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For a long time Goldmund were best known for turntables, then amplifiers. Going forward, the new focus should be loudspeakers. As to sonics—and if the ProLogos sets a trend—think Vandersteen. As 1st-order proponents of proper timing, Vandies always occupied the counter pole to equally first-order committed Thiel when Jim Thiel still ran the show. The speakers from California were always warmer and mellower than the often bright super-incisive laser beams from Kentucky. Adrenaline and speed vs. substance and richness. In 'advanced' audiophile circles, Vandersteen is often called insufficiently resolved. But their warmer chunkier route is squarely also Goldmund's ideal for the ProLogos.
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Contemporary resolution emphasizes micro detail. Separation as seeing broken down into particles. It's about how many individual strands the musical fabric can get unraveled into. It's mega-pixel zoom on minutiae. And the typical journey of audiophilia tends to press deeper and deeper into such apartheid. Where a live symphony orchestra's string section is one giant pulsing mass, the separatist audiophile wants to hear the second violins' third chair as a discrete entity. The crowning glory of this pursuit is a hyper-realist sound of intense focus across maximal depth of field. It transforms the musical action into a crawling ant hill in extreme close-up.
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Such dissective listening is key for the mixing and mastering engineer. He can't get lost and swept up in the music. He must stay aloof to critically check his work for the smallest errors. The ProLogos suggests how this is pure folly for a pleasure seeker. Hence the Swiss boxes don't appeal to audiophiles who still chase the dissective type of resolution. The ProLogos is either for beginners who don't know better; or the eventually disenchanted career 'phile who finally does know better. Now he longs for the simpler more satisfying meatier holistic sound he vaguely recalls from his journey's early beginnings.
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Audiophilia is really a learnt habit. It's a slowly acquired taste. It relies on arm-chair knowledge. and effective isolation from live music. Nobody referencing live music would fall for it and buy into the need or desire for resolution that far exceeds reality. Our abstract language of hifi reviews slices the holistic audible range into arbitrary bands called treble, mid and bass. Then it creates three further subdivisions for each. That's a very effective tool to create alienation. But it's merely the start of artifice.
The more we talk of effects which are alien to the concert or club experience, the more those effects seem essential as something we miss out on. Effects called soundstaging, imaging, separation and the lot promise to augment, refine or complete the playback experience. In actual practice, they more often than not undermine the prime rationale one had for turning to one's hifi: for emotional nourishment and some form of non-verbal therapeutic escape from the doldrums of mundane life.
The ProLogos bypasses such misery. It's happy beginner's sound if one were lucky to start out with a Vandersteen 2ce type speaker driven by competent electronics. It's serious final sound if one was lucky enough to wade through the inevitable disillusion with highly separated vivisectionist modern hi-rez sound; if one jumped ship and chanced upon Goldmund. Either way it's not audiophile kosher. And there are more reasons. First off, the sound is literally locked in by its designers to predict consistent performance no matter what. Those who remain convinced that an arbitrary pick 'n' choose would do better refuse to be locked in categorically. |
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Global marketing manager Anne-Karine Agius demonstrates the ProLogos's compact size by contrast - from this facebook page |
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The ProLogos can't and won't work with them. It's for humbler more pragmatic customers who want guaranteed success. As they would in any other area of life, for that they turn to the experts for an integrated solution, service or product. They neither have the time nor inclination to bootstrap or home-brew. They want to start the game at a high level and with a turnkey solution that works. Raw chance is a mistress they've given the boot.
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With the ProLogos,
audiophiles fond of hi-tech metal dome or ribbon tweeters would complain of insufficient air and outline sharpness; of non-extreme separation; of stepped-down lucidity. Those with 100m² rooms and subwoofers would want the ProLogos Plus to build out weight and reach below 35Hz. Those of a frugal disposition would never have gotten past the shocking 5'000 Swiss for just the very basic welded box frames. Those with a distrust of digital attenuation are left out in the cold. Likewise are speed junkies who'd consider anything bigger than a 4-inch midrange too large, never mind paralleled mid/woofers of the 7-inch persuasion.
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Such a list of for and against could be spun out. That's because Goldmund's ProLogos Active is very specific about whom it addresses. It stops cold our endemic fascination with endless upgrades. It prioritizes analogue values of substance, warmth, chunkiness, fullness, density and dynamics. It's not about current digital trends of graphic hyper resolution and top pixel count. Its looks are arch conservative. Its published retail pricing is very high. It's not completely ideal for very low SPL. But for the right customer who knows what live music sounds like and wants that; who perhaps even has gone astray and wants back on track... this could be a possible final purchase. Goldmund's commercial success (Rodolphe Boulanger said that they can't fill orders fast enough which in this economy is an issue of a different sort) suggests that they have a very keen grasp on their target audience indeed. Whether those folks will read this review is most unlikely. And it's just as unlikely that those who do read it will get the appeal of the ProLogos Active concept.
Therein lies the rub. It's the pervasive undercurrent behind this assignment. Which for this author really made it deliciously subversive all around. It's particularly perfidious because, from behind a black curtain, many audiophiles would declare this as the sound they've always wanted but somehow didn't get. Alas once you'd let them see behind this curtain, they'd walk with a dismissive grunt. So their madness continues. And so Goldmund continue to pursue a very different customer instead... |
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