Country of Origin
Reviewer: Marja & Henk
Financial Interests: click here
Sources: PS Audio PWT; Dr. Feickert Blackbird MKII/DFA 1o5/Zu DL-103; Takumi TT Level 2.1 [in for review]; Holbo Air Bearing Turntable System [in for review]
DAC: Mytek Brooklyn; T+A DAC8 [loaner]
Streaming sources: Devialet AIR; La Rosita Beta; Qobuz Desktop, Tidal Desktop; Sound Galleries SGM 2015 [loaner]; Mytek Brooklyn Bridge [in for review]
Preamp/integrated/power: Audio Note Meishu with WE 300B (or AVVT, JJ, KR Audio 300B output tubes); dual Devialet D-Premier; PTP Audio Blok 20; Hypex Ncore 1200 based monoblocks; Trafomatic Kaivalya; Trafomatic Reference One; Trafomatic Reference Phono One; Music First Passive Magnetic; Gold Note PH-10 phono pre amp with PSU-10 external power supply [in for review]; SPEC RPA-MG1000 [in for review]
Speakers: Avantgarde Acoustic Duo Omega; Arcadian Audio Pnoe; Podium Sound One; WLM Sub 12; Sounddeco Alpha F3; dual Zu Submisson MKI; Soltanus Virtuoso ESL
Cables: complete loom of ASI LiveLine cables; full loom of Crystal Cable cables; full loom of Nanotec Golden Strada; Audiomica Pearl Consequence interconnect; Audiomica Pebble Consequence
Power line conditioning: PS Audio Powerplant Premier; PS Audio Humbuster III; IsoTek Evo 3 Syncro; AudioMica Allbit Consequence
Equipment racks: Solid Tech and ASI amplifier and TT shelf
Indispensable accessories: Furutech DeMag; ClearAudio Double Matrix; Franc Audio Ceramic Disc Classic; Shakti Stones; Kemp polarity checker; Akiko Audio Corelli,Costello and Phono Booster; Pink Faun LAN Isolator
Online Music purveyors: qobuz.com, tidal.com, bandcamp.com, amazon.co.uk
Room treatment: Acoustic System International resonators, sugar cubes, diffusers
Room size: ca. 14.50 x 7.50m with a ceiling height of 3.50m, brick walls, wooden flooring upstairs, ca 7 x 5m with a ceiling height of 3.50m, brick walls and concrete floor downstairs.
Price of review item: LA17P €20'790/pr, LA17A €24'300/pr (excludes VAT but includes transport and on-site setup/tuning within the EU)
At the last Warsaw Audio Show, we met Saša Burian, owner of Audio Alto based in Ljubljana, Slovenia. When we entered the room, we were instantly struck by his loudspeakers. Our report on the room closed with "the Audio Alto room was the most surprising and innovative of the show".
Loudspeakers come in any form and type imaginable – yet there are still new ways to do the job. That's basically to move air in such a way that the listener's ear/brain has the awareness of a sensation we call sound. From that sound the brain reconstructs a thing called music in a manner still mostly not understood. Our aural perception concentrates on a limited bandwidth. Research states that our human hearing system covers the frequency range from 20Hz to 20kHz. Most musical instruments produce sound in this band. Next to hearing a sound of a particular frequency or pitch by means of our ears which include the outer and inner ear, we also perceive sound with the rest of our body. Our skin is sensitive to vibrations and so is our skeletal system. We can perceive subsonic frequencies of single-digit vibrations per second as well as frequencies at 40kHz and beyond.
Loudspeakers in a hifi system are the transducers between the electrical music signal and the moving air that excites our ears. That is no easy task. The wavelength of a 20Hz tone is about 17 meters and the wavelength at 20kHz about 1.7 centimeter. This creates a 1 : 1'000 ratio and we want the entire band between these end frequencies produced at a uniform level with no peaks or troughs.
Next to frequency, our hearing system is also sensitive to pressure which relates to loudness or amplitude. Here humans are blessed with no less than a 10 billion to 1 or 10'000'000'000 : 1 sensitivity to power. Add to this that we will discern nonlinear distortion at a rate of one part in a hundred and it is clear how the task of a loudspeaker is really quite complex. This is why there are so many different ways to design it by way of combining drivers as the mechanical moving parts with an enclosure. Here the latter isn't restricted to a box or monkey coffin. It can be open or closed, small or big, tall or wide, with horns behind or in front of the driver or planar where a membrane is excited in a magnetic or electrostatic field in dipole or monopole radiation.
