This review page is supported in part by the sponsors whose ad banners are displayed below

How does Massimo Costa's Aptica leave the usual reservation of 2-ways? By combining the speed and lucidity of a small midrange with the bass power of about an 8-incher. The most transparent and quick midrange drivers are three to four inchers like Anthony Gallo's spherically loaded carbon-fibre cones or Sven Boenicke's 3-inch Tangband in the W5. The meatiest chunkiest performers are 10-inchers like Zu's. In trade those give up some insight in the presence zone. With its 6-inch Accuton, the Aptica's hard cone retains the higher articulation and precision of a small driver. Meanwhile its dual Helmholz-resonator corrected funnel-shaped transmission line (the precise ratio of entry to exit diameter across its narrowing length determines its effectiveness) adds the reach, weight and impact we'd typically associate with a quality 8-incher like Apertura's Edena or Vapor Sound's Aurora. It is a small speaker that doesn't act it. To fully exploit this does require a well-damped amp but not one of silly power or price. The €4'250 Crayon's 60wpc into 8Ω are truly astonishing.
Photo with Harbeth M40.1 and that magazine's Red Fingerprint award logo from Wojciech Pacula's Aptica review.

Obviously no amount of backloaded cleverness will have a 6-inch woofer move low-down air like Wojciech's Harbeth 3-way. Because our brainy Italian is solid to ~40Hz, subwoofer assist is only feasible for roughly the first octave. That'll eclipse the Harbeth on infrasonic extension but won't do anything for the ±100Hz power region. If you reference amplified live sound of the Rock persuasion, the Harbeth would come closer. If you value speed and finesse, the Albedo plays in a higher league. And on cosmetics it's sudden death for the clumsy British box. Now we'll take a look at our physical setup so you can relate in a practical manner.
This blueprint shows the relevant part of our flat's ground floor. The loft/2nd floor begins ahead of the spiral staircase. It covers half the office and living room and runs across the full width of the flat. The green border shows the ca. 100m² open floor plan whose cubic volume the speakers see plus another 30m² of loft. The distance across the living room/office is 9 meters, the length from the apex of the windows where the subwoofer sits to the rear of the kitchen is 10 meters. The ceiling in the back is 2.2m. Above the speakers it ascends in two progressive angles to double height to reach the roof-gable loft. Mansion dwellers will have more capacious settings whilst many audiophiles deal with rather smaller spaces. My point is, for this space and our SPL needs, anything beyond the Aptica would be overkill and excessive.


The upshot is simple. Know what you need to properly play your room. Whatever your budget, now you can apply it to the right type of speaker. Very possibly this means fewer drivers so those you buy can be better; a smaller cabinet to get something built better, quieter and perhaps also styled more attractively; and a simpler crossover with fewer parts which, again, can be of higher quality for it. To talk hard Albedo cash, the Aptica in its basic finish is €7'750/pr vs. €24'780/pr for the Axcentia in the same finish. For thrice the cost, the latter buys you three decibels more efficiency (88dB vs. 85dB), 10 cycles more bass (35Hz vs 45Hz) and 46kg more mass (65kg vs. 19kg). Clearly ROI is shrinking. A single Zu Submission subwoofer would cost a fraction of the difference yet produce true 20Hz reach. Though in mono, the bottom octave cares little. Should you insist on true stereo, get two Undertone subs for the same price (same driver, same electronics, half-size box). Active adjustable low bass integrates rather easier than passive fixed bass. But really, most people won't hear the need for more bass than the Aptica with the right amp delivers solo. That's the whole point.

To document this with two more photos of our prior setup, here is the Aptica driven by the Crayon, no sub needed...

... against a big five-driver 3-way twin-ported tower. The smaller speaker was far better suited to this 5.5m wide short-wall layout and produced far more articulate linear non-intrusive bass. The Lithuanian flagship's underdamped alignment struggled with boom and textural looseness. Though reaching lower, it couldn't dream of keeping up with the Submission sub when that was set to about 40Hz at very low amplitude. The math ended up being smaller speaker, lower visual impact, earlier curtain rise at low levels and far better sound. And in Albedo's basic finish, these two speakers also were priced virtually identical to really compare apples to apples.
Consider the close proximity of the corners to the twin rear ports of each speaker tuned to 25Hz. Those corners as compression zones amplified LF which in turn damped in-room treble energy. Not a good recipe for success.
Even in the off-center long-wall layout of the bigger current space, the white towers didn't turn the tables. I obviously tried to be sure. They worked better than before but not good enough to trump the Albedos. If we consumed a lot of Rock at high levels—amplified music with elevated bass energy particularly in the power region—that assessment might change. But that's not our focus. It's back to the right tool for your job.
The closer right corner here proved sufficiently far away to not act in the same manner.

Finally and to cover another audiophile obsession, we all know how increasing front-wall distance upsets the interior decorator whilst it deepens and liberates the virtual stage. Here it's a lot easier to move a petite 19kg box forward into free space—even if only for a serious listening session and then back into peaceful wall proximity—than a 65kg box on sharp spikes. As any debater knows, the best argument can be toppled by a counter argument which might sound just as convincing and reasonable. But today is about an uncontested argument in favour of a very high-quality simple two-way speaker whose bandwidth and output are appropriately matched to a given room and one's actual listening levels.