Before you think that the end of difference, the signature sound|kaos woodwork comes from a wheelwright's custom shop in the Swiss Alps near Gstaad. "The bass cab is a bit of complex wood engineering but not beyond my usual man Simon Oehrli. It's an asymmetrical clam shell with a tapered joint front to back. Once the woofers are mounted to the wider half, the skinnier side goes on and gets fixed top and bottom and centrally between the woofers to create a solid block. The top of the bin is covered by the floating mid/HF head which sits on another three Vibra isolators to decouple." The little there is in passive filter parts for this 4-driver 3-way goes to WEE Tech copper-foil paper-in-oil caps and Jantzen air-core inductors. Prior experience knows that the aural sound|kaos aesthetic shares more with Ocellia, PHY and Supravox than AER, Cube, Lowther, Rethm and Voxativ. Keen observers know Voxativ's Alberich² to be the conceptually closest competitor. It combines a small widebander with RiPol bass of the active single 12" sort. Having reviewed and awarded it, that was another example of my perfect speaker.
Raw starting blocks of solid wood | two head units with retainers for the isolator modules | two bigger halves of the bass array
Added up, this is a far cry from how our average profit-driven speaker house operates. It's why sound|kaos are no mainstream brand but artisanal boutique of passion projects. They really do think different. By mid February 2026, this particular micro niche had unexpected visitors from Børresen and Voxativ. In the Danish speaker portfolio, the M8 Gold had just usurped the top spot, bracketing a d'Appolito-type central 5" twin-mid 2-way with the brand's signature thin-film tweeter between two passive RiPol arrays of three pairs of 8-inch woofers each. The surface area of a dozen woofers per side adds up to triple 15-inchers, just with a lot more motor power applied to the combined moving mass. With the prior M6 model collecting a cool half mill, the M8 bags twice that to remain nothing but an ambitious design exercise for most but shows clear forward thinking. Not to be outdone, at €60K/pr Voxativ's Elektra from Berlin stacks a rear-horn loaded field-coil widebander atop a dual 12" active RiPol subwoofer goosed by 500 watts of in-house developed class D whilst the custom woofers are 96dB each to present as 99dB combined. Axel Ridthaler's concept of folded dipole bass of controlled directivity and extreme self damping was making the rounds. Once HighEnd Vienna 2026 closed its doors, Børresen's €9K BM2 active 2 x 10" RiPol sub had added itself to this list which already included the more upscale €18K 4 x 8" BM3 version with display and remote control released previously.
The 3-some Vox3/Gravitas 12 version of the 2-some Vox5.
Stone. Wood. Metal. Leather. Ceramic. What in such a materials palette stands out as absent are plastics; and MDF or HDF. Martin prefers solid woods, bronze, AlNiCo motors and paper-based drivers. Making no sonic judgment call, such choices reflect an aesthetic. We can certainly accord such building blocks more nobility than polyester lacquers, polypropylene cones and medium-density fibreboard. It shifts today's Vox5 from mere audio appliance to something more luxo. Once luxury enters, so do extra reasons for ownership beyond basic utility. For the latter, pro-sound industrial black freckle paint and steel-reinforced corners with parts easily and cheaply replaced would be the thing. With nobility, we move towards objects d'art. Beyond functionality, those hold intangibles. How those speak to us is intensely personal. One woman's Rothko is another's Picasso. Whatever calls us insistently enough to want in our personal space becomes valuable. We treasure it for its deeper value, not because we acquired it cheaply. It's not the commodity think of a good deal or high resale guarantee. Nor is it synonymous with being far pricier than a commodity. Expense alone doesn't secure this deeper value though what does, exactly, differs from person to person. Here it's enough to reiterate that apart from noble materials, the Vox5 adds the think-different dimension to transcend cookie-cutter solutions.
The case core prior to its dress panels and installation of certain switches.
As such and quite apart from needing a willing wallet, it's unlikely to become anyone's first even second speaker. Never mind the widebander angle. To fully appreciate the Vox5's unique bass system is virtually predicated upon having lost all faith in conventional ported/sealed omnipolar bass with its pernicious reflections off all room boundaries and furnishings delayed in time to cause blur, bloom and boom. Understanding clear cause and effect leads one to directional bass wherever copious traditional passive room treatments aren't on. Where classic front-aiming dipoles on large open baffles are out due to their room-divider aesthetics, one arrives at folded open baffles. Whilst head-on it doesn't look it, the Vox5 is a near full-range dipole once we factor in the sound|kaos scoop behind the 150Hz-8kHz widebander which adds itself atop the 3 bottom octaves of twinned dipole woofers. Only the upfiring ribbon tweeter identifies as a classic monopole though using the ceiling as a reflector actually works it omni like a Duevel. So this speaker isn't what it appears to be at first glance. Even the 5½-octave widebander resists purist stubbornness by running a notch filter. Whilst the driver assemblage is that of a stocky three-way, the active bass filter makes it more of a two-way with integral subