Aarka

This review appeared February 2022 on HifiKnights.com. By request of the manufacturer and permission of the author, it will be syndicated to reach a broader audience. All images contained in this piece are the property of Dawid Grzyb or Rethm – Ed.

Reviewer: Dawid Grzyb
Sources: Innuos Statement, LampizatOr Pacific with KR T-100 or LV 300B and KR 5U4G
USB components: iFi Audio iGalvanic3.0, micro iUSB3.0, 3 x Mercury3.0, iPower 9V
Preamplifier: Trilogy 915R
Power amplifier: Trilogy 995R, Bakoon AMP-13R
Speakers: sound|kaos Vox 3awf, Boenicke Audio W11 SE+
Interconnects: Boenicke Audio IE3 CG
Speaker cables: Boenicke Audio S3, LessLoss C-MARC
Power components: GigaWatt PC-3 SE EVO+ w. LC-3 EVO cord, LessLoss C-MARC, Boenicke Audio Power Gate, IOSL-8 Prometheus
Rack: Franc Audio Accessories wood block rack
Network: Fidelizer EtherStream, Linksys WRT160N
Retail price of component: €5'000/pr

Publisher's introduction.

"When the Covid lockdown hit us in March 2020, our workshop closed, our craftsmen laid off temporarily. Rather than setback however, we saw this as an opportunity to improve our production design as well as its performance.

"This meant reimagining the product from scratch. The only 'legacy' carryover is the knowledge gained in the 20 years that Rethm has been in existence. And it's been 10 years since our last major redesign so it was about time. On the performance of Rethms, there were two comments sometimes made which we agreed with.

"The first was that Rethms could do with a little more warmth and substance in the lower midrange and upper bass; the second that they could do with a tad more dynamics in an otherwise already deep well-integrated bass. The all-new enclosure designs were conceived to give us these improvements. After several months of work and prototyping, they actually ended up giving us more than anticipated."

That was Jacob George from Cochin/Kerala, India's west-coast water state [at right with his wife].

Aside from his two decades of adventures in hifi speaker design, Jacob runs the architectural firm Metaspace Design. The later Cliff House render with overlay of his latest-gen Maarga represents that multi-dimensional approach.

But first, a juxtaposition of Aarka 1 and 2:

Aarka 2's precursor below highlights the external changes. Basic stats for the first Aarka had been a 96dB 5" front-firing widebander exclusive to Rethm loaded into a folded rear line whose frontal mouth held a single 6922; twin 75-watt class A/B active rear-firing woofers; and a hybrid 10-watt amp on the widebander which owners could bypass with a switch to instead run their own main amp.

The bass system was always self-powered and sported controls for volume and low-pass frequency. The speaker was wider than it was deep and its power mains and amp-defeat switches were on the belly. The lateral opening weren't ports but vents for the internal electronics. Its price when I reviewed it in 2020 was €4'750/pr.

That concludes today's intro to let Dawid take over the narrative. Ed

Aarka 1 in Letterbrock.