It's fair to ask about Nenuphar's undeniably steep €15'900 ask. Those unfamiliar with the widebander genre will view a single driver inside a plain vanilla box borderline insanity for such coin which buys us so much more stuff elsewhere. Our eyes have become conditioned to expect more drivers, sleeker enclosures, classier finishes. But Nenuphar and kindred specimens incorporate just one transducer for a reason. Not only can it show up other measures seen in typical loudspeakers as unnecessary, the resultant simplicity promises sonics not comparable to any other topology. Of course all this is predicated upon ideal execution. Wherein lies the rub.

It takes a lot of R&D, prototyping and money to craft a full-range driver suitable to go solo. The list of better-known such houses is short: Voxativ, AER, Fostex, Lowther, Rethm, Lii, JohnBlue, Camerton. Cube Audio's Grzegorz Rulka and Marek Kostrzynski join their niche club. In fact they developed their own drivers first, then built turnkey speakers around them. As I learnt during the Magus assignment, Cube Audio have their own unique ideas to substantially distinguish them from their competition.

Their portfolio lists not only loudspeakers but drivers which are sold separately and described according to diameter and ferrite or neodymium motors. The driver that started this tale is known as the Fc8 (€1'580/pr) from which we move up to the F8 Magus (€2'980/pr) and its F8 Neo version (€4'980/pr). Then come the ferrite F10 (€3'980/pr) and its F10 Neo variant (€5'980/pr). The latter not only sits on the very apex but is what's in Nenuphar. Should you feel DIY happy, snatch up two of these neodymium 10-inchers and build them into your own boxes. By making all their drivers available separately, Cube Audio clearly taunt us with the obvious question: "Can you apply these better than we can?" I knew that I couldn't.

The creation of a widebander is a delicate balancing act to avoid undeniable compromises. If not augmented by active woofers, such drivers usually live inside often oddly shaped and sized cabinets. Otherwise their bass suffers. Today's F10 Neo driver reaches far lower than most of the competition, behaves very linear across the board and occupies a far smaller, dare I say still civilized box. Just as any other Cube Audio driver, their 10-incher is made in-house and exploits several unusual twists.