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Perhaps most relevant when viewed against Thomas Blumenhofer's pro background is how the Big Fun 20 treats attacks - softly. It makes for a laid-back cozy sound. Meanwhile most hifi readers flash on a bright, hard and loud sound whenever Public Address systems are mentioned. Add horns and presumptions could spiral out to include ultra fast, ultra dynamic and incisive bite, perhaps even steeliness. How audiophiles regard older consumer-grade Klipsch speakers might serve as the archetype.


But nothing could be farther from the BF20 sound. Neither the maker's pro-sound history nor the speaker's horn concept play to such generalized if rash assumptions. The only visual that sonically translates is what a larger woofer used for midrange duties might predict. Instead of pushing brilliance and exactitude, one gets a bigger, warmer sound. It's geared more for comfort than speed. If that had been your assumption just looking, it bears out.
In the usual sense, the adjustable physical time alignment does not. Unlike most designers who even bother with so-called phase coherence -- and most of them don't include adjustable modules -- this Blumenhofer model shuns the customary 6dB/octave crossover. As mentioned, it favors a 3rd-order acoustical slope. This could tie to an observation I couldn't shake, particularly as long as my ears were still aligned to my 1st-order ASI Tango R or Zu Essence speakers. I struggled with a lack of perkiness and speed. Transients like Sukhvinder Singh's tabla on Ry Cooder's A Meeting by the River [Water Lily Acoustics 29] lacked in beat crispness. Mohan Bhatt's Indian slide guitar plucks were diminished in their crystallized bell-like rises in space. Everything was a bit softer and less distinct than I'm accustomed to. In short, I felt a few hairs short of cross-hair focus.

The speaker's softness wasn't to be shifted by ancillaries. Instinct might reach for wide-bandwidth transistors for leaner faster reflexes. One might gravitate to high power for more control if that culprit were suspected. It's after exhausting amplification options without a fundamental personality shift -- in my case the ModWright KWA-150, FirstWatt F5, AudioSector Patek SE, KR Audio 'Baby Kronzilla', Yamamoto A-09S and Ancient Audio Single Six monos -- that the time domain might suggest itself to those who did not suspect it sooner.

On that controversial subject, think me fully converted but libertine. From my first used pair of Vandy 2ces to the Meadowlark Shearwater HotRod, the Gallo Acoustics Reference 3.1, the various Zus, Rethm Saadhana and now ASI Tango R, I've mostly owned and loved minimum phase designs. Roy Johnson's Green Mountain Audio designs too fall into this category. They would be top personal targets if I needed another pair of dynamic speakers. But I'm also somewhat of a libertine because my older Avantgarde Duos weren't part of that school and the DeVore Fidelity Nines' crossover remains undisclosed. Very likely, theirs isn't a conventional 1st-order filter. Yet they don't sound off to me in beat fidelity so I can't be too religious about that whole 1st-order business. While my personal history shows a very clear bias, I wouldn't deny a speaker on principle just because it didn't conform. Of course this springs a trap for blaming steeper filter choices if one didn't warm to a speaker. So it's important to be careful. Preconceptions should not get in the way*.

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* The way I try to reconcile this is hierarchical. Certain more fundamental speaker basics need to be in place before the time domain asserts itself meaningfully. A crossover-less speaker could be so screechy and bass shy and generally ragged that its impulse fidelity is completely overshadowed by tonal balance errors and obvious response nonlinearities. But when the basics are in place, time domain improvements become viable.


I'll wrap this section by saying that I think it's time domain errors why clicks and clacks and plucks and noises here lack their innate charge; why everything seems subliminally packed in cotton and why the jump factor feels suppressed. Shifts in tonal balance, harmonic emphasis and even subjective transient speed by way of different amplifiers didn't touch this. Yet as soon as I returned to the leaner, far more transparent Tangos or the weightier denser Zus, that focus I was chasing instantly reset and percussive noises once again had that suchness I key into*.
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* It's important also to admit that Vandersteens, Thiels and Green Mountain Audio speakers all sound quite different from one another yet adhere to the same overall 1st-order concept. More current models perhaps excepted, the Vandersteens I owned were, just like the Blumenhofers, far more comfort oriented than the very precise and accurate GMAs I reviewed later. Phase coherence and subjective exactitude thus needn't be synonymous and a speaker can sound more laid back and cozy while still implementing time coherence.

Assessing Big Fun outside direct comparisons, there remains a particular hollowness (a kind of ringing or resonance) that occurs right in the presence region, i.e. inside the crossover window. It's most apparent on vocals. As you stand up, sit down and move your head up and down the vertical axis, its apparentness changes. But it's there. If you're sensitive to it, you'll wish for Windex to wipe down that fuzzy spot on the window. This covers the sonic particulars of this Blumenhofer model. How one responds depends on what one listens for. That's of course already the audiophile disease in action. It no longer listens to the music but instead, for specific sound effects.


