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The Pylons of course are not flawless. I would not like you to take that away from my review. They differ from more expensive superior speakers in their lower resolution, in their slight homogenization of the sound and in the lack of a more dynamic lit-up treble. But one cannot have everything. With the given transducers in this particular configuration, the fulfillment of any of these more ambitious desires would likely ruin the sound on a whole. As I understand it then, this result is a very conscious choice made by the design team. Clearly it was neither coincidence nor dumb luck.


Certain aspects can happen by change but never vis-à-vis the whole as here. Listening proves that the Pearl was designed by people who spent lots of time listening with electronics in the sub 2000zł range which are often bright or gritty. The Polish loudspeakers will handle such ancillaries especially well. Yet the better the CD player, amplifier etc get, the better the speakers will perform whilst staying true to their character. I listened to the Pylon with the Ayon Orion II tube amplifier and this combination was almost shocking in terms of sound and system price. Truly the Pylon is something I’ve not encountered before in my life.


Description:
The Pearl are two-way floorstanding loudspeakers with two drivers and a rear-vented bass-reflex port. Both drivers come from the Polish Tonsil company. On top we have the GDWK 10/80/26 8Ω soft-dome tweeter with aluminum voice coil and sound-absorbent anti-reflective treatment. The dome is recessed into a short mini flare which increases efficiency but most of all controls directivity. For the mid/woofer we get a GDN 17/40 4Ω unit with woven glass fiber diaphragm, plastic basket, soft rubber suspension and concave dust cover. A similar driver of somewhat smaller diameter was previously used in the Tonsil Siesta speaker where the dust cover was convex. The same driver as in the Pylon already appeared in the Tonsil Maestro S. Here the transducers nearly overlap to bring their centers closely together. The internal cabling is braided copper. On the back we have the bass-reflex port and below it the slightly recessed gold-plated plastic-shrouded speaker terminals. The cabinet is assembled from 16mm panels, MDF for the front, chip board for the rest all finished in faux veneer. The cabinet is well made although execution is a bit old-fashioned, with the front and back panels slightly recessed to have the cheeks protrude a bit. Just prior to review publication I was informed that this detail will change shortly. There is no grille. The speakers are placed on four spikes bolted in special sockets to the bottom.


After dismantling the speaker there were a few surprises. It turns out that this is in fact a stand-mount integrated into a bigger enclosure as beneath the speaker terminals we see a solid brace to seal the space above. The second surprise is the lack of any damping. Good job! The crossover is mounted point to point and glued to a chipboard plate. Here we spot splendid parts rarely seen in many times more expensive competitors like a Jantzen polypropylene capacitor and quality air coil for the tweeter section with good resistors. In the low-pass section we get less extraordinary but still quality bits by way of an electrolytic capacitor and core coil. The hook wire is braided copper soldered to the drivers. In toto these are very good Polish drive units with a very good crossover inside a sensible cabinet. The craftsmanship of the enclosure for the money is not as good as the British speakers I mentioned yet my test loaner was a working prototype. We shall need to wait for a production unit before making any final judgment on that.


Technical data according to manufacturer:

Impedance: 6Ω
Frequency response: 43 - 23 000Hz
Efficiency: 88dB
Dimensions [W x H x D]: 200 x 900 x 250mm
Weight: 11kg
Woofer: GDN 17/40 4Ω
Tweeter: GDWK 10/80/26 8Ω
opinia @ highfidelity.pl

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