Country of Origin
This review published in July 2022 on HifiKnights.com. By request of the manufacturer and permission of the author, it is hereby syndicated to reach a broader audience. All images contained in this piece are the property of Dawid Grzyb or Cube – Ed.
Reviewer: Dawid Grzyb
Sources: Innuos Statement, LampizatOr Pacific with KR T-100 or LV 300B and KR 5U4G
USB components: iFi Audio iGalvanic3.0, micro iUSB3.0, 3 x Mercury3.0, iPower 9V
Preamplifier: Trilogy 915R
Power amplifier: Trilogy 995R, Bakoon AMP-13R
Speakers: sound|kaos Vox 3awf, Boenicke Audio W11 SE+
Interconnects: Boenicke Audio IE3 CG
Speaker cables: Boenicke Auduo S3, LessLoss C-MARC
Power components: GigaWatt PC-3 SE EVO+ w. LC-3 EVO cord, LessLoss C-MARC, Boenicke Audio Power Gate, IOSL-8 Prometheus
Rack: Franc Audio Accessories wood block rack
Network: Fidelizer EtherStream, Linksys WRT160N
Retail price of component: €7'990/pr satin black or white; add €2'000 for high gloss or real veneers; €2'990/pr for just the raw drivers
Jazzon is Cube Audio's latest which inherits much from their Nenuphar flagship but sells for less than half. Too good to be true? This local company are known for widebanders beyond the mainstream. In recent years founders Grzegorz Rulka and Marek Kostrzynski have so effectively popularized this exotic genre that their rooms at various shows are usually packed. Why is no mystery. Visitors always witness how passé the usual widebander stereotypes are when Cube Audio stomp on them hard by making surprisingly gutsy and complete sound from boxes modestly styled and sized. That just one unassisted driver per side can pull this off turns naysayers into converts and quickly gains friends with non insiders unfamiliar with the breed's traditional peculiarities. Although purist by design, Cube Audio speakers are admirably easy-going, quite casual even. That makes them very special. Over the years Cube Audio have grown from a boutique workshop with two products to a thriving world-renowned business with five 8" and three 10" speaker models all fitted with bespoke drivers. The smaller range features the Bliss (€6'900/pr), Magus (€8'900/pr) and Nenuphar Mini (€12'900/pr), the latter also available as standalone monitor (€12'900/pr) or with optional active Basis sub (€24'900/pr). Until recently the 10" family featured just Nenuphar (€16'900/pr) and its like-priced monitor version which with the larger Basis sub module demands €33'900/pr. Also, DIYers can purchase any of the raw drivers and use them as they see fit. The F10 Neo, F8 Neo, F8 Magus and Fc8 sell for €6'690, €5'490, €3'290 and €1'790/pr respectively so aren't cheap. But given how they perform and what can be done with them, being available separately is a big plus.
Jazzon expands the 10" roster with Cube's latest big driver, the F10 Select. Being essentially the F10 Neo, one wouldn't tell them apart by their cones, surrounds and machined 260x260mm aluminium baskets. The key difference is the newcomer's ferrite magnet in lieu of the much dearer sibling's 81 neodymium slugs uniformly located within its acrylic compartment and costly to make. The new motor reduced magnetic field strength across the 12mm gap from 2.4 to 1.7 Tesla. Sensitivity dropped accordingly from 92 to 90dB. These parameters called for a new enclosure which measures 30x40x94cm WxDxH and weighs 35kg. Versus Nenuphar that's 10cm shallower and shorter; not much on paper but in my room Nenuphar did register as noticeably larger.
Jazzon lists a 10Ω nominal impedance, 40W max. power handling, 35Hz–18kHz bandwidth and a -3dB point at 34Hz. It's an enjoyably easy load perfectly happy with puny if carefully curated watts. As a proper Cube only a single driver rear-loaded with a quarter-wave line is allowed. It gets you a rectangular box whose lone driver hardwires to its speaker terminals. That's it. That's all it takes for such products to work. Add-on woofers, tweeters and crossovers are out. Cube Audio speakers aren't crazily sensitive for their type but that's on purpose. Marek and Grzegorz pursue maximum linearity and bandwidth not 100dB sensitivity. After auditioning several of their designs, I can only say that this was a very smart choice indeed.
