On the casting bench. With full production of the 35 at right not expected until ~September and the show pair committed to until then, Steve proposed their 15H instead. Like all current Jern, it shares the same 5¼" 2-way 21x30x18cm cast casing as all the models below it. The differences are always the drivers and filter parts. The 15H gets a boutique Seas mid/woofer and ¾" gold Hiquphon soft-dome tweeter. The latter isn't the standard version I heard in Kroma's Mimí I was assured but rather, one made to Ole Lund Christensen's specs.

Having worked with Nordic driver manufacturers like Audio Technology, Hiquphon, Seas and ScanSpeak for decades already, Ole who just recently moved to Switzerland carries an audiophile diplomat's passport. It whisks him straight through standard catalogue items into the secret backroom where actual driver engineers offer seriously tweaked variants. In fact, Purifi's Lars Risbo was apparently so taken with the 15's Munich performance that he offered to adapt their present 6½" über driver to 5¼" dimensions. That'll go into a 15 variant beyond today's 'H' whose drivers are already preceded by a 1st-order filter of elite Mundorf silver/gold/oil cap, Mundorf CFC14 flat-copper air coil and shielded Teflon wiring. Published bandwidth is 55Hz-25kHz with 85dB/4Ω sensitivity. To adapt the smaller enclosure platform to these drivers, Ole uses lamb's wool as his internal damping fill of choice.

I asked Steve what powder coat is most popular. Without hesitation he called out what they dub casting grey. The latest always satin refinement apparently includes microscopic specks of silver and gold. That's what I asked for. I'd provide my own stands but requested the optional rubber rings to angle the monitors up or down should I need to. As you'd expect for the upscaled 6½" 2-way platform introduced with the new 35, its cubic volume grows by about 30% whilst weight more than doubles. A 32 and 34 version with less extreme drivers are already on the books to bring the flagship's €20K sticker down to cooler climates. Global warming and all. The force-cancelling dual 10" Wavecore sub with class D power and DSP filter fell victim to the widespread delays of the ongoing chip crisis. It explains why by June 1st, it didn't yet list on the website which itself is on the more basic side of things to still deserve its own upgrade.

Matryoshka dolls Jern style. The grills attach magnetically but are recommended to be removed for especially high-SPL listening.

Going onto this Danish sojern—any current version thereof—acknowledges basics. In exchange for clarity gains from a very dead cabinet and superior time-domain performance from sealed loading and time-aligned drivers, raw bass reach and ultimate SPL power diminish. No matter how exotic the driver that ends up in this casing as one works up within the range, there's only so much even the very best of 5¼" mid/woofers could wring from cubic volume this compact without dropping sensitivity by another 5dB to 80dB; or without nearly an octave's worth of crutch from a port whose entire MO would be dreaded resonance again. Like Platinum's ported 5¼" 2-way Solo of yesteryear, that could reach lower with less precision. A Jern shopper deliberately prioritizes certain qualities over others. That die is cast; in high-graphite iron as it turns out. Definitely with the 14-and-below versions and quite possibly also the 15H, fanciers of electronica, movie soundtracks and other music with infrasonic synth content will want a sub. The forthcoming big Jern covers that score for a very serious penny. The 514 stand combo aims in the same direction for less though with that very peculiar choice of a driver no larger than the 2-way's 5¼" mid/woofer. And it's meant only for the 14 models whose native roll-off matches the woofer's roll-in. Surely there at least a high-performance 8-inch add-on woofer would be taken more serious?

Small print. Read. Signed. Done just not dusted. Steve guarantees us that their special satin finish won't show dust or finger prints. How cool is that? 1'450°C's worth? It's the Iron Age. Jern means iron. It reminded me of Thailand's nOrh, Finland's former Prime. nOhr had djembe-shaped speakers turned from real marble. Prime speakers were made from Karelian soapstone. Both pursued inert cabinetry from natural materials not hi-tech composites. It appeals to a different aesthetic. So do Jern. Where sawdust set in glue aka MDF/HDF or plastic polymers à la metacrylate aren't one's idea of material nobility, cast iron could fit the bill? It certainly fits the heirloom notion of acquisitions which last a few generations. It won't care about high humidity, temperature fluctuations, cracks, warps, failed joints and peeled veneer. Checking on GLS's progress, the speakers left Denmark from their Kolding parcel center then touched down for refueling in Germany's Neuenstein. For a few days then the trail went cold. "These are brand new so need to be run in for a while." Uff. Dedicating an entire system to speaker conditioning is a pain. It equates to noise pollution for other reviews. If you play a constant 8 hours, it still takes 12½ days just to accrue 100 hours. Meanwhile playing low enough to not interfere tends to also not count as break-in. The 15H would be around for a while.

With their nomenclature's 15 equaling kilograms, these were unduly heavy only for being this compact. The CD cover tells the munchkin tale. The included magnetically affixed grills felt rather flimsy so I left them off. The rubber rings I'd requested were MIA but these flat circular butts certainly don't need them to stay put. Included was a folded paper from Hiquphon's Oskar Wrønding, giving a full spec breakdown of his ¾" gold dome custom-made for Jern. The response graphs were of my serial numbers. There was even an invite to email him with any questions.

To loosen up these suspensions, an adjernment into our 2.0 video system booted out Zu's customary Soul VI whilst the H15 hopped on oversized stands to take their place for a few weeks of slowly coming on song. The volume readout of Gold Note's IS-1000 Deluxe integrated sat rather higher now to compensate for the offset in sensitivity but plenty of untapped headroom remained. Because Maurizio Atterini's amp includes a two-stage pure analog boost at 50Hz, I engaged that at max to add a bit of extra LF calisthenics.