Still unhappy with the silly look of spiked speakers atop spiked stands, I reverted to Track Audio's smaller top plate. Now I took out Syzygy's spikes. Presto, its curved rear end with port easily cleared the back edge to breathe unimpeded. Except for Track Audio's overly massive plinths and outsized spikes, now the cosmetics worked from the front. László could contract with any of the existing stand suppliers and have them customize a top plate to follow his rear-slimming contour then stop short of the port. He'd eliminate the rear spike bulges, then use the existing two frontal spike threads to bolt speaker to stand. Easy and clean. For maximum décor appeal, he might even replace the customary black metal plinth with a matching Plywood base.

When competing monitors like the Acelec Model 1, Fram Audio Midi 120 & 150, Rethm Aarka and sound|kaos Vox 3a all had arrived with dedicated stands for visual/acoustic unity, one really shouldn't expect less from Syzygy. Here we see it on the smaller top plate which created the perfect amount of speaker overhang to clear the port. In the absence of purpose-fit Raffai stands, this type solution would seem best.

"You want real? You can't handle reality." Borrowing from Jack Nicholson's crusty sergeant Jessup, we must confess. The reality of a concert hall, stadium or even club doesn't include images that lock like heat-seeking missiles. Their far-field reality is about bigger bloomier images, more ambiguous blending/sizing and a generally bassier tonal balance. On the first part, Syzygy complied far more than direct radiators. Where it naturally fell short as do most speakers other than big open baffles was the second part. But that's easily remedied with a subwoofer. Holography fiends into pin-point imaging and crisply defined unwavering outlines with walkabout space between will end up down a dark dead end with this speaker. That's not what it's about. It's for those who, from a surprisingly compact box for the job, want a greater likeness of live music with bigger fluffier images and bigger more billowy tone. Common sense won't expect real-life dynamics from a 5" woofer and pinkie-finger port. Yet hearing the main driver multiple times from numerous directions all overlaid as one with the minor blur this entails, its in-room power is actually bigger than normal. Its dynamic range limits quicker of course. For 6x4m rooms like ours, that's simply not an issue. If you want to rock down the casbah, get a big Klipsch.

To repeat, the preceding wasn't, in any way shape or form, an indictment of demerits. Audiophile protestations—"we want the most natural realistic sound"—can simply echo as hollow lip service when faced with a Syzygy type which represents exactly that. There's no turned-up treble, no limned outline, no excess damping. It's not typical hifi sound. Though very real indeed, typical hifi sound is an alternate reality to live music. Which is no indictment either. Why attempt a clone when you can improve the original? On precisely mapped 3D imaging and absentee noise for greater micro detail, that's easily done. Our ears are never as close to performers as the spot microphones of most recordings; and during playback, location din, audience noise, bad seats and off performances are all eliminated. In very specific ways, playback can be an idealized/improved version of the event and the mixing/mastering process certainly massages this alternate reality. Where Syzygy diverges from it is in how it plays your acoustics. It disperses its sounds more like actual singers and instrumentalists would in your room. That makes a real difference regardless of recorded artifice. Whether that's what you want; whether that's only what you think you want but would disagree with once heard… that's for you to figure out. Nathan Jessup did have a point after all.

To wrap up generalities, classic mini monitors play it big in 'where did they go' fashion as that typical disappearance act. Syzygy disappears similarly but its specific scale is of tone and image sizing, not micro detail and checker-board sorting. For what Syzygy does, one usually wants big dipoles. Raffai get away with far small boxes because they port theirs. This buys back bass extension for which dipoles with their partial out-of-phase cancellation need far bigger woofers. If you've heard open baffles, you might think of Syzygy as a shrunk approximation. That'll align your sonic expectation with its reality. In practical terms, Syzygy will also go where big panels won't; including hop on a credenza.