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This review first appeared in the December 2010 issue of hi-end hifi magazine High Fidelity of Poland. You can also read this review of the Solphonique Dwarf in its original Polish version. We publish its English translation in a mutual syndication arrangement with publisher Wojciech Pacula. As is customary for our own reviews, the writer's signature at review's end shows an e-mail address should you have questions or wish to send feedback. All images contained in this review are the property of High Fidelity or Solphonique - Ed.

Reviewer: Marek Dyba
Sources: CEC 51XR, Michell Gyro SE deck, Techoarm tone arm, AT33PTG cartridge, ESElabs Nibiru phono stage
Integrated amplifier: Art Audio Symphony II
Cables: Gabriel Gold Extreme Mk2, Binaural focus monolith Ag interconnects; Gabriel Gold Revelation Mk1 speaker cable, DIY Acrolink 6N-PC4300 power cords
Review component retail: €4150/pr (€30 for remote)


A long, long time ago. That’s how I could open with for today and specifically for those younger readers who can't even imagine times when all we had were two channels of state-owned television with nothing on them really worth watching. There was no Internet either. Kids then spent days playing with others outside. The only additional entertainment was reading books. Yes there truly was a time when reading a book was a great way of spending one’s free time (and I mean paper not ebooks). Back then I started to read a series of novels by Alfred Szklarski who told adventures stories of young boy Tomek Wilmowski who traveled the world together with his father and friends. The first part was titled In the land of kangaroos where the main character visited Australia. I was a kid  with no knowledge of the National Geographic channel or access to the Internet. Stories about koalas, dingos, kangaroos and creatures as bizarre as a platypus or short-beaked echidna were amazing but also unbelievable. Today you turn on one of many channels or perform a quick Google search to watch video or pictures of any creature and learn all about it there is to learn. While that’s convenient the lack of effort involved reduces the charm that new discoveries used to hold.

But even though our world has become a small global village, sometimes one can still make remarkable discoveries. Years ago these were marsupials for me, today it might be an audio product coming from the same continent. I already had the pleasure to review a remarkable discovery from Down Under, the Cymer monoblocks from their country's biggest tube guru Elson Silva (who enjoys Brazilian origins by the way). When preparing for that review I had hit the web for information about Elson and his products. I'd netted a mere few bits on the Australian audiophile forums. This time I received for review the Solphonique Dwarf speakers and found that even less information was available than had been about Cymer. I found no review, no owner opinion and even the manufacturer's own website was not too informative. Meeting the Dwarfs was like discovering uncharted lands.

As we can read on their website, "…Solphonique speakers are based on a revolutionary new science that takes sound into new dimensions. The technology behind these speakers is Solacoustics, a system that radiates sound in much the same way as the sun radiates light. The phase-coherent sound field allows for previously encoded phase information in a recording to be perfectly reproduced. The result is a complex time-space environment in which the acoustic holography of the original recording is recreated." To be honest I didn't really get the full concept behind this description but obviously the designers were unwilling to share more.