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Arrival. My FirstWatt SIT1 generated all the SPL I could possibly stomach. This confirmed Gediminas' happy results with my old Yamamoto A-09S. That said, the speakers' low end was... well, XXL and definitely a size too large for my room. A reach into the kitchen cupboard for nicely plush Ikea dish towels netted four tightly folded tightly screwed-in port plugs. Voilà. Boom banished, tonal balance restored. Then synchronicity. John Young's 400-watt Acoustic Imagery Atsah monos showed up running Bruno Putzeys' latest Ncore 1200 modules. Measured directly at the terminals, those sport output impedance of 1.3mΩ from 20Hz to 17kHz and only 3mΩ at 20kHz - "lower than the resistance of three feet of 4-gauge speaker cable". Now the towels went back into the cupboard. Bass extension over the semi-sealed alignment dropped, damping control stayed put. Something for nuttin'. Well, not exactly nothing. These monos do demand $9.000/pr but the amps replaced were $10.000/pr so no complaints. The real point was, low amplifier output impedance would seem a must for the Rhapsody 200. Only that will properly harness its true potential and prevent well-tuned very extended powerful bass from degenerating into something one would only politely call copious or bloomy.
This one paragraph skipped over any number of ancillary experiments to deposit us directly at the golden combination. This included another late arrival, the Asus Xonar Essence One Muses Edition DAC/pre with twin BB1795 converters, integer/direct-happy C-Media 24/192 async USB transceiver, deluxe ICs, analog volume control and balanced outputs driving the Atsah monos direct. Bypassing any of my four preamps generated the highest in-room presence and quicksilvery energy. This simple system of iMac, Audirvana 1.3.9.9 in integer/direct mode at 176.4kHz upsampling, balanced DAC and balanced class D monos played at the same elevated level as my usual €20.000 Aries Cerat Gladius driven from the SIT1 fronted by the ModWright LS-100 preamp and NWO-M.

The ported twin-woofer bigger Lithuanian speaker was inherently warmer and more redolent and on top not as exploded as the Raal ribbon of the sealed smaller Cypriots. To morph its sound into my personal Aha! mold, the Asus DAC—more incisive, angular and leaner than my Eximus DP1—became the final tweak.

Was that sound now a size or two too ambitious for the Rhapsody 200's sticker? Given personal familiarity from 10+ years of reviews and plenty of international show exposure, yes! This wasn't just an impressively built well-weaponized very fairly priced speaker thrown together with some clever software program paint-by-numbers style. This was quite the sonic overachiever designed by someone who'd already cut his teeth and apparently applied high sonic standards.

Let's backtrack for a moment. In my book the core hifi equation remains the seemingly contrarious attempt of loading up the scale's two halves called resolution and warmth while keeping the needle solidly centered. In the most basic terms, greater resolution tends to go leaner and whiter, beefing up body fatter and blacker. How to stay in the middle but move upward rather than stay level is the whole journey. That's it; or at least how I see it. All the various performance attributes pool into this basic dichotomy. Once a baseline has established a personal center to be recognized—this depends on your preference of virtual seating position relative to near/farfield attributes— fascination with extremes cools. Now hard-won progress is about loading up the scale on both ends.
Take piano, the king of instruments. We want the right balance of soundboard and wooden corpus resonance versus metallic hammer falls. The various microphone positions of our recordings shift this as do specific instruments. Even so the essential dance is between bite and buoyancy, close-mic'd percussive string action and energizing of the ambient field captured from farther away. Hifi systems must track both simultaneously. With the Rhapsody's paper drivers and generous air volume behind them I wanted to veer a bit deeper into leading-edge impulsiveness. The DAC swap took care of that. To bleed out a remnant of bass heaviness after high amplifier damping had solved the earlier issue—the more endowed AudioSolutions clearly exceed what my usual speakers do which I find more ideal for the room—meant preamp elimination. This reduced amplitude to get me into the usual ballpark yet maintained superior extension and impact. And because Gediminas' clever driver choices produce excellent tone without textural assist from line-level valves, DAC direct really was the ticket. Everything fell in line with what I consider right.
 

The only real tit for tat I'd booked was a reversal in the extremes. My striped Gladius boxes have the airier more lit-up top end. The faceted Rhapsody moved more air in the bassment. Another small difference 'close to center' was the greater air movement in the midband, this compliments of Gediminas' twinned midranges. It produced even greater image density or corporeality.


Based on the ancillary adjustments I'd made, I would paint the Rhapsody 200's core character as warm, generous, woody and slightly redolent, i.e. quite in the traditional Sonus faber vein albeit with enhanced resolution. How to downplay these traits towards a drier more damped sound (if desired) I've hinted at.


On the dolce vita end of things, was it coincidence that Enrico Fiore's press release for the Italians' new Venere range had the Model 2.5 look similar to Gediminas' smaller Rhapsody 130? Was it coincidence that AudioSolutions went leatherette for the baffles? I've not heard the new Venere line to know how much visual semblance translates to sonic overlap. I've heard numerous older Sonus fabers to feel comfortable with the tie-in.


The nutshell paragraphs. With true statement transistor amps of Ncore 1200 caliber, this tonally generous rich and fluidic rather than prickly speaker is ideally controlled. The belt tightens a notch, resolving power maximizes. What remains is a very solid yet fully illuminated wall-of-sound panorama. There's no image stickum despite the coffin-sized boxes. There are responsive dynamics with intense communicativeness. Attacks peel out properly from surrounding sustains and the well-publicized virtues of paper drivers and silk domes translate as expected. Bass power on drum-roll crescendos is locomotive with true shove. Dynamic scaling is excellent. Everything goes louder and more massive in tandem, not disparate chunks. Despite a lyrical name, the Rhapsody 200 is one seriously rev-happy high-output mutha. For rooms of the common 16' x 20' or 5m x 7m denomination, it's in fact more horsepower and cubic inches than called for. Here the smaller €4.440/pr Rhapsody 130 should be perfectly adequate. It's likely the hottest buy of the line [review forthcoming].


Another mondo forté is tone. This box with the rakish top sports a built-in 6550 emulator which a good transistor amp will activate without any glowing bits in the signal path. Color saturation and peanut butter chewiness return us to the Sonus faber legacy. The core difference is the more American than European bass balance. Add rock-factor displacement power which never gets screamy and presto: AudioSolutions' flagship at well under ten G. It's an exciting time to be an adventurous pan-global shopper with these exact priorities on the want list and sufficient real estate to allow these towers free run on the have list. A most excellent find. Be warned then of delivery day. There'll be two giantific crates facing you each big enough to contain a couple in flagrante delicto. How's that for the perfect note to go out with? Delicious crime in progress. Find your power drill and start getting unscrewed. Get ye down!
AudioSolutions responds:
Thank you for the review. As you noticed, these speakers need good control. That's because Qms—mechanical damping—is reduced for better response and dynamics. Valve amps can get these speakers to boom but this could be solved by placing the speakers nearer the wall, about 20-30cm. Of course one can't get perfect results this way but it should improve things a bit.
Gediminas Gaidelis
Quality of packing: Massive wooden crates with lined MDF end caps. Bomb proof. Must be disassembled completely to get at the goods but makes flat-pack storage easy. Power drill mandatory to remove an army of long screws.
Reusability of packing: Indefinitely.
Ease of unpacking/repacking: Easy but size and weight make second person nearly mandatory.
Condition of component received: Flawless.
Completeness of delivery: Perfect. Includes separate plinths which mount with just four bolts; and very long spike footers to create the intended degree of rake and driver alignment.
Human interactions: Very responsive.
Pricing: Excellent value.
Final comments & suggestions: Potent ported bass alignment prefers high damping factors. Not a speaker for small spaces.

AudioSolutions website