That final frontier of space can seem elusive when a 34" curved monitor screen occupies our virtual stage. It visually and psychologically blocks the images. Enter the coaxial driver à la KEF LS50. Such coincident point sources are known for their impeccable staging especially depth specificity; and for cohering at distances where vertically spread driver arrays don't yet come together. Mini not only took a page from the good Book of Dual-Concentrics. It stole the entire tome. Eyes wide open, it obliterated the apparent physical barrier of my computer display to stage at the very top of my desktop class.
Having previously hosted imaging champs like Anthony Gallo's Strada 2 and Sven Boenicke's W5, memory insisted that Norbert Lindemann's Mini went where even they hadn't. Without bringing up memory, it clearly ventured where neither my current Acelec Model One nor EnigmAcoustics M1 do. Those are from 3 – 7½ times pricier. I'd take Mini any day of the week and two pairs on a Sunday even if cost were no issue. Seriously. In its intended primary habitat of the nearfield, this apparent simpleton is perfection incarnate!
Rear-ported Mini with banana inputs | Combo in coaxial S/PDIF mode off a USB bridge.
To reframe, call it a proper stumper for mature 'philes. They'll take one look at its specs and drivers to rattle off all manner of imaginary but sure-thing limitations and dead-certain flaws. Add Woodnote's Combo. It dares to combine mega-feedback class D with a small widebander. Damnation is bound to follow as night follows day. This can't possibly work as I describe it.
Yet not only does it work exactly so. It takes zero acclimatizing or any prior sympathy for this speaker genre. It's entirely obvious and self validating. It takes no getting used to. Such superiority proves itself.
"Okay" you allow reluctantly. "If you're deep into office fi, perhaps €4K for this setup still makes sense and performance is commensurate. But most of us do our serious listening at larger distances in bigger spaces. Surely you're not suggesting that this nearfield performance translates there?"
I won't suggest anything until I've actually tried it. But before we go upstairs to do just that, let's make a pitstop in my big rig to check on the Combo's Ethernet mode when our second floor has no Internet.
Once a quality CAT8a linked the Combo to my second Lhy Audio network switch, it appeared in Audirvana's Output Device window as a UPnP destination. Once selected, it showed 768 PCM and DSD 1'024 compatibility.
The Combo's own display confirmed the connection with 'UPnP' and volume control now locked to Audirvana's software slider. A pair of Meze 109 Pro headphones had instant sound, the simpleton concept its next hurray. I use the derogatory simpleton to play up entrenched audiophilistine reactions to Norbert's simplicity credo.
All of it evaporates like a bad dream when we awake to the reality of actual use. Being this simple to operate is fantastic. Equally so for the universal in plug 'n' play. It's all too often far from universal but here worked a charm on the very first try. So make no mistake. Behind Lindemann's simplicity and compactness hides real know-how. Don't judge these books by their covers or skinny spines.
My one nano nit with the Combo was that when using the physical rotary not remote for volume, its wood grain rotates with it to go against the horizontal grain of the faceplate. I know. I'm really getting precious. Yet critics are paid to criticize. When pickings get slim, the slim get picky. With the UPnP box ticked, we'll let Mini loose in a standard mid/farfield scenario correctly dovetailed with a subwoofer. Before we do, a quick return to the desktop repopulated with the Enleum amp getting input signal from the Laiv Harmony DAC. Cough. With its higher output Ω, the wildly pricier Enleum had clearly less control over the bass. Now I had some port ringing so small bloat. I'm not sure whether the lack of spiders in the Alpair drivers had any say in this but well aside from being so much cheaper, I preferred the Combo sonics. Really. Hello system design where one engineer signs off on the amp/speaker interface. I know how the open-backed dipole 6" Satori midranges of our Qualio IQ crave low output Ω to compensate their lack of restorative force from air trapped in a box. Is something similar true for these Mark Audio diaphragms? Whatever the answer, the small Combo had it. In HeadFi mode of course, the AMP-23R ate the Combo's breakfast. But not in Mini mode. This came as a shock. Yet critics are paid to call it as is no matter how counterintuitive or potentially upsetting.
To wrap the Combo/Mini nearfield glory, a run-on sentence of bullet points: Zero noise. Superlative point-source imaging and staging. Phenomenal focus. Great tracking of overtone shifts in tone modulations. Resolute absence of textural dryness. Sufficient weightiness of upright bass and piano to feel complete. No discernible presence raggedness. Astonishingly lucid HF. Wonderful tonal juiciness. Lovely early rise on the SPL meter. Flawless performance at 1 metre from the ears toed in face on. To wrap the apparent antithesis: High-feedback class D nCore meets filterless small widebander to predict all manner of ills. To wrap the likely antidote of the antithesis: Clever tuning of a class A input buffer with voltage gain. On-the-fly resampling of PCM to DSD. Damping and premature roll-off of the widebander's inner 'tweeter' area with a cork damper. Invisible cabinet tuning. Effective port loading to optimize the LF. To wrap the lot's obvious enabler: Hard-earned 30+ year experience with a lengthy stay in the expensive high end. It demonstrably trounces even informed predictions based on chosen parts and OEM power module.
Takeaway? Let a gifted engineer with properly pointy ears control the amp/speaker interface to maximize our price/performance ratio. Opt out of unnecessary complexity and overkill. Buy no more than our application warrants. Simple does it. Whilst we now head upstairs, thinking readers already reached the foregone conclusion when my usual speakers there virtually mirror the Mini concept; when those MonAcoustic boxes enjoy obvious preference over the far bigger costlier Acelec and Enigma specimens in our digs. My white Q Acoustics stands proved ideal on height, top-plate size and looks to warrant a formal Mini-match endorsement. At ~€120/pr they also price just right, feature spikes or rubber sleeves on the floor; and Velcro-based cable management along the upright.
