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I initially listened to the Calliope .21 with the Ocellia 300B SET integrated. This is how their designer intends for his speakers to be heard. In many ways it was one of the most sublime sounds I've ever had at home - but not necessarily the most polyvalent. It helps to understand that Samuel Furon's music of choice is always exclusively acoustic, be it Baroque or small Jazz ensembles. In that context the sublime happened each and every time.


On more diverse fare the Calliope showed up limitations of a 300B SET even one as perfectly executed as his. That's probably the first testament to the Ocellias' truthfulness. They celebrate the qualities of such a SET in the full light of day but don’t hide its weaknesses either. The Ocellia house sound in that 'one-brand' setup was free of all glare and focused on natural microdynamics and a quality of tone which makes you believe instruments are in the room. It's that simple. I don’t know where to begin describing these improvement in the believability of acoustic music over my Zu, FJ and even Rogers LS 3/5a speakers [right]. Loving the piano I went to a recently acquired double vinyl pressing of Lang-Lang’s Liszt my piano hero to compare it to the 16/44 download on my computer.


Both showed full-scale piano and the Calliopes had no problem reproducing Lang-Lang’s very bold sound with its powerful attacks, long decays and body resonances. Vinyl simply went further in dynamics both macro and micro whilst revealing a harmonic complexity which digital lacked. The 16/44 files projected an upright piano in a tight space in front of me. With vinyl I was listening to a concert grand freely developing its complex harmonics in open space. The point here isn't to diss digital in favor of vinyl. It's to illustrate how much resolving power and scaling ability the Calliopes had in reserve. All the efforts chasing down box colorations and building a very solid wave-launch platform to take full advantage of the exceptionally fast revealing PHY paid off in this ability to reveal the smallest of nuances.
At the same time the sizable enclosure lets the PHY express itself fully on both scale and power. Many widebanders do microdynamics, few will do proper scale. The PHY does both. That’s fairly unique. Another area of strength is the Calliopes' ability to create a realistic in-room visual and sonic impression of the recorded venue. If the information was captured, the Calliopes will recreate this ambiance. That’s something widebanders typically excel at with their near point-source behavior. I was simply wondering whether here the rather wide front panel and twin tweeters would detract. I can happily report that it wasn't the case. At all.
Be it Paul Badura-Skoda on Schubert’s D969 Piano Sonata or the high-res Piano Music in a Church as one of the most natural-sounding piano recordings ever made; or orchestral fireworks like Rimsky Korsakov’s Scheherazade under Fritz Reiner/Chicago... each was, felt and 'looked' different in what must have been completely transparent replay of their recorded ambient cues. This requires that all drivers be in perfect phase alignment. The holographic qualities I heard led me to believe that these six were in perfect sync, certainly far beyond what my Zu, FJ and even Rogers achieve. Piano is a merciless instrument to judge a system’s marriage of extreme macrodynamics with fine resolution of overtones and nuance. Judging by the amount of piano music I'd listened to of late, I never had this much pleasure enjoying this demanding instrument at home. That said, I should move on to what I consider the absolute test of fidelity - the ability to suspend disbelief on human voices.


Once again it is actually very hard for me to say anything other than that the illusion of realism was clearly elevated over any previous speaker I'd owned or reviewed. When I reviewed Rethm's smallest Trishna, I felt it did the best job ever of reproducing Joyce DiDonato’s mezzo soprano. It's a voice I know very well from meeting her on many occasions. I don't think the Calliopes improved over the Rethms but that tacit feeling of Joyce standing in the room didn't move backward either. The telling difference came from lower darker voices like Leonard Cohen’s or Byrn Terfel’s. With the Rethms those deep male voices lacked in their usual power to explode into the room. With the Calliopes they entered in full bravura. If one dares to push the volume a little, they will stand in the room and give you a private concert like no other.

This brings up another telling performance element. The Ocellias allowed me to listen at far higher levels than usual without stress or pain to reveal what I can only call the lowest level of distortion of any speaker I've reviewed. It was quite uncanny being able to push the volume on Joyce’s Furore CD to concert-like levels without stress, a feat impossible on most systems. One area where I suspected the Ocellias might trip a little was on treble transients and top-end resolution. My Zu Essence after all is equipped with a fairly decent ribbon. I expected it to outshine the French Canadians at least on resolution. Not. As Samuel promised, the two tweeters integrated flawlessly with their main driver to create a sparkling top without excess. It actually became quickly obvious that the Zu distorts somewhat in the lower treble before their widebander hands over to the tweeter around 12kHz. The Ocellias didn't suffer the same issue.


Whether on harpsichord music (you should hear Gustav Leonhard’s amazing recording of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier on vinyl) or the upper harmonies of Jed Wendz’s flute playing Telemann, the piezo tweeters of the Calliope .21 Twin never lost their composure, never distorted or felt shy either. The overall tonal balance was similar to my FJ OM, meaning very slightly down on top yet still lively. If you like a different curve, the adjustable tweeter level makes accommodating your taste quite easy. The loaners I had were equipped with a pair of Frank Tchang resonators located inside the enclosure right behind the main PHY. What I heard when removing and adding the resonators—easily done—was a little more midrange dynamics and slightly enhanced transients with the resonators in place. Here we are dealing with milking the last 1% of performance. If you can afford the upgrade I'd encourage you to go for it. If you can’t you won't be missing a lot.


This is probably a good juncture to tease out core differences between Zu, Ocellia and Rethm as three widebander brands I've spent considerable time with. Though adhering to a similar design concept, they certainly don't sound the same or deliver near the same sonic qualities. Zu speakers in general thrive on macrodynamics. They explode, they take a flat piece of music and give it relief, they build from a very strong upper-bass presence to deliver powerful kick drums, rich baritones and amazing electric guitars. What Zu generally won’t do is a very sophisticated upper midrange. Violin gets a little monochromatic, a soprano never really feels like she stands in the room. That said, Zu are the most flexible of speakers from very low single-digit watts to hundreds, from rock to classical, from Madonna to blockbuster movies. They will do a pretty good job with everything but probably not be the best at anything except passionate electrical guitar solos. Here they can do and do run circles around the competition. Zu is meat and potatoes. They talk to your gut rather than head. Everybody in the family is likely to enjoy them. They are not the ultimate in transient speed and don't offer the ultimate airy highs but will raise your adrenaline whilst sparing your ear drums the pain of glassy treble. What they offer is tone built from the bottom up, at either extreme admittedly stopping a little sooner than others.

Rethm almost belongs at the other end of this spectrum. They anchor their sound in an immaculate upper midrange, one of the fastest and most resolved I've had the pleasure to hear. Because of that tonal balance and ability to really lean into the leading edge of notes without turning hard, their designer had to align the rest of the spectrum with this lean fast and agile upper midrange. Hence don't expect his smallest Trishna to deliver big low-down grunt despite their powered subwoofers; or to provide massive upper-bass slam on drums. Their lower midrange and bass naturally flow from the rest just as fast and as lean. This expectedly comes at the expense of full tonal development and weight in the lower octaves. Rethm speaks to your mind and provides a deep dive into the microdynamic fabric of the music. Think fluttering butterfly to Zu’s B52.