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Interlude. Let's revisit Wei's earlier explanation. "Sopranino's main purpose is to compensate for frequently diluted HF energy content above generally 10kHz. No matter what technology existing tweeters exploit, above 10kHz their directivity gets narrow and their output weak." Measured 1m on-axis, that's mostly not the case but once placed into 'free space' in a normal room, the power response—the totality of sound radiated into a given space—tends to drop to be far from constant. In that context you might have already wondered about big speakers. Just how is a 1" dome tweeter supposed to keep up with twinned midrange drivers and four paralleled woofers on displaced air? Particularly for dome tweeters whose output Wei suggests dwindles too much before ever reaching our ears relative to longer wavelengths and their omnipolar radiation, Sopranino's far greater added surface area and output propose to redress that balance.
 
But what happens to HF in real life? Have you heard a marching band approach your crib from way down the street? Then you know well enough how tonal balance shifts with distance. At first all you hear are the drums and tubas. The band has to march a lot closer before the midband fills in and closer still before the treble arrives in full. Doesn't that imply that the Sopranino concept goes against the natural order of things particularly when average speaker distances to the listener are within 3 meters rather than half a city block or the many rows of seats one hits in a venue unless sitting expensive up front?


Here we should simply admit that the playback experience is an entirely artificial construct. Its only obligation is that it please us. If greater upper harmonic energy and its effects on the brilliance region and airiness have your vote, no secret audiophile police can or will incarcerate you for it. So live it up. It's only when we claim greater realism vs. the real thing that things get dicey. Time for the Boenicke speakers with two watch words: twinned 4-inch flat-cone Tangband tweeters of unusually good off-axis response (Gallo Acoustics use a very similar driver for their A'Diva SE and Micro SE); and very close listener distance due to long-wall setup. Tweeter dispersion and size make for higher output, sitting close produces less roll-off with distance to amount to the same thing. This directly opposed Wei's argument and made it most interesting how Sopranino would telegraph here in actuality rather than endless theory.


Boenicke Audio B-10. Once again Soprano proved very critical about aligning its vertical axis with actual sitting height. Standing up the effect with these short perches disappeared like stepping outside a spot light or blocking a refreshing breeze. Sitting down the impact was primarily on airiness. This wasn't about actual sounds as it was all about textures and fizz. Think unsweetened egg whites whisked and folded in. A smaller effect was on tone-color intensity. Glossiness had gone up just a tick. Because the B10's bass potency with dual 10s is very solid, minor counter weighting way on top was fair game. That said, the effect's magnitude or want-it factor were still nowhere commensurate with asking price. Whilst I had progressed from mega subtle with the HRS-120 to merely subtle, I wasn't yet happy with return on investment. And here I could have done without the tallish glass frame again.

Why Sopranino still didn't telegraph as any cheap tone-control adjustment was its hinge point. It sat too high for abuse. 'Up there' wasn't sufficiently significant music information to cause imbalance. Unlike with the HRS-120 I didn't get any tighter image focus. That's because the Boenicke speaker already runs its tweeters directionally to ace those localization cues. I also didn't get more expansive staging. That's an area where the B10 rules though it'd do even better with more distance from the front wall but such is domestic life. The Sopranino addition made for greater airiness followed by a mild glossification of tonal surface sheen. Whether those aspects would be add-ons attractive to any current or prospective B10 owner should differ from person to person and also with ancillaries and seat distance.


Regardless, by now I felt reasonably certain that my next Sopranino suspect of AudioSolutions' mighty Rhapsody 200 would get me into the sweet spot of super tweeter virtues. That's because the 200 runs a conventional 1-inch textile dome tweeter of exactly the sort Beryllium and diamond aficionados love to diss as being insufficiently resolved. Whilst I don't own a stand quite tall enough to get Sopranino on the Lithuanian's own tweeter axis, there was always my rubber bumper cheat to lift its front. Sopranino taking nose dives off the Rhapsody's rearward upsloping top were an obvious no-no. Whilst BluTak glues Franck Tchang resonators to the wall all year long, the super tweeter's far higher weight advised against risking it. I felt far safer perching it atop a regular stand no matter how unsightly that would be next to a very big tower.


Here's the final setup, Sopranino on the outside atop Track Audio stands from the UK toed in directly at the seat and angled up to also hit ear height.