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You know what came next – endless experiments. I’ll avoid details and boring you. The eventual upshot was that unlike with the conventional rule of thumb where speaker-to-speaker and speaker-to-seat distance factor at roughly 1:1, the Klangfluss K1 ought to be kicked off at 2:1 for starters, with the rest up to taste. This speaker really pulls it off without ever collapsing in the middle. Even my 3:1 spread came off. Most speakers give up well before then by having the music stick to the boxes.

True to its name, the Klangfluss simply flowed into a gorgeously broad semi sphere. Spatial barriers disappeared, the stage got wider, deeper and taller than with usual direct radiators. The oft-invoked window on the music through which one hears and observes cut-out action plainly didn’t suit. No matter how large and clean such a window might grow, it always separates us by imposing a frame on reality. The main stuff really happens behind it. Here there was no window on the walled garden. I sat innit. That could get pretty far out.

Of course this liberated sensation depended on choice of music too. Cat Powers’ Juxebox managed well. Here the mastering boys mixed in cubits of reverb which technically is excessive but with my klangfluss on hand became very effective. Once again drum decay was astonishing just as I’d noted first with the Live song. Fades didn’t merely fade, they seemed to roll into the far reaches of the stage. This reads peculiar but sounded real impressive. Albums truly copasetic with the Klangfluss flair for space obviously offer real rather than artificial acoustics like Zappa’s Yellow Shark, most classical recordings or even those puzzles which are put together of many small individual acoustic bits as is common for intelligent semi-electrified fare like Björk, Nine Inch Nails, Coco Rosie or any number of titles colleague Jörg keeps in his indie electronica drawer.

Key with the Klangfluss was partial or near wholesale deletion of the usual separation between audience and music. One instead enters the tunes like a warm bath fully submerged. This can be terrifically relaxing just as listening to music ought to be. If one can let it be and accept it with open arms rather than suffer it as an unwelcome intimacy without proper barriers. For those who approach hifi as a deeper connection with the music, the Klangfluss K1 can become quite the bridge into intense spaciousness. Though I’ve heard Joanna Newsom’s Ys plenty of times, I felt drawn into it deeper with the K1. Geezus - what nearness, what breadth, what music.

Two supplemental remarks: How the Klangfluss draws individual instruments and voices is particular but hard to describe. Image focus aka localization sharpness are good and clearly superior to normal assumptions on omnis. This can be slightly tweaked with the spheres (more precision with steel, minor diffusion with sand stone, middle ground with wood) or more or less toe-in of the direct-radiating mid/woofer for respectively higher or lesser articulation. Built-in regardless is the consistency of the virtual bodies. While I would call them incarnate or full, i.e. believable illusions taking up space in three rather than just two dimensions, they’re not completely tacit.


It's as though they were semi ethereal, ghostly or translucent; as though the usual epidermis surrounding sounds had been peeled off. This injected a certain softness. It’s obviously far better to experience this in person..