Ionic System

Reviewer: Srajan Ebaen
Financial interests: click here
Sources: Soundaware D100Pro SD card transport, PC via Mutec MC3+USB
Review component retail: €2'200

Ammonites. As petroglyphs, they provide excellent ammunition for evolution historians. They prove just how long these life forms have already been on our planet. Compared to them, man is a very late comer. But at HighEnd Munich 2019, Deeptime's newcomer presence proved that it doesn't really matter when you arrive; only that you do. And what could be timelier than to 3D-print miniature speakers with matching active subwoofer from the most ubiquitous material on earth: sand?

To our readers, Marja & Henk's Warsaw 2018 show coverage had bowed the concept. In person, I only met these musical mollusks and their young Czechian designers at the following Munich do. Their stop-you-dead-in-your-tracks system looked both ancient and futuristic, what with that ufo-esque amber homing-beam landing pod settled down between two perky spirals with cyclops eyes. Proprietary 3-inch bamboo & paper widebanders with intricately structured Santoprene surround and underhung motor promise 75-20'000Hz bandwidth augmented to 40Hz with the sub's 5¾" woofer. On concept and execution, the Deeptime threesome should be in the modern museum of art for industrial design excellence. But its designers prefer to call Spirula & Thunderstone just "compact high-end lifestyle speakers for design-savvy music lovers".

Either way, their Ionic System promises a solid bass foundation from triple ports with long resonant tubes which double as back-light exits. Connectivity is 21st century wireless via aptX/AAC Bluetooth; or a Macbook-type combo 3.5mm stereo analog/mini Toslink port. A dual-concentric controller atop the Thunderstone adjusts master volume and relative bass volume as executed with magnetic Hall sensors to avoid crackling deterioration over the deep time's long haul. Built-in Class D powers the lot. Which now has sync'd your own clock to the Deeptime. Tick tock, tick tock.