On the subject of rooms, Sehring see their S903 in 25m² and up. Given all the adjustments, that works splendidly. Still, I'd aim for at least 30m² and not pursue too big a speaker, then try to scale it down to a smaller room. Sehring's S901 and M901 are less expensive models designed for smaller rooms which can be upgraded to S903 status any time. That's the raison d'être for such a modular concept. But never mind auxiliary passives, switches and pots. The real work here is still done by properly motorized drivers. Stefan Sehring fancies Wavecore units built in China by Danish-born Allan Isakesen. Sehring's workshop adds mass to their 22cm woofer with extra-long voice coil and aluminium diaphragm. They cite unusual SPL stability, extension and, first of all, minimal distortion. The 15cm doped paper midrange also gets modified with a new layer close to the spider, again to reduce distortion.

This continues with a Peerless ring radiator similarly modified around its phase plug which works in its own chassis whilst otherwise sharing an enclosure chamber with the midrange. According to Stefan Sehring, a critical detail is that their tweeter doesn't just bolt to the enclosure. It's pressed into the baffle under torque with a special rear clamp. The midrange torques similarly but with bolts. Payback for these mechanical tweaks is a further suppression of distortion particularly in the impulse response.

Longstanding company tradition holds dear very tight pair matching. All drivers undergo an initial test, then custom treatments, finally measured sorting into groups. Each speaker pair culls its drivers from the same group. The promised end result is tight-tolerance matching to within maximally 0.3dB deviation. Fast forward to my personal brand history which began more than 20 years ago. It led to rather pleased ownership of a pair of S703 from the prior range before significantly dearer Thiel CS 3.7 replaced them. The particular profile for the Sehring sound works so well in the S903 that I'll go on a limb and call it out as an exceptional talent.

This actually went well beyond personal enthusiasm. It included each person who over the past few months visited to comment on the 903's pure clarity. This wasn't veiled sweet talk for unpleasant dissective powers or undue assertiveness. Great detail and transparency needn't trigger hiss or hardness. In fact, let's call it a fundamentally elegant suave sound that's not artificially softened or groomed to just be pretty.