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Ultimately of course these are mini monitors to be placed on a desk or table, with miniature drivers in a tiny enclosure. They must have obvious limitations. So obviously there’s no real bass. Yet the outstanding coherence throughout the entire range has the higher harmonics suggest lower bass that’s not really there. You might be under the impression that everything is there but you need to appreciate that it’s only a psychoacoustic effect. Effective but faux.

When properly integrate, the higher harmonics create a kind of virtual bass. The brain in essence interpolates the missing fundamentals. That’s true here. Yet it doesn’t change the fact that only very little real bass is present. It gets obvious if we consider image size which is pretty scaled back. Not only are images defined by the distance between the speakers but also by the amplitude and power of the bass, particularly the upper bass. Here the Oslo does quite well, better than my son’s speakers but still not up to the level we know from more conventional monitors. One could increase the distance between the boxes or add a subwoofer.


USB to the Hegel HD2. Switching between analog and digital computer feeds is easy. All inputs of these active speakers are always live. Simply change the output in your chosen player software and music plays. I started with Ryuichi Sakamoto & David Sylvian's “World Citizen (I Won't Be Disappointed)” from Sylvian's Sleepwalkers album. The difference was clear and it would define how I perceived the Oslo. I found its resolution impressive; surprisingly impressive. The selectivity was very good but the resolution or ability to differentiate several elements connected with timbre, dynamics, texture and forth was truly fantastic.


The sound from the Hegel was a bit ‘lighter’ than that of my computer’s soundcard. When I switched to the outboard DAC it became clear that the lower audible register was not as pure or clear as before. One might think that such small speakers should not be able to show that since they can’t move sufficient air but against all odds these did show it. The resolution improved and the upper frequencies became sweeter, softer and airier. Sounds were even less ‘attached’ to the boxes and the images appeared closer to the listener. The change was easy to hear as though some kind of nervousness only noticed once gone had left.

To be perfectly clear, these are tiny speakers which can't deliver a large volume of sound. The sound seemed to come directly from my laptop's screen and that seems to be their designer’s intention. When playing an album with a lot of uncompressed bass like Hayden's, these mini boxes are not capable of delivering high dynamic peaks. Where bass was compressed however, say in Katarzyna Nosowska's Kto? (16/44.1), Pink Floyd or Depeche Mode recordings (24/44.1) these did just fine. Even if that is somewhat counter-intuitive, there’s at least some logic behind it.


Analog output from a HifiMan HM-801. Finally I returned to a direct analog feed but now by way of a portable player. I’ve used HifiMan’s for a while and it’s the best I know. It's large and not very user-friendly but offers remarkable sound. The manufacturer already works on the new HM-901 version but it isn’t available yet. I started this session with Dream Theater's On The Back Of Angels (24/44.1). The presentation was large in scale with very good selectivity and dynamics. Everything seemed bigger and closer than when played from computer either via soundcard output or by USB. This reading really was very dynamic and energetic. I can't say that the speakers completely disappeared from the mental equation as there was a midbass coloration which was slightly homogeneous and bit boxy as a result of how the down-ported boxes interacted with the desktop. Using some rigid stands improved that aspect significantly whilst at the same time utterly ruining the look and style of the system.

With both Dream Theater and Yello from Pocket Universe the aural space was huge, rich and continuous. That’s probably the key reason why one could or actually should buy these speakers for a computer or small system. I've never heard anything like it from desktop speakers and never expected that it’d be even possible. Since resolution is so outstanding and differentiation surprisingly good, this most remarkable soundstaging is actually a bonus. At the same time it's something most our audiophile friends can only dream of with their ‘serious’ rigs.


Summary. When I learnt about these Ancient Audio speakers I was truly surprised. They did not fit the profile of the manufacturer I’ve know for his high-end products. After my review I think I finally understand why Jarek designed these. Visiting many studios and listening to the desktop systems of friends and audiophile customers, he simply couldn't stand what he heard. Plus there was some money to be made. A man has to eat after all.