Country of Origin
Reviewer: Srajan Ebaen
Financial interests: click here
Main system: Sources: Retina 5K 27" iMac (i5, 256GB SSD, 40GB RAM, Sonoma 14), 4TB external SSD with Thunderbolt 3, Audirvana Studio, Qobuz Sublime, Singxer SU-6 USB bridge, LHY Audio SW-8 & SW-6 switch, Laiv Audio Harmony and Sonnet Pasithea; Active filter: Lifesaver Audio Gradient Box 2; Power amplifiers: Kinki Studio EX-B7 monos & Gold Note monos on subwoofer; Headamp: Kinki Studio THR-1, Enleum AMP-23R, aune S17Pro Evo; Phones: Raal 1995 Immanis; Loudspeakers: Qualio IQ [on loan] Cables: Kinki Studio Fire, Furutech; Power delivery: Kinki/Vinshine Tai Hang on amps, Furutech GTO 2D NCF on low-level gear; Equipment rack: Artesanía Audio Exoteryc double-wide 3-tier with optional glass shelves, Exoteryc amp stands; Sundry accessories: Acoustic System resonators, LessLoss Firewall for loudspeakers, Furutech NCF Signal Boosters; Room: 6 x 8m with open door behind listening seat; Room treatment: 2 x PSI Audio AVAA C214 active bass traps
2nd system: Source: FiiO R7 into Soundaware D300Ref SD transport to COS Engineering D1 DAC/pre; Filter: Lifesaver Audio Gradient Box 2; Amplifier: Kinki Studio EX-M7; Headamp: Cen.Grand Silver Fox; Loudspeakers: MonAcoustic SuperMon Mini + Dynaudio S18 sub, sound|kaos Vox 3awf, Albedo Aptica; Power delivery: Vibex Granada/Alhambra, Akiko Audio Corelli; Equipment rack: Hifistay Mythology Transform X-Frame [on extended loan]; Sundry accessories: Audioquest Fog Lifters; Furutech NFC Clear Lines; Room: ~3.5 x 8m
Desktop system: Source: HP Z2 work station Win10/64; USB bridge: Singxer SU-2; DAC: iFi Pro iDSD Signature; Speakers: DMAX P61; Headphones: Final D-8000 & aune SR7000 Audeze LCD-XC
Upstairs headfi system: FiiO R7; Headphones: Meze 109 Pro, Fiio FT3, Raal 1995 Magna, HiFiMan Susvara
2-channel video system: Source: Oppo BDP-105; All-in-One: Gold Note IS-1000 Deluxe; Loudspeakers: Zu Soul VI; Subwoofer: Zu Submission; Power delivery: Furutech eTP-8, Room: ~6x4m
Review component retail: €8'097/pr
Best x favourite. One pretends at absolutism. The other remains intensely personal. That (cough!) favourite means best even though only for us is implied. Cake. Eat it. When it comes to tweeters, my favourite is Mundorf's small dipole AMT. My 2nd-fave is Raidho's planarmagnetic. Mohawk style, the Mundorf already takes pride of place atop my Qualio IQ bass bin on an acrylic open baffle. Its monopole version lived in Acelec's Model One. As have five other speakers, that recently found a new Irish home. I did some hardware housecleaning which also passed on six amps to new users in Dublin. Review for 23 years and it's hard to keep a growing collection in check. I had my eyes and ears on upgrading the speakers in my second system for a year now. Running out of space, I simply needed to clear out excess inventory first. Switch off hog mode. Living very rural and having no packing materials to ship anything, it took time to give it all away. But I finally managed and met some interesting people along the way.
Now I had to decide between Raidho's X1.6 and ModalAkustik's MusikBoxx as my two finalists. Both come in my favourite speaker finish, white. As a stereo 2.1 fan where subwoofers handle the bottom ~2 octaves, bass reach was no priority. A precision analog high-pass filter would prevent the mid/woofers from noticing any low bass. That gave the German's sealed alignment the nod for superior timing without port-endemic ringing. More nods came for the outboard xover and acrylic stack construction not HDF. The final nod was at that small dipole Mundorf AMT on a time-aligned short open baffle. Going forward, regular readers will now notice a white pair installed in my upstairs rig augmented by its usual Dynaudio 2×9½" sealed force-cancelling sub. Incidentally there's a 3rd speaker with dipole Mundorf AMT and white option just about to hit: Virtual Hifi's ultra-compact Viper with its 3D-printed cabinet here done in yellow.
If you share my tweeter proclivity, learning of more choices in this tiny space is of note. Wolf von Langa's 12639 Son lives there already as does Daudio of the Netherlands. By my count we're now up to at least a whopping five. Once we enlarge the AMT size, von Langa has bigger models, too. Leaving room for things I don't know of, there's perhaps 12 commercial speaker models that run this awesome tweeter in its open-backed form? That makes it a niche within a niche within a niche. Nichicon for our kind's micro convention? It'd host in a tiny town nobody has ever heard of.
As I learnt past taking this snap, the stand's tripod is supposed to have its single foot forward. Then the crossover's terminals aren't obscured.
But when we're confident of our tastes, mass approval isn't on our mind. Catering to possibly extreme specialization is. As a Mundorf dipole AMT fan, I now have two of my systems kitted out. With the Viper samples from Warsaw announced for parallel dispatch, a potential desktop version is inbound as well. Micro convention indeed and only hosted outside Ireland's rural hamlet of Killimer whose 2011 census counted 498 inhabitants. Convention attendance? Moi so just one. But with the Internet's virtual attendance, who'd know actual numbers? Not I. I don't check my stats.
During our podcast where I introduced Viper, John Darko thought that its slow cook of 120 non-stop 3D-printing hours per cab plus high costs of premium fitted parts suggest very low production volumes so few sales. Neither do I think that Michael Wydra's brand is all that well known yet. But whatever promotional benefits might accrue from a reviewer owning certain kit where speakers are arguably most visible, my motivator for acquiring something is just personal gratification. Anything more is incidental. Adding an extra dash of flavour to my earlier award simply butters up a deserving transducer that's likely still overlooked. So consider these few pages a bit more anecdotal noise on it.
After all, making noise is part of a reviewer's job description. So is honesty which for some seems to imply the need for cool distance to demonstrate objectivity. But after more than two decades on this beat, I'm still a hobbyist enthusiast at heart; and on my sleeve. When something fills my sails, writing about it better feel like it, too. Else I failed my job. At least that's how I see it.
