does the sound match its impressive presence?

When it comes to the description of products – and not just in hi-fi – one word has become so ubiquitous that it no longer has much meaning: that word is 'iconic'. Yet Focal has dodged that particular bullet by describing its new Grande Utopia EM Evo – all 265kg, two metres and £160k-a-pair of it – and its smaller stablemate, the Stella Utopia EM Evo, as 'the most emblematic high-fidelity loudspeakers of all its collections'.

Review: David Price, Lab: Keith Howard  |  Dec 01, 2018
hfnoutstanding.pngNow classier looking and sounding, it's out with the old and in with the new for B&W's latest budget floorstander

'Things can only get better' is a mantra beloved of marketing men and women, and why not? There's an implicit notion that technological progress means everything is automatically moving forward – and those who disagree must be some kind of latter-day Luddite. They're pushing at an open door, because when people treat themselves to something shiny and new, most have already bought into the idea that it is superior to what came before.

Review: Ken Kessler, Lab: Keith Howard  |  Nov 01, 2018
hfnoutstanding.pngWith the minuscule TuneTot, Wilson Audio returns to the speaker format that established the brand's appeal beyond the massive WAMM: the small true monitor

There is an inescapable poignancy permeating Wilson Audio's latest speaker, the TuneTot. According to Daryl Wilson, now responsible for design with the passing of his father this year, 'The TuneTot was the last product in development that Dad listened to in the R&D department and he loved it. There is a pair of TuneTots in my parents' bedroom and my Mom listens to them every day'.

Review: David Price, Lab: Keith Howard  |  Oct 01, 2018
hfnvintage.pngIt was an audacious design from a company with no prior reputation for making serious loudspeakers, yet it soon became a landmark product. How does it shape up today?

There's no such thing as the perfect loudspeaker, nor is there ever likely to be one. Most manufacturers don't even try – theirs is a volume business where the trick is to produce a good-sounding product at an affordable price. There's nothing wrong with this, as perfection can often be the enemy of the good. Yet sometimes hi-fi companies do reach for the stars, and attempt to come up with an innovative, no-holds-barred design.

Review: David Price, Review and Lab: Keith Howard  |  Sep 01, 2018
hfnoutstanding.pngIf you've admired Vivid Audio's design philosophy but baulked at its styling, the new Kaya range is for you

Audiophiles can be a conservative bunch. Me, I sometimes feel that if I ever see another wood veneered box loudspeaker I'll attack it with a chainsaw but others of you, I know, prefer the old aesthetic, or at least a modern take on it, to curved, organic cabinet forms – especially if painted in primary colours. For a company like Vivid Audio, which appreciates and exploits the benefits of curved cabinets in respect of structural stiffness and clean diffraction behaviour, this is a problem.

Review: David Price, Review and Lab: Keith Howard  |  Aug 01, 2018
hfnoutstanding.pngIf the BeoLab 90 wowed you with its tech but daunted you with its size and price, here’s a pint-sized alternative

Kii Audio’s THREE is an exemplar of what can be achieved when the hi-fi industry’s, and hi-fi buyers’, lingering obsession with passive loudspeakers is set aside and a 21st century approach – active operation in conjunction with digital signal processing (DSP) – is adopted instead. In short order we’ve experienced the B&O BeoLab 90 [HFN Dec ’16], the KEF LS50 Wireless [HFN Oct ’17] and now the Kii (pronounced ‘key’) THREE.

Review: David Price, Lab: Keith Howard  |  Jul 01, 2018
hfnoutstanding.pngWith a coincident driver array and interport-coupled cavity bass, meet the company’s most radical floorstander in years

Out with the old and in with the new. ELAC is a German loudspeaker company of quite some repute and a great many years’ standing. Yet major changes have been afoot at the company, with its new VP of Engineering, Andrew Jones, indelibly stamping himself on the brand’s products. A former KEF man – there in what were arguably the company’s harvest years with Laurie Fincham, in the late 1980s – he went on to put Pioneer’s luxury brand TAD on the map with some great soundinghigh-end loudspeakers [HFN Jan ’15].

Review: James Parker, Lab: Keith Howard  |  Jul 01, 2018
hfncommended.pngAnd then there were three: Neat's little Iota range is all grown up with the arrival of the Xplorer model

One of the best sounds at Bristol's Sound & Vision Show [HFN Apr '18] came not from a gazillion-pound set-up, but the latest arrivals from Neat Acoustics, driven by modest amplification, in a small room that just made you want to stay and listen some more. The Iota Xplorers are the new model in a range that began with the tiny original Iotas some seven years ago, and while they draw on the same principles, the newcomers are very decidedly grown-up despite standing just 780mm tall on their polished conical spikes.

Review: David Price, Lab: Keith Howard  |  May 01, 2018
hfnvintage.pngWelcomed with open arms by those seeking a quality speaker for use in a tight space, the Diamond created the market for affordable mini monitors. How will it sound today?

Loudspeakers are surely the most fashion-conscious segment of the hi-fi market. There are Japanese amplifiers on sale today that look little different to their predecessors being sold in the late '70s. Yet the same 'period look' can hardly be said to be popular when it comes to speakers.

Review: David Price, Lab: Keith Howard  |  May 01, 2018
hfncommended.pngWith its lustrous-looking swooping cabinet, exotic drivers and colossal price tag, this is a seriously special speaker

When you're designing a loudspeaker that sells upwards of £38,000, depending on finish, you can pretty much do what you like. Brands selling sub-thousand pound floorstanders have a super-keen eye on what their competitors are doing, and what the market wants. By the time you reach the Raidho Acoustics D-2.1's level, however, you're in a whole new world – it's where designers spread their wings and fly.

Review: Nick Tate, Lab: Keith Howard  |  May 01, 2018
hfncommended.pngWith a legacy stretching back about 28 years, the 805 may still be the pint-pot of B&W’s 800-series but this latest D3 standmount can still pack a musical punch

One of the world’s largest, if not the largest, loudspeaker brands, B&W dominates the global high-end market. From the launch of the iconic 801 Series 80 nearly 40 years ago, the 800-series has been periodically improved along with advances in engineering and materials.

Pages

X