While still in that frame of mind, I already mentioned how this speaker starting at €15.5K doesn't do 20/20. Below 40Hz, amplitude weakens. The $5,000/pr Zu Essence actually lasts a bit longer and with more weighty articulation. The aforementioned transient softness of the Blumenhofer operates equally into the lower reaches to be a coherent feature. Unlike hybrid design that marry different technologies to often suffer discontinuities of character, the Big Fun 20 is the same no matter where you take its measure.


In keeping with its name perhaps, the Big Fun 20 isn't about audiophilia nor its obsession with dissection and analysis. The overall level of resolution seems to have been deliberately toned down, the aforementioned focus softened to not emphasize the tendencies for separating out the whole into all of its ingredients. The upshot -- and now we segue neatly back to the beginning -- is that this speaker is custom-made for music not that well recorded. This covers much Pop and Rock and Punk and Dance. That's precisely the kind of thing one imagines Thomas Blumenhofer experienced live on location for so many years.
If you're into 'real' music like they play in your downtown clubs and not the old-fogey stuff whereby aging reviewers are often accused to miss the boat, the Big Fun 20 is perfect to get down and dirty with, not nasty and tiresome. That custom 8-incher sports a very stiff cone. Thomas brought a raw sample without attached spider, voice coil, dust cover or surround to make the point. It clearly goes very loud without losing its lunch and can't ever veer into metallic breakups by design. Nor is there a port to go huffing and chuffing. The tweeter is hornloaded to minimize excursion requirements. All these are preparations for SPL stability and an open invitation to rock out.
For this type of popular rather than audiophile-approved music, it's not infrasonics which matter. It's the 40-80Hz octave where the serious
action occurs and which the Big Fun 20 has fully in its grip. Its gentle voicing will mellow Cyborg bass beats to sound less artificial. It won't shriek when the first e-guitar goes into massive overdrive distortion. Its toned-down attack sharpness will retain a modicum of naturalness even with robotic beats. It'll be a heckuva lot more fun than doing the deed with a ceramic blisterizer. That I believe is the project brief and raison d'être for this speaker.


Unless you have front-row season tickets to the symphony for 'nearer'-field transient sharpness, the Fun's somewhat remote voicing also fully applies to large-scale classical. When you compare live to playback sound -- the latter invariably compressed dynamically -- the audiophile attempt to simulate a visual facsimile in full 3D is very artificial. Perhaps because Thomas Blumenhofer knows this better than most, his speaker doesn't bother. Just think how the hyper resolution possible at home relies in no small part on the very low ambient noise we can manage. Compare that to the constant background din of a club or piano bar, never mind a rock concert. At home we're listening in an idealized bubble. Live sound is softer, rounder, more ambiguous than locked and far louder. If you nod in agreement, Blumenhofer's Big Fun 20 is one speaker that's got you squarely covered.


Tipping the scale
At €15.500/pr, Blumenhofer's Big Fun 20 doesn't lack for competitors. Most of those are toned and honed for greater reflexes and more chiseled physiques. Besides looking more a handcrafter's creation than big corporate, this speaker also sonically steps out of the mold to pursue something a bit more old-timey. It's a big friendly sound that goes loud without pain and seems tailor-made for Rockers young and old. Career audiophiles will want for more separation and resolution, Naimies for more acute PRaT. The Blumenhofer credo is about relaxation and bigger gestures. There are parallels to the Zu and WLM sound but both the Americans and Austrians pursue higher detail magnification, speed and incisive timing. Yet all three share an obvious aversion to the skinny modern hifi sound still en vogue today.

When Thomas Blumenhofer's site talks about the natural sound, he means something more amorphous, warmer and rounder. It's not about extreme holography or ribbon tweeter airs. It's not about sealed-box machine gun bass nor 3-inch midrange speed. It's about live sound eight to ten meters from the stage. Just because most audiophiles no longer reference reality does not mean Blumenhofer got it wrong. It simply means that not everyone will agree with him. Yet before one argues with a man who did live sound for a living for 30 long years, it might behoove us to refresh our memories. Still we might prefer to tailor our playback experience differently - it's ours after all to do as we see fit. It's simply also good to know just how we deliberately diverge because we mean to improve reality.


Blumenhofer does not. That puts him outside the mainstream, definitely. Whether that's a recipe for success remains to be seen. That those disillusioned by the mainstream just had an option added is clear already. Real, not copy-cat options are always good to have. Now put Blumenhofer Acoustics on that rather short list...

Quality of packing: Stout.
Reusability of packing: Multiple times.
Ease of unpacking/repacking: No particular issues.
Condition of component received: Perfect but veneer irregularities are to be expected and present.
Completeness of delivery: No issue.
Website comments: The Fun Series remains to be added.
Global distribution: Expanding. Inquire with maker
Human interactions: Responsive.
Pricing: On the high side.
Final comments & suggestions: Not completely full range in the bass, capable of very high levels without compression, medium resolution design. High-gloss lacquer options. As an experienced one-up guy, Thomas Blumenhofer remains exceptionally approachable on custom alterations or outright commissions. Tube electronics to come.
Blumenhofer Acoustics website