Tied to actual music examples, this meant that the high-energy cymbal and hi-hat tizz on "Obeliskmonolith" from the Physics House Band's Horizons/Rapture sputtered fire flies without stress. Flanked by not merely bronze-type percussive noise makers but very forward organ sounds, toms peeled out super clean and with jagged attacks. Even bat-sphere overtones of certain snares enjoyed distinctive definition. This likewise benefited high-end productions with very specific timbres from an organic mid band. Clair Obscur's Antigone is one of my least processed albums. It rewards with incredibly real violin, viola, flute, clarinet and hand drums. And 'unprocessed' is one key tell of the S903. The resultant naturalism is fascinating. Chapeau, superior sound engineers. Chapeau, Sehring designer.

This reaped dividends with sibilants which my ears find challenged. Take "Matilda" from Alt-J's An Awesome Wave where singer Joe Newman spits out sundry 's' sounds with real pressure. Unlike my older Sehring S703 which got a bit soft, the S903 didn't. But neither did it fray at the seams nor harden up as my older Thiel CS3.7 were wont to. The Sehring handled sibilants with crispness not undue explicitness. They were clearly present but easily overlooked if I didn't focus on them deliberately.

It makes this speaker into a formidable example for how easy listening, high resolution and very responsive microdynamics needn't be at loggerheads but can walk like friends, hand in hand. Experienced 'philes recognize the effect. Remove disturbances and noise and long-term pleasure, precision and microdynamics all improve, say with a good AC conditioner. For more contrast, let's frame this against my ~€9'500/pr Spendor D9 which to my ears were tastiest of all speakers I'd met until then, thus as unconditionally well suited for the long haul as they're detailed. Yet individual sounds, instruments and subliminally even their entire sonic scenery felt less focused and a tad diffuse by contrast. Even tone colors had less hues than over the Sehring. I still find the D9 a fascinating very lively speaker but now know that it does treat the subject of low distortion far more cavalier than the S903.

Soundstaging talents for Sehring were expected going in and won high grades. Be it image focus, successful decorrelation—of sounds really originating inside/from physical boxes—and the sizing of individual instruments as well as the overall stage were all flawless. I'd add extra points for forward projection as a matter of personal preference. The real ace cards both subjectively and objectively were the airiness and black space which surrounded individual performers. This not only supported high contrast and color specificity but, when recording and electronics allowed, freely projected most palpable images.