LATEST ADDITIONS

Following the success of its keenly-priced Studio 1 models, JBL ups the ante with a no less distinctive Studio 5 range The company’s marketing philosophy is pretty simple: if you’ve got it, flaunt it, ‘it’ being JBL’s long and distinguished history in professional audio. Think PA speakers and you’ll probably envisage direct radiating bass drivers coupled with hornloaded midrange and treble units – exactly the image JBL wishes you to have and echoes in many of its domestic speakers which, fl ying in the face of fashion, continue to feature horns. Cue the new Studio 580, middle of the company’s new Studio 5 range which looks to build on the reception accorded JBL’s lesser Studio 1 series, which included bagging the recent EISA European Loudspeaker 2011-2012 Award for the high-value Studio 190 [see HFN Oct ’11, page 11]. Compared to the 190 [HFN May ’11] the costlier 580 might appear to be a retrograde step.

What follows 'The Sonus faber'? A second revision of the Guarneri, the company's best-selling high-end loudspeaker Homage and Memento owners may argue that it didn’t need it, but Sonus faber’s Guarneri is enjoying its second makeover. The world’s prettiest high-end compact speaker has been ‘pimped’ with shiny metal hardware for the back edges and the top plate, the fi nishes have changed, the innards are new. So what remains of the earlier versions’ grace and panache? The Evolution is slightly larger than the Memento at 410x235x412mm versus 380x210x390mm (hwd). Its dedicated pillar, however, has been reduced in height from the earlier 895mm to 795mm.

This slimline floorstander features some unusual unusual driver materials Awarded EISA Loudspeaker of 2010-11 [see HFN, ’Oct 10], the latest version of Dali’s Ikon 6 may be relatively easy on the wallet, but you wouldn’t believe it to look at it. OK, it has a vinyl finish (this comes in a choice of black, light walnut or white) rather than a proper wood veneer. But most customers will surely consider that to be a fair exchange for what is a large cabinet at 1028mm tall, equipped with twin 6. 5in reflex-loaded bass-mid drivers – the lower of which is rolled off gently above 700Hz – and Dali’s trademark twin-tweeter module.

The Q3 employs superb engineering to great effect There’s no magical mystery about Magico’s Q3. It simply represents a rootand- branch engineering re-think of the ‘art’ of loudspeaker design, from the bolts that hold the cabinet together to the bespoke ‘Nano-Tec’ drivers and beryllium dome tweeter. But it’s not some daft ‘concept speaker’, where form overrides function. Nor is there anything especially touchy-feely about the huge black slabs of aluminium that clad the outside of the layered cabinet or the 287 steel bolts that bind this composite and its internal alloy matrix together.