Country of Origin
Reviewer: Srajan Ebaen
Financial interests: click here
Main system: Sources: Retina 5K 27" iMac (4GHz quad-core with Turbo, 32GB RAM, 3TB FusionDrive, OSX Yosemite. iTunes 14.4), PureMusic 3.02, Audirvana 3, Qobuz, Tidal, Sonnet Pasithea, Soundaware D30Ref SD card transport & USB bridge; Preamp: icOn 4Pro S w. hi/lo-pass filter; Power amplifiers: Kinki Studio EX-B7 mono, Enleum AMP-23R; Headamp: Kinki Studio; Phones: HifiMan Susvara; Loudspeakers: Aurai Audio Lieutenant w. sound|kaos DSUB 15 on Carbide Audio footers, Audio Physic Codex, Cube Audio Nenuphar Cables: Complete loom of Allnic Audio ZL; Power delivery: Vibex Granada/Alhambra on all source components, Vibex One 11R on amps, Furutech DPS-4.1 between wall and conditioners; Equipment rack: Artesanía Audio Exoteryc double-wide 3-tier with optional glass shelves, Exoteryc Krion and glass amp stands; Sundry accessories: Acoustic System resonators, LessLoss Firewall for loudspeakers, Furutech NCF Signal Boosters; Room: 6 x 8m with open door behind listening seat
2nd system: Source: Soundaware D100Pro SD transport clock-slaved to Denafrips Terminator +; DAC: Kinki Studio; Preamp/filter: icOn 4Pro + 4th-order/40Hz hi-low pass; Amplifier: Crayon CFA-1.2; Loudspeakers: sound|kaos Vox 3awf, Dynaudio S18 sub; Power delivery: Furutech GTO 2D NCF; Equipment rack: Hifistay Mythology Transform X-Frame [on extended loan]; Sundry accessories: Audioquest Fog Lifters; Furutech NFC Clear Lines; Room: ~3.5 x 8m
Desktop system: Source: HP Z230 work station Win10/64; USB bridge: Audiobyte Hydra X+; Headamp: COS Engineering H1; Headphones: Final D-8000; Powered speakers: Fram Audio Midi 120
Upstairs headfi/speaker system: Source: smsl SD-9 transport; DAC: iFi Pro iDSD Signature; Integrated amplifier: Schiit Jotunheim R; Phones: Raal-Requisite SR1a
2-channel video system: Source: Oppo BDP-105; All-in-One: Simon Audio; Loudspeakers: German Physiks HRS-120; Subwoofer: Zu Submission; Power delivery: Furutech eTP-8, Room: ~6x4m
Review component retail in Spain: €8'990/pr or €13'550 w. diamond tweeters
Hispania. Iberia. Spain.
How is your speaker Spanish? Not fabulously fluent?
Here are four words to pad your hifi vocabulary and look well informed as befits proper Internet globetrotters:
Alsyvox of Valencia.
Kroma of Granada.
Lorenzo of Barcelona/Granada.
Sottovoce of Valencia.
If these names play like a fine Jazz quartet, we should expand to a quintet with bonySound of Malpartida de Plasencia. That's a small township of ~5'000 in the province of Cáceres in Extremadura so north of Andalucía bordering Portugal. Here electronics engineer Maximino López operates a small speaker boutique out of a residential neighborhood off the main avenue. Its unusual name points at the vibrating bones in our ears whereby we hear sound. There's also fox terrier Bonita whose stylized footprint became his company logo; a claimed 35 years of experience in audio and equipment manufacture; and a company launch in 2014.
From HifiLive's 2019 review of the earlier €14'500/pr bonySound Symphony II.
Today's 86dB Jazz 2022 thus isn't his first commercialized model, just the most current one. Above we saw the precursor reviewed by Josep Armengol, a motorcycle enthusiast and reviewer I met in Granada during a hifi event. That speaker's baffle was still more Baroque, its Gauder-like cheek ribbing still betraying a stacked Birch ply build. The sides of the Jazz go smooth under rosewood, walnut, apple or ebony veneers if one doesn't opt for the carbon fiber laminate. A still sculpted but less ornate baffle and plinth become high-gloss or matte white or black. The two-way's bass port remains on the front, making a single-wire ViaBlue terminal the sole accoutrement on the rear.
Maximino believes that Ply's cross-fiber layup coupled to tri-axial tensioning via hidden carbon-steel rods creates the most inert 'dead' enclosure to let his elite German ceramic Accuton drivers sing without interfering cabinet chatter. Sheep's wool and felt show up as damping fill and liners, an upgrade to Accuton's 30mm diamond tweeter is optional. Standard is the ceramic membrane with Titanium voice coil and dual Neodymium motor.
Box-within-box construction, an outer layered Ply hull long ago abandoned by Magico and TAD for high costs and finishing challenges, elite drivers and bespoke Mundorf filter parts all load up a bill-of-materials tally that could explode to turn BOM into bomb. It's why bonySound sell direct. Now their Jazz 2022 demands ~60% less than it would were it to show up in typical High Street venues. It's a make-before-break proposition though given 7-inch 2-way concept and ingredients, still positions as an unapologetic luxury. To my eyes, it certainly looks the part. With any sound-making piece of furniture, that's of course only half the performance equation.
Could I book some one-on-one time with this elegant compact which promises 35Hz to 25kHz bandwidth from just 108 x 40 x 45cm HxWxD dimensions accompanied by what then is a rather stout 42kg? Earlier in my reviewing career, I'd not been fond of ceramic driver implementations at trade shows. Those sentiments changed when I first heard what Massimo Costa at Italy's Albedo Audio house could do with them. I subsequently felt the same about Alain Pratali's French Aurai M1 2-way tower. To this day I own a small pair of Albedo Aptica.
As designers who have worked with them for a long time agree on, these hard membranes exhibit steep break-up modes which must be mastered. Once tamed however, these purportedly very pistonic transducers can perform brilliantly as shown also by Estelon, Mårten and Tidal/Vimberg. I'm thus curious what Maximino López has crafted with his latest combo of 7" sapphire Accuton mid/woofer and inverted 1.2" tweeter inside a sophisticated cab with complex 2.5kHz crossover. I like compact elegant floorstanders that do more with less. I love white speakers with some classy wood trim.
