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Cabinet viagra. The core Tone quality reminded me directly of Mark & Daniel speakers. Though there was a turbo-boost type delay before it kicked in—as with nearly all inefficient speakers one must prime the pump to overcome a higher wakeup threshold—this quality also worked a bit like a turbo on the other side of this loudness barrier. I'm referring to a distinctive snap, grip or punch factor. This materialized particularly powerfully in the upper bass. Unlike M+D boxes whose bass alignment routinely struck me as forced and unnatural, the Tone felt at ease. Its 'turbo' function wasn't about amplitude but textural tautness. This behavior or flavor is best captured by feisty.

This isn't big-speaker slam factor from accelerated big-wave air displacement. It's little-speaker slam. Particularly in the nearfield of the desktop but even in free space it doesn't interact—or barely—with the room. It also doesn't occur low enough to rearrange your bowels. At levels beyond the threshold it simply injects a pert rhythmically pushy attitude which common sense should pin on super effective elimination of box talk. That's an absence of the common micro blur we associate with softness to be a specific transient-negative resolution-subtractive 'bad' warmth.

From this and the high-quality coincident Norwegian driver we get focus. High lens lock ties together subjective rise times (the speed or instantaneousness of transients expressed rhythmically as PRaT) and soundstage layering from well-sorted depth cues. Another side effect of the rigid silent box is being able to play unseemly loud. Compounding internal pressures don't fluster it in the normal ways. Unlike Mark & Daniel speakers with their Heil-derivative pleated wideband tweeters, the Tone's conventional silk dome embedded in the throat of its woofer isn't dynamically supercharged. Its surface is smaller, its pistonic principle without the acceleration advantage of the AMT's bellows squeeze. But the latter has a shadow side. Its advantage of more/faster air displacement can get imbalanced or 'top heavy' when conventional dynamic mid/woofers don't keep up with the air-motion transformer principle. The result is a speaker whose top end is dynamically faster and more expressive than the rest. That often communicates as a form of brightness or minor stridency. Particularly at higher SPL this speed discrepancy widens. So does the shift in dynamic contrast.

The Tone's treble didn't suffer this discontinuity shift. If anything the subjective impression in the amplitude domain was one of a gentle downward slope. This rendered the tick-tick portion of percussive events clear but the follow-up coruscated tizzzz in the decaying upper harmonics lightly depressed. Diminishment of air and sheen plus in-the-pocket snap and 'pow' in the upper bass combined for a sound noticeably drier than the just reviewed Boenicke Audio W5 monitor. Smaller mid/woofer and cubic volume also meant less bass reach and sensitivity. Were I asked to describe each with an instrument to peg the core quality, the W5 would be a tonally wet very fluidic bowed cello. The far more damped Tone would be a dry plucked electric bass.


As all such 'fit the drawer' attempts are guilty of, this one fails on a number of counts. The most obvious? On reach and power the Tone was no bass (or at best a pocket version). To sound really full-range required a subwoofer. I used Gallo's TR-3D. On tone mass too it sounded smaller than the Boenicke to suggest reversing my instruments. But I'll stick by my choice as the most appropriate because it does tap the overriding quality. Where the Tone hit full torque was at levels a lot higher than I tolerate in the nearfield. At a median 50dB level with 65dB peaks, that torque didn't fully manifest. 20dB higher unleashed the inner beast to raise eyebrows—super ballsy, no audible compression, no distress signals, just flying suspensions—but also had me reach for the volume control to reset normalcy. What this walk on the wild side explained in a jiffy? Why recording monitor professionals have gone Tone stoned. Being able to get loud sans distortion; not obnoxious at all in the treble whilst at it; being small enough to toss in a shoulder bag and virtually indestructible; ideal for the nearfield due to the coaxial drivers; and very articulate and clean... these all would seem hallmarks for the mastering engineer.

All proper small hifi speakers image and layer like gangbusters. If recording professionals find the Prime surprising on these counts, it'd suggest unfamiliarity with our sort. Most vertical multi-driver arrays simply work better just a bit farther away than a meter or less. Here the widebander or coincident 2-way concepts win special honors. Widening our net, the Tone wins more honors for costing less than Mark & Daniel's smallest; offering real not synthetic stone with European not Chinese manufacture; a texturally more homogenous top-to-bottom balance; and what seem superior quality crossover parts. In free space and to energize a normal space you'll want at least a 100-watt amp happy with very steep phase angles from the typical saddle response of the impedance curve of small ported boxes. For the desktop Wyred4Sound's $1.495 all-in-one mINT is all anyone should reasonably need. The Tone also gets high marks for disguising its lack of low bass not with the typical bulge higher up but by refusing to go texturally limp and bloomy in its lower reach. How the Tone might compete with KEF's all-conquering Uni-Q LS50 remains for someone to say who has heard 'em side by side. Based on numerous show sightings of the Brit, I suspect it's texturally less damped and as such on a looser leash; and voiced a bit more generous in its low end. Anything more specific requires an A/B.

In free space the Tone comes on song a bit sooner because here we use higher input voltages for equivalent SPL to the desktop. But it'll never be a true midnight whisperer or the most engaging at background levels. By the same token it's a bit of a party animal on the other end of that scale. The very compact solid stone box refuses to get 'into the act'.* This manifests as sharp focus, high sorting powers and a very clean dynamic and punchy sound that's dry and highly damped. If your musical diet majors on bowed string instruments, you could miss some fluidity and tonal largesse. If you're into extended cymbal workouts for that agitated flimmering of firefly harmonics, you could want more air and illumination. But if you're into hard-hitting rhythmically complex fare, this litte Finnish box can hammer it out better than the ubiquitous MDF jobs most competitors offer in this segment.
with Antelope Audio Zodiac Platinum
* On 'material acting' with energy storage, delayed release, self ringing and such, this small investigation into the difference between aluminium (Magico's and YG Acoustics' chosen 'heroic' material) and Panzerholz has some interesting data. How would soapstone perform in this test? Closer to Panzerholz than metal is my guess.
On the CD size scale the Tone is less than two high, its footprint just about one.
Being able to sound huge on soundstage scale and SPL relative to very little on box dimensions and driver complement is what all good two-way monitors are about. It's in their jeans. But, not much is quite as little as the Tone nor quite as feisty and impulsive. Particularly if you pursue what in this context are high levels, the Prime Loudspeakers Tone is a special find that remains stone-faced about it and within the limits of its mid/woofer refuses to get the least bit agitated. Relative to parts quality and that trademark finely finished soapstone enclosure, the sticker too is very attractive.


And should you think the raw material to look like a grave stone as one reader proposed—I didn't and in fact thought the looks nicer in person than photos—the Finns already offer a number of paint finishes to disguise the antediluvian origins. Quite the debut then. It makes me curious what the bigger sealed coax with the hexagonal pattern on its rear wall and planned active model will do!
Prime Loudspeakers website