Syzygy's upfiring driver without earlier deflector obviously uses the ceiling as reflector. This creates longer path lengths to involve more room sound and ambient field. From that one expects richer tone just as happens when a pianist lifts the damper pedal. To find out more obviously required actual listening. Here it simply meant accepting a review request. Done.

With the downfiring ports, one expects that the determination of spike height will have a small impact on bass behavior.

Contrarious? Stacked Ply builds use slices whose inner geometry may vary. This can build in struts and braces, varying wall thickness, even wavy or jagged surfacing to scatter internal reflections. Magico's original $20'000/pr Mini monitor stacked Ply [left and right]. Flagship TAD models did for a while. So did Vapor Sound.

Then they all gave it up. It's not only a very labor-intense approach. It's pig-stubborn hard to achieve the required fine outside finishing. It must sand out imperfections in exposed Plywood seams, fill voids, seal open grain. Unless veneered or painted without eventual ripples, it also ends up with a busy zebra look no matter how smooth, sealed and lacquered. Today Mayfly of Canada still embrace the concept to, as below, apply their patented Skyline diffuser treatment to the inner walls.

Regardless, inherent in the makeup of Plywood are crossed fibers. Those create desirable rigidity. Bonding twenty or more Ply slices together simply continues with the basic makeup. It inserts regularly recurring solid layers of glue harder than the wood. Those are great barriers against vibration migration. It makes for silent enclosures whose designer enjoys great shape-shifting freedom without needing to bend wood. Boenicke and sound|kaos are two Swiss speaker houses which exploit the same idea longitudinally and in solid wood. Now Raffai Audio join these layer-cake ranks to wear suits of very narrow pin stripes. By design, the final look tends to the Arts & Crafts. It's fair to say that László's logo, wooden dress rings with raised bolt heads, acrylic accents and overall geometry really play up that aspect. Syzygy looks like no other. That especially on stands heavy cabling might want some BluTac beneath the spike shoes seemed obvious.

Of course for €4'000/pr one expects more premium ingredients than just a fancy box. The 28mm aluminium tweeter is from Danish/Indonesian SB Acoustics with 6.2cm² surface area, 0.38g diaphragm mass, 0.6mm Xmax and a resonant frequency of 680Hz. The inside photo shows László's wave pattern for his walls. As we envision the rear wave of the upfiring driver propagate downward, we see how the micro chambers formed by the stepped protrusions act as traps. They exhaust the energies which don't propagate through the very narrow port. Hence no internal damping materials. These walls themselves do the job.

"The key point of our design is of course its mid/woofer. It must have proper THS parameters to provide fast well-articulated bass and the right response. High sensitivity, good power handling and low harmonic distortion all were essential. In our experience a detailed life-like sound would be reached with a paper diaphragm. An additional aspect which complicated our hunt for the ideal driver was the smallest possible diameter. Because this mid/woofer is placed vertically, the greater its diameter, the higher the difference in delayed sound reflected from different areas of the diaphragm. We ended up with a 5" unit of 80cm² effective cone area. This driver is not from any of the typical high-end suppliers."

That limited cubic volumes and smaller mid/woofers won't plumb subterranean depths is part of this recipe. Syzygy is meant for smaller rooms. If you want palatial with lots of low bass, add a subwoofer. That's simply self-explanatory. So is that the same money in a simple miter-folded box will buy more drivers and cubic inches. This speaker combines advanced cabinet construction with compact size, closest possible driver spacing and unusual industrial design to fall into the category of upscale monitor destined for stands, console or low boy. Prospective owners will appreciate its unique looks, small-volume artisanal origins and probably set it up reasonably close to a front wall in a small to mid-sized room with an integrated or stereo amp of 50wpc or more. This makes them alternates to site regulars like the Acelec Model One, Boenicke W5 and sound|kaos Vox 3a/f, small speakers all which emphasize refinement over ultimate bandwidth and SPL. Apartment dwellers unite?