Listen up

Convertible listening. In Swedish, Lyssna means to listen. Add the word Acoustics; plus a virtual lightbulb like a suffix of ™. Why? Because this new Dutch brand by store owner Ruud Moerman of Omera and speaker designer Kobus Oomen just launched with a 4½" 2-way monitor that turns into a proper 7½" 3-way with the flick of a toggle whilst docking atop the optional bass module. Execution is simple but ingenious. On the monitor's belly hide flush-mounted banana receivers. The bass module with its regular woofer and matching passive radiator sports male banana plugs on its top plus a hole for a convenient guide pin. Dock 'n' toggle; move speaker cables from upper to lower binding posts. Insert port bungs into monitor. What a minute ago was a small rear-ported Danish Wavecor mid/woofer transforms into a pure midrange. Now its added high-pass protects it from seeing hence reacting to any low bass. Lower excursions mean less distortion and dynamic compression. Cruising not bruising. This is not the usual half-assed recipe of augmenting by sub a stand mount which still runs wide open at the bottom then attempts to match its acoustic roll-off with the sub's active roll-in at correct phase and amplitude whilst likely adding digital latency from DSP. Want to revert to night-time Lyssna intimacy at low levels? Flick the toggle, de-bung, move up speaker cables. You're back in lighter 2-way mode. As a recipient of Lyssna Acoustics' introductory group email, I knew of their market entry when everyone else did on the list. But their KickStarter campaign to finance first quantity production bit my lips. Given that concept's poor performance many moons ago—of promises made vs endless delays and worse—I'd set myself an internal rule. Don't cover product until it enters actual production. Today I'm bending my own rule; not in the review or news section but here. We're all adults. Start and/or kick yourself as you please. If the project isn't funded by November 9th, Ruud & Kobus will pursue other avenues to get off the ground.

Lyssna offer four finishes for monitor and bass module. I call them charcoal, blue-green, dark blue and off-white. Officially they go by graphite, petrol, ultramarine and cream. The cabinetry sources from specialty Czech supplier Shan of Třanovice, a speaker manufacturer of 20 years. This is true European not Far-Eastern product. The wave-guided tweeter too is Danish Monacor issue. At 16x29x28cm WxHxD, the 88.5dB/4Ω monitor with rear-firing aluminium port is nicely compact. The optional stand or LF module raises it by 82cm. Sidefiring woofer + radiator drop F3 from 50Hz to 32Hz. Efficiency gives up 3½ decibels. 3-way switch engaged, the monitor's own crossover disables, that in the bass module inserts. Add black removable grills, a 5-year warranty—and Kobus is your Swedish uncle from The Netherlands.