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To my mind, the Calliope1.6 is a very fine achievement. It instantly rekindled my crush with the aroma from Panjas described in my original report. Without the slightest hesitation, my ears—and my wife's for that matter who'd also been to the South of France—knew right away. This was an Ocellia to the bone. Samuel definitely had bottled the secret potion and doused his baby speaker in it. However, to get the best from the Calliope1.6 in my unusual setup required abdicating low-powered SETs. Intuition would have pegged them as natural-born mates, Casa Chardonne had different ideas. Live and learn. Sometimes intuition is wrong.


Regardless of whether I wired up the 3.5-watt Synergy Hifi EL-84 mini, 18wpc Ancient Audio Single Six 6C33C monos or 8-watt Yamamoto A-09S; and no matter the preamp... the overall sonic gestalt was too loose and billowing. It sounded as though the drivers begged for higher damping. Closing the rear hatches and screwing the inner floor panels into the pre tapped holes helped a tad. Assuming I was on the right track, I next stuffed dense pillows into the bottoms of the enclosures to seal off the air escapes. This killed the magic. Clearly these drivers in this implementation must breathe or you might as well buy a regular box speaker. So my particular issue wasn't cabinet leakage. A controlled amount of leakage was vital to la recette.


What I needed was electronic damping. The real solution was Nelson Pass' FirstWatt J2 power JFET transistor amp. Its far lower output impedance cleared up the pervasive echoic gestalt of the SETs without undermining the tacit freedom of 'unrestrained musical vibrations' that's key of—and key to—this speaker's very special allure.


Once my tastes called control on the drivers appropriate, the question was between the 6H30-powered tube-rectified ModWright DM 36.5 preamp and the transistor Esoteric C-03. On big symphonic fare like Bruckner's 9th Symphony and Stokowski's Transcriptions of Mussorgsky—incidentally my favorite Pictures at an Exhibition which proves Ravel's orchestration to be too polished, Stokowski's more dramatic—the American valve preamp was brighter and leaner than the Japanese transistors set to 12dB of gain. Swapping between the tubed AMR CD-777 and Raysonic CD228 players vs. my transistor Yamamoto YDA-01 converter made a far smaller difference. The upshot? A pure solid-state system was not only fine, it's what I ended up using nearly exclusively. So much for bad mythology.


Samuel's fears of a lightweight tonal balance proved unfounded despite my lack of front-wall reinforcement. In fact, tympani rolls had surprising heft and energy. My customary Mercan Dede-style organic ambient fare which combines first-rate acoustic instruments and modern infrasonics of course showed that the lowest octave was barely hinted at. Yet upright bass telegraphed no significant losses. In short, while a solo Lowther DX-55 in a fancy enclosure like my Rethm Saadhana is too bereft without bass augmentation, Bernard Salabert's unprepossessing driver sounds complete. That's why the Calliope1.6 is so impressive. Even though personal proclivities for modern music with unnatural bass extension would ultimately want the Calliope.21 Silver's 8-incher, I could adjust to the 6er without great suffering. Its overall flavor and way of interacting with room and listener were full-on Ocellia. I enjoyed the luxo Mercedes ride in the no-frills Ford package from a smaller engine.


To 40-something ears like mine, the uppermost harmonics constituting the tail ends of decays no longer were present here. The expertly recorded triangle on the Tsabropolous/Lechner Melos release [ECM] for example extinguished sooner than over my Esotar-cloned resonator-enhanced ASI Tango R flagships. The decay wouldn't linger as long and the triangle sounded more damped and solid, less feathery on the followup. Yet the cello sang to a most unusual degree. This reiterated how none of the minor extension limitations detracted fundamentally from the tone and tunefulness of the presentation and its great natural elasticity and buoyancy.


The small PHY driver has very good dynamic reflexes and accelerates quickly to track emphatic expressions. Bass impact relies on air movement which here is plainly restricted but somewhat less than seemingly apparent given that the rear wave (half of the driver's output in other words) isn't killed off. It clearly helps to energize the space. In general, this is a go-with-the-flow sound. You don't stop and go from detail to detail in any mechanical fashion. You get rushed onward by the stream. Resolution isn't focused on the microscopic—the Lowther here is keener—but on the motion in emotion.


This reads trite and non-technical. Still, it's the grand central axis around which the entire equation revolves. As a change of perspective, shift in gestalt or direction of approach, it's plain obvious. No concentration or special training are required to latch on. Its essential qualities are voluptuous and generous, gushing and easeful. All the usual audiophile stuff is embedded in it. One could labor upstream as it were—stop and go, stop and go—and inspect the various constituents. But that would completely miss the boat. It would be appropriate for the dearer all-silver Ocellia versions because those build out in that direction without sacrificing the overall aroma.


The special accomplishment of the Calliope.16 is that it sets up camp in that other place fully and completely. It tells us that Samuel Furon's base requirement is contextual rather than analytical. To be viable, his kind of speaker must start with the easy letting go and free ring-out of the notes for that big billowy analog sound. More money then buys more refinement and greater microscopic separation but it all starts out with this gestalt or core quality. In that sense, the Calliope.16 is fully grown up. In the other sense, there are clear limitations including separation and resolution. To the right kind of listener however, those limitations fade into oblivion moments after they hit 'play'.


To get just somewhat more specific—it is after all very hard to actually audition Ocellias—the Calliope.16 has more top-end energy than the original Zu Druid MkIV, less so than the current Essence; more mid- and upper midrange resolution than either; and bass reach equivalent to a properly gap-height adjusted Druid. Thus there is a genetic connection with the American aesthetic. The decisive difference is that Zu is focused on kick and punch—male potency if you will—while Ocellia's take is on the feminine flow. Zu is tauter, Ocellia more billowy. Zu rocks, Ocellia swings. If those distinctions communicate, you've got the sound pegged. If not, I can't help. I can't describe this speaker in conventional terms and do it any justice.


I can give you another simile however. Envision walking with shoes, belted pants and the usual tight undergarments. Now envision walking barefoot just in a bathrobe - hanging loose at it were. You walk and feel differently. One gestalt is precise, gathered up but restrictive; the other loose and comfy but also sloppier. That's the key difference. Now add 55Hz to 15kHz bandwidth which strikes me as fairly accurate even though the feel of those 55Hz is rather more potent than your average 6-inch monitor would produce. Add considerably greater linearity than an untamed Lowther and an earthy bloom versus Lowther's lit-up speed and precision. Next season with a $3.000 turntable vs. what a $3.000 CD player would do (hint: the turntable will sound bigger, bolder, more dynamic and more relaxed; the CD player more articulate, precise and with likely superior bass control and crisper treble).


In more technical terms, it's a semi dipole sound with descending frequencies where the lossy open-bottomed cabinet becomes quite transparent to the involved wavelengths. In my open-backed setup, I clearly wanted maximum closure which ultimately meant no spikes, hatches closed and the inner boards attached. I also felt the need for greater damping. While I'm not certain that diagnosis (or explanation for the improvements) was correct, the amplifier remedy most certainly was efficacious.


The most accurate descriptor of the Calliope.16 sound—which is a function of its operational principle—really is analogue. That's not in the sense of tonal qualities which will depend on your electronics. It's the big bold fluffy breathing organic character. Obviously analogue setups can be dialed for maximum damping, edge articulation and transient incision. But I would think that the big/bold/fluffy string of qualities will be instantly recognizable and meaningful to anyone who has ever compared a good mid-level turntable to basic digital. (As expenses scale up, digital and analog get a lot closer just like tubes and transistors.)


To get this analogue gestalt with digital because of a speaker is the surprise. This also identifies the most likely target customer. Deeper wallets accustomed to expensive turntables will clearly hear the limitations of resolution, separation, focus, bandwidth and bass dynamics and likely insist on a dearer model in the Ocellia line that can graft those elements onto this root. The Calliope.16 in particular should speak to the digital listener who felt perfectly content with the sound - until the fateful day of hearing an inexpensive analog setup properly dialed. Thereafter frustration set in with the resident rig which seemed dry, rigid and mechanical compared to the memory of the more liquid immersive sound..


In general, the Calliope.16 is also a reality check to those dismissive of widebanders who'd swear that a single six-inch driver is by definition far too handicapped to possibly be for real. Ha. Bernard Salabert's smallest cheapest PHY driver is very much for real. It gets the basics righter than any equivalent Lowther or Fostex I've heard. For money which elsewhere buys an MDF box with glossy paint and run-of-the-mill transducers, Ocellia delivers an attractive musical instrument in real wood and a unique modern vintage driver. The Calliope.16 is a real push—from on high down into greater cost-effectiveness—and powerful demonstrator for the single-driver breed's special virtues. It's a speaker one should hear just to know what's possible at this price when one takes a road less traveled and ends up in a compelling and clearly different destination.


This destination will take some getting used to. Not everyone will want to set up camp. But I'd expect that even those who'd pass would, if grudgingly, admit that they didn't think anything like this was possible from a driver this size. It's quite the stumper. I liked the Calliope.16 very much. What's more, I'm now completely convinced that my visit to Panjas wasn't a fluke, i.e. some sort of special blessed event that's impossible to recreate ever again. Au contraire, it's clearly inherent in Samuel Furon's approach. It worked in even a non-standard room like mine where a superior but not expensive transistor amp like my $3.000 transistor FirstWatt F5 unlocked the aroma fully. After I do some closet cleaning this year, I might just have to order a Calliope.21 Silver (that's the 8-inch Alnico version with the brass basket and optional tweeter).


In my personal hierarchy of temporary speaker acquaintances of various stripes and persuasions, I'd call the Ocellia Calliope.16 a Terry Cain Abby phenomenon where a driver of acknowledged bandwidth limitations was very cleverly exploited with a very special enclosure to sound a helluva lot bigger than it should. Given that the Abby became a classic, one should predict a similar status for the Calliope.16 - if enough people paid attention.


P.S.: Though it should be obvious, the Calliope.16 is intimately wedded to Bernard Salabert's PHY driver. It's a real shame that not more speaker makers have embraced these transducers. The only reason I can see is that they seem to do best in unusual enclosures which the majority of designers don't have any experience with.


Quality of packing: Very good.
Reusability of packing: A few times.
Ease of unpacking/repacking: Easy, these cabinets are light.
Condition of component received: Flawless.
Completeness of delivery: Perfect.
Website comments: Somewhat peculiar but informative.
Human interactions: Very responsive and helpful.
Pricing: A fair and solid value.
Final comments & suggestions: A quite flexible and adaptable speaker that requires little power to accommodate low-power amplifiers of various persuasions. It celebrates a vintage and analog take on things that's quite different from the hyper-detail high contrast sound popular today. It's the type of speaker whose origins, back story and rarity will have the right customers find it while the majority will pass it by without much notice. A specialty product for non-mainstream listeners. Minor cult status potential especially if the current price doesn't increase.
Ocellia website