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The illusion of seemingly real treble events manifesting in the listening room was a clear forté of these Italian loaners. Though I resisted accepting it at first, an A/B against my Thiel CS3.7 had the right-channel hi-hat in The National’s "Sorrow" even less boxed in, texturally more concise, plastic and grippy over the Heolos. I felt similar about the difficult differentiation inside the thick layering of percussion, piano, saxophone and clarinet of New York sax man Tim Berne’s 2012 Jazz quartet album Snakeoil and the cut "Scanners". Again due to the treble quality of the Gamma, this made for a compellingly intelligible stage perception and—to abuse an overused term—pleasingly ‘live’ energy.

I was equally fascinated with electronica (say Canadian Kevin Cey’s "Herbalist rules" from his 1998 effort Music for Cats so dominated by explosively thrown-about percussive sound effects) and how cleanly the various puzzle pieces were allocated their position in the room and how microdynamically astute the Heolos tracked such rapid fare. Low-volume listeners will be pleased to know that the Italians managed an equally lively and jumpy impression also at reduced SPL.


Even vis-à-vis speakers in patently pricier regions it should be difficult to find better where these qualities are concerned. That’s from someone spoiled by the coaxially endowed Thiel CS3.7 which on staging and microdynamics is decidedly upper crust. Matter of taste will be how the Heolos situate their virtual stage behind their ground line—I prefer a more upfront presentation—and how they don’t paint it very tall. There’s thus no wall-of-sound flooding of the room but rather a somewhat distanced yet highly visible observer’s perspective with very good depth layering.

On microdynamics the Gammas went to work with even firmer grip and energy than my Sehring S703SE which countered with sounding markedly bigger, mightier and with more bass profundity. On The National’s "Sorrow" from their 2010 recording High Violet, the Gamma impressed with the fleet-footed transparency of Matt Berninger’s vocals, with the monotonous repetition of dry drum beats and the precisely visualized acoustic. The Sehring which isn’t groomed for soundstage spectaculars but does unimpeachable neutrality and a particularly excellent midband meanwhile rendered Berninger’s vocalizing with more substance. It also far better captured the song’s signature brooding LF heaviness.


’Warmer’ would be apt too if it didn’t simultaneously paint the Heolos into a sterile emaciated corner which would be untrue. With properly matched i.e. not bright ancillaries, the Italians felt very natural though their non-opulent bass balance coupled with flat-neutral upper registers did add up to an overall more lit-up lighter-weight picture than one fulsome and dark. To be more specific about this bass balance, on Dan Berglund’s "Gi Hop" [Tonbruket, 2010] I noticed an exemplarily defined and well-structured  low end. In this piece the bass drum should ideally sound as though a massive wooden log got attacked to avoid blending soggily into the rest. It should remain separated out in a pointillist dry manner which the Heolos managed brilliantly. On sheer quantity however they served up not more but rather less than Quadral’s stand-mounted Aurum Megan above.