Whilst awaiting his answer, I went shopping myself to pick Teddy as a down-ported 10" two-way. That old-timey concept of a big-woofer two-way in a short box was far more unusual than yet another 7" equivalent. At 5cm shy of a meter, Teddy is stumpy, has a pert 34x44cm footprint and nicely manageable weight of 27kg. In-room response is given as 33-26'000Hz. Rautilio80 would be 2cm taller, with a 25x40cm footprint and 36-25'000Hz claimed response. Curiously its 2'700Hz filter hinge is lower than the 3'400Hz where Teddy's 26cm ScanSpeak paper cone hands over to its 2.5cm ScanSpeak silk dome. Also, Rautilio80 demands €200 more and ports out the rear.

Here's how the designer differentiates the two. "Of course I like them both but they are different. Rautilio80 has a clear, detailed and subtle sound. Teddy has the same DNA but is a 'monster male' speaker." Not being a monster male myself, having at least speakers of said type would add immeasurably to my self esteem. The choice was doubly clear.

Actually, three things had my vote. One, down-firing ports are less room interactive than rear-firing ports. Two, whilst giving up some detail in its upper bandwidth versus Rautili80's smaller mid/woofer, Teddy's tenner would add body to vocals, booty to bass. In our 5 x 10 meter room, that sounded like the ticket. Three, the layout with the woofer on top recalls our Zu Druid VI, another design which deliberately prioritizes dynamics and fat tone over daintier chamber-music airs.

On February 27th, "by request of my German distributor Authentic Sound, I began offering paint not just veneer finishes in my Candeza range. He also asked for our Candeza, Rautilio and Teddy models to share the same shape so I changed Teddy's enclosure a bit." When asked about his company name, "GE' might look like the first two letters of Gediminas but in fact it's the first letters of Gediminas and Erika my wife. She has been my guardian angel for 37 years."

Candeza Mini

When asked whether new curves would alter Teddy's price, "they should but won't for a while. From a production point of view, the build does take a bit longer but the material costs are almost the same. The sides of such shapes are very interesting. I build them up as 4-layer MDF/Ply bonds at different thicknesses even densities. The fancy term is constrained-layer damping. Internal damping and braces from a quasi transmission line add further stiffness. I've not seen this particular loading elsewhere but being hidden from view, it's always hard to know for certain what competitors are really doing."

About his filter preference, "I'm using a 2nd–order Linkwitz-Riley but it's not a textbook execution so the transition is a bit higher. It's a play on component values and difficult to explain but works. And yes, the tweeters in the Rautilio80 and Teddy are the same."