In Munich I didn't even bother Grzegorz with review arrangements. He clearly had his hands full. The next time I saw him was two months ago during our fall Warsaw show. There the odds of him even seeing me were next to nil. His room at the Narodowy stadium was constantly packed to saturation. I couldn't get in let alone talk to Grzegorz. This spelled success and recognition well deserved. Several days after the exhibition, Grzegorz informed me that our Polish Muarah Audio team had a pair of Nenuphar on supportive duty in their AVS show room. So a loaner pair in Warsaw was a mere 15-minute drive from my place. This opened the window of opportunity I'd looked forward to for more than two years. Good things come to those who can wait.

The cargo arrived in two massive cardboard boxes on a pallet. At just a hair over 100kg, it wasn't exactly easy to manage single-handedly but luckily Jacek Siwinski of Muarah Audio not only delivered but kindly assisted me carrying so a tip of the hat to him. Each separately packed speaker was dressed in cloth secured between two thick foam cradles. Each upper foam protector came with a foil bag with two small hex keys and several spikes. These accessories helped ground each cabinet and dismount its driver's protective ply cover.

Just as most other Cube Audio products currently sold, Nenuphar belongs to the rare minimalist breed based on a single driver rear-loaded into a quarter-wave transmission line folded inside the same cabinet. What one pays for is a box with a driver connected directly to a set of speaker terminals via short wire. That's it. No woofers, no tweeters, no crossover. Nenuphar hits 30x50x105cm WxDxH, weighs a stout 40kg, contains 127 liters of internal volume, covers 30Hz-18kHz and 92dB efficiency seals the final deal. From these specs we see no crazy sensitivity of similar products. That's on purpose. Fully aware that this type of driver R&D is a game of compromise, Cube Audi pursue maximum linearity and wide bandwidth, not extreme sensitivity. The same route already proved highly effective with Magus. If it ain't broke…

Each tall and deep box houses a single 10" driver up high on its front while the rear sports one pair of WBT NextGen terminals fixed to a nice plate just above the floor. Biwire needn't apply. Two rubber bumpers in the rear corners and two long spikes in the front purposely tilt each enclosure back a bit. Its underbelly is the down-firing mouth of a folded transmission line, thus the escape route for the driver's rear emissions into the room. The cabinet can be high gloss black or white but custom paints and veneers are available by demand. I found no nits with my loaners which looked professional and free from DIY touches, albeit also low on bling.