Time has moved on. As recently as the September Denver show 2019, a small two-way monitor from Børresen wowed attendees in an enormous ball room without coming apart at the seams or getting top heavy from weak bass [right]. Even seasoned veterans confessed to being taken aback by the gross discrepancy between 4" diameter mid/woofer, bandwidth, wide spacing and room-filling power. If of the necessary pedigree, today's smaller mid/woofers are capable far beyond what the monkey-coffin brands would want you to know.

Obviously the composite patent-pending driver in the €25'500/pr Dane must be of a much more elite caliber than Sensa's. But in a room of a size for which Apertura have groomed their compact tower whilst giving it about twice the box volume of the Børresen 01, Sensa's 6.3" isotactic matrix driver is one of those modern marvels.

It's common to accessorize reviews of smaller speakers with shiny variations on the "surprising for its size" comment, be that pinned to the lapel of bass reach, undistorted SPL or proper tonal balance. In 2019, such surprise mostly signals being out of touch with the status quo of speaker tech. Those limits, of good box and driver design at smaller sizes, have long been dealt with. The real surprise would be if you still thought otherwise.

That said, wonder as a spontaneous appreciation for the marvels of modern miniaturization remains perfectly warranted. It is bloody amazing what a modern 6" two-way driven from the appropriate gear can do. To celebrate Sensa's achievements, we'll remain in the Brazilian mood with Trio Esperança's "Samba de uma nota só". Let it represent the level of technical sophistication and musical maturity which Christian Yvon has bestowed on his new entry-level floorstander.

To represent the emotional intensity which is possible from a few simple ingredients—musically and hardware speaking—Saban Bajramovic's "Ne kuni me, Majko" finishes off my software examples below.

Once I had the right Sensa amplifier picked to balance resolution against tone, the speaker's primary forté was how it allowed me to connect emotionally with the music and relax the audiophile bean counting. It had excellent tonality working from a full spectrum of colors for mature sound. And that more than anything else told me that the designer behind these has truly mastered the art of 'more with less'. Which is lucky for us when €3'000/pr are the absolute limit that we can stretch to for a pair of speakers that must do it all.

In short, to me Sensa really was shorthand for both sensible and quite sensational!