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I like to think I’m generally quite an un-neurotic listener but the reproduction of piano is certainly a bugbear of mine. Realistically portrayed the instrument possesses a familiar strangeness due to its peculiar combination of percussive attack, steely zing, woody warmth and the unique harmonic coloring of each individual note. Here however with artists as disparate as Alfred Brendel, Ruben Gonzales or Bill Evans, these speakers hit home run after home run apparently free from the hardening harmonic hash which lesser equipment often lends the instrument. On Oscar Peterson Plays the Cole Porter Songbook the pianist’s muscular cascading style and generous tone were both fully realized, the Sixes demonstrating both very secure pitch stability and descriptive timbre.


Propelled by the energizing A Team of Ray Brown (bass) and Ed Thigpen (drums) it also swung with an almost arrogant swagger. Dynamically the Sixes had the ability to track even the smallest shifts whilst also possessing the lung power to instantaneously swell and then recede. Peterson’s musicianship always did exhibit a very purposeful intellectual clarity and in this respect the speakers managed to satisfy both the head and the heart because again there was that architectural feeling where you could almost imagine a structure or shape taking on form. So the Sixes passed my piano acid test with flying colors by offering a holistic approach to the instrument I’ve never before quite experienced, utterly addictive in its realism.


The ribbon tweeters were showcased to their fullest effect by drummer Manu Katché’s ECM release Third Round. Katché’s drumming style is highly, well - percussive. You might even say cymbalic. It’s a great recording, slightly warmer than the label’s usual output and this type of music (melodic but not mushy jazz) confirmed that the ProAcs’ noise floor is quieter than an ocean liner with the engines turned off. We are used to thinking of sounds emerging from an inky black background but backgrounds tend to be flat. Here instead the whole auditory universe seemed knitted together by silent dark matter. Projecting above the foundation of Katché’s drums and Pino Paladino’s bass were Tone Brunborg’s saxophone, Jason Rebello’s piano and Kami Lyle’s trumpet all precisely rendered and successfully carving out their own three-dimensional patch of real estate within the voluminous soundstage.


And the treble was indeed very un-mechanical as they say, fanning gently outwards from the midrange. (The ribbon tweeter actually reminded of the Beryllium unit used by Focal; I got to know their Alto Utopias well and it was a speaker I admired in particular for its diaphanous high-frequency performance.) Leading edges were also whip smart. The Carbon Sixes have such a rapid and clean ‘rise & fall’ I considered whether they might have been truncating some subtle decay at the tail end. But no, sounds trailed back into the night with a very subtle gradation.

I had opportunity to listen to a pair of Revel Salon2s, which though a bit larger than the Carbons (their sculpted enclosures house three 8-inch woofers, a 6½-inch mid-woofer, a 4-inch midrange driver and a Beryllium tweeter) are at £18.500 almost an exact match on price. Initial setup proved fussier. Even though they have adjustable treble and boundary settings (or maybe because) I never did manage to get a wholly satisfying balance. The Salons’ electrostatic-style midrange is actually similar to the Carbon Sixes’ but it projects more directly into the room. They also had a touch more lower midrange body which lent Itzhak Perlman’s solo violin on Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas a very mature resony tone. The ProAcs countered this with a slight advantage in terms of outright transparency, floating the sound even more free of the cabinets. But where the Sixes pulled clearly ahead was further toward the frequency extremes.


Listening to John William’s The Seville Concert both models were equally felicitous in their presentation of his Australian-made Smallman guitar. But with the orchestral accompaniment the Revels' treble and bass sounded diffused and slightly disembodied from the very impressive midband. This was a trait the seamless of-a-piece ProAcs plainly lacked. Indeed top-to-bottom continuity was of the very highest order, testament to an optimally implemented crossover working in concord with the drivers. The Carbons—even during very busy passages—rendered all instruments as distinctly themselves in timbre and tone as well as clearly delineating their respective virtual sizing. The sonic picture they hang begins between the plane of the speakers then falls gently and deeply backwards.


Imaging height is also striking. In fact the width of the soundstage seems to play an almost supporting role here because although not lacking per se, it’s rare to come across such a bounteous allocation of its lesser spotted associates. So rather than noticeably beaming the performers into your living room, the Sixes instead reel the listener into the recording studio or up onto the stage. It’s a subtle difference but an important one. To me it meant that I was listening to the music even more so on its own terms without gimmicky effects. I think this type of presentation is traditionally referred to as a ‘mid-hall perspective’ but the sound never felt in any way distant, just right there in front of me.


So even taking into consideration the fact that the Salons never quite took to my listening space, I was actually a little shocked by the margin of the ProAc’s superiority having greatly enjoyed and owned Revels myself in the past. And it was maybe a little ironic too considering the fact that the unfailingly musical partnering equipment was provided by Revel’s Harman stable mate Mark Levinson.


I’ve been conscious for a few years now that many manufacturers appear to be caught up in a march towards an increasingly bright style of presentation and I wonder if maybe even subconsciously we have come to accept and expect that musical truthfulness will arrive packaged with some degree of convoying harshness. But I think that in the quest for ever-increasing levels of detail many designs trip up by unnaturally accenting some peripheral (in the literal sense) attribute—often ambient or harmonic cues—which can result in a skewed spot-lighting effect.


It can seem on occasion that there is almost a scattergun approach which fails to correctly weight the musical evidence.

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