For a baffle sized 125x7x43cm, these were extremely heavy. No wonder; the front is 3mm steel. That adds up nicely to the weight. For our review sample, the steel plate was deliberately oxidized, the rusted finish sealed with lacquer to stop the corroding process and prevent stains. For stability, the Jimi baffle is fitted with a heavy L-shape protrusion also of steel. Two drivers mount to the baffle. A 1" Bastanis tweeter inside a horn is coupled with an Audyn 1.2μF capacitor and an 8.2Ω Mundorf M-Resist Supreme resistor. For lower freqs there is a 12" Bastanis widebander treated with only one Mundorf 15Ω M-Resist resistor across its input terminals. This driver is committed to serving the 100Hz–7kHz range above which the horn tweeter takes over. So there's no real crossover on the main driver of undisclosed US provenance and the amplifier has direct contact with it. A natural 18dB/octave roll-off due to baffle size plus the driver's own attenuation hand its fading signal to the sub which, roughly, covers 100Hz down to 30 cycles.


This high-efficiency European 15" woofer mounts to a 55x55x38 sealed cab. To keep up with the baffle drivers, a Mivoc AM80 MkII plate amp powers the sub. This amp is rated at 80 watts and accepts RCA line-level inputs or a high-level speaker signal on spring-loaded bare wire receptacles. Phase adjustment is limited to 0 or 180° while output level and low-pass frequency are granularly adjustable. AC power comes via a figure-8 two-pole power cord. The lack of a ground connection avoids nasty ground loop hum.


Club-27 and Robert Bastani spent a lot of time minimizing transition influences. Each time a signal crosses from one medium or material boundary to another, some influence of this transition can reflect in the final sound. It starts with the incoming speaker leads. The five-way binding post accepts banana or spade terminated loudspeaker cables, with the bare wire connection already used to connect the drivers (we learnt that they recommend connecting your speaker leads also as bare wire to eliminate small losses). This means no soldering. From the binding post two sets of wires leave for the drivers. For the widebander, the leads solder directly with the resistor to the voice coil leads to bypass the slip-on terminals. The tweeter exploits a similarly bare-boned solution, with one wire from the terminal soldered to the resistor, then capacitor then tweeter. The other lead goes straight to the tweeter. Looking at the back, the dangling wires, naked resistors and tie-wrapped capacitor elicit an unfinished impression but there's method to its minimalist madness. We were told that sound trials noted sonic degradation from adding a cover or fixing the wires.


When the subwoofer is slid over the protruding L-bracket, the speaker becomes a single part. Let's take a closer look. Armin already apologized for the paint finish of our samples. He had the option of bringing a burnt-in sample with a poor paint job; or a pretty but virgin production sample. Break-in for the Bastanis widebander means at least 400 hours. That's a whopping 17 days of constant play. We were glad he opted for sound not looks. In the horn flare of the tweeter we noticed a nickel-sized felt dot. The widebander sports 7 of them encircling the dust cap.


Another feature of the Jimi—or in fact any Club-27 loudspeaker—is the recessed mounting of the widebander. It couples to the back of the baffle to create a 2.5cm deep transition in front of the cone whose paper, in proprietary Bastani fashion, gets an application of violin lacquer. This secret compound alters the thin cone's damping and renders it less stiff. Now the driver reaches frequencies above its original break-up point. The Jimi driver hits 7kHz without issues except for getting beamy around the dust caps. That's why the felt pads show up there – tweaky perhaps but effective.