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A 4-incher doing a man's job? If you've bought into the propaganda that only a 12-inch or better 3-way meets minimum real-man standards, today's entire concept gets ludicrous, suggestions to the contrary imaginary at best and sycophantic at worst. So free up your imagination now. The Dubh does deliver on its promise. It really is good to the upper limits of our hearing and does hit ~45Hz even without corner loading (my room doesn't have a nearby corner for the left speaker). If you take their Quad reference at face value, the quality of Eist's bass—not big dynamic shove and guttural sock but finely nuanced articulation—is self-explanatory. A little driver even when loaded into a clever 'expander' line doesn't move big-woofer air. But it does extend midrange-type energy and impact down into the 2nd octave for a very continuous gestalt of microdynamic finesse over brutish macro antics. Without a subwoofer, think midrange-type bass. Same quality but lower.
On the closer speaker this photo shows how at the top (and also along the sides though here obscured by the shadows) there are telltale areas where the inner edges of the wall panels telegraph through the paint.
Having conversed with Anthony Gallo on numerous occasions, I know how he'd not use anything bigger than 4-inch drivers if he were allowed as many as the job demanded. In his mind that's the ideal and perfect driver size. His big Reference LS5 line source demonstrated such multi-paralleled employ. Obviously the Dubh lacks their heavily multiplied displacement. So does Sven Boenicke's W5 which it competes against on price head on. Everything I said about the W5's bass applies to the Dubh too so you might reference that review. Where things differ—also against my wildly costlier soundkaos Wave 40 which the Irish displaced—is projection. The solid tone-wood cabs of the Swiss eggs energize the room far more. So do the sidefiring high-excursion Peerless mid/woofers of the other Swiss. The resin/MDF box of the Dubh holds the sound back behind the speakers. It doesn't gush forward to reach across space. It's less enveloping. It's more traditionally 'over there'. On tone too the Swiss differ. The Alpair 7.3 driver is more about leading-edge precision and soundstage specificity than the fleshy redolent tone which both wooden speakers make with their different drivers.


Of course our new ~100m² open floor-plan listening room cum office cum kitchen cum entry plus mezzanine above it is rather more capacious than the Dubh's target playground. That size also creates less lower-mid/upper-bass boundary reinforcement to present an innately leaner tonal balance. It's offset by less reflective interference and its resonant fuzz. Finally far reduced LF room interference truly warrants some infrasonic sub assist to build out the foundation of even speakers rather bigger than the Dubh. In short, in this space I ended up running the Irish with a dead-center-placed 40Hz and below Zu Submission set to a modest 2.5 on its dial. My SIT1 monos driven from Nagra's Jazz ran the Dubh to kick off. To get price real I'd move to Funjoe's Clones Audio trio of AP1 pre and 55pm monos.


Linearity. Whilst lab tests will certainly disagree to show squiggles as they do for any speaker, the broad-shouldered Dubh which is far wider than the actual driver sounded admirably even*. It wasn't plagued by the typical widebander upper-mid raggedness and peakiness. This tipped a hat at the smooth class-act driver and another at the effectiveness of Eist's baffle-step correction filter (kudos for slaughtering sacred cows and being pragmatic). Even those who'd in the end fancy a different sound would have to admit that with its covers removed to rub in driver size, the Dubh is a kind of mind fuck. Without flinching, these suckers stare expectations and presumptions into their exasperated faces. "Where's the bloody tweeter? Where's the real woofer? Inside?" To such cries for help it'll remain mum. That puts the burden of explanations on you. If you're new to this breed—by which I don't mean AER, Feastrex, Rethm and Voxativ type Lowtherites but the Ed Schillings, Frugalhorns and their sort—you're bound to scratch your head. With bandwidth and relative linearity out of the way, why would anyone want to Dubh it rather than go after the earlier mentioned Sino/Italian Venere for example?
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* This doesn't mean a minor presence lift is completely gone. Just as vintage Triangle Electroacoustique speakers had a deliberate small rise in the top end to sound fresh and energetic, the Dubh has one set a bit lower. Hence 'even' doesn't mean flat. It means 'not ragged'. Our hearing is far more sensitive to irregular spikes than more gradual smoother deviations.

Not really for looks or finish as we already covered. Wanting to listen to low-power amps could be a good first reason. It's simply no requirement. Not wanting to listen bloody loud whilst still getting a full dose of the musical message could be another. Here the Dubh seems better than most multi-ways though the sadly departed Albedo Aptica was an exception and at least its equal. Whilst the Dubh stages very well sorted, so do scores of others, particularly those keen in the time domain. To get directly at the Sonus faber Venere which I reviewed last year, the Dubh pulls ahead on crisp transients. It's more defined/refined at focusing down hard and locking in the very beginnings of sonic events. This creates rhythmic integrity and tension. Even complex beat patterns remain clear as day. Percussion madness à la Trilok Gurtu, Zakir Hussain, Bolokada Conde or Turkish djembe quartets fires on all cylinders with brand-new spark plugs. Here the Italians are lazier. Less exacting. Softer. Blurrier and fatter.
Good off-axis dispersion makes for fully centred stereo even in these seats.
The same leaning in closer happens to vocals. Here it's not about percussive rigour. It's about small accents from volume shifts. It's how breaks and inflections subdivide phrasing. Those aren't hesitations and rushes of timing but changes in amplitude. This uneven weighting is often accompanied by timbre modulations. The Dubh was keener in the amplitude domain, less so on harmonic changes but still good. Greatness occurred in the density of depth layering. There wasn't just close, middle and back. There were far greater more closely stacked variations over distance. Such very specific distance mapping tends to accompany speakers which—as much as they can—are true in the time domain. Here single drivers have an obvious advantage. To chase it with multi-way crossovers gets a lot trickier. The very best come close. The Dubh's off-axis response was high enough to incur no perspective shifts when instead of one dead-center chair two chairs took its place to have neither in the exact sweet spot. At least for two listeners you can thus arrange your space as a living room and still have perfect stereo. That's a real benefit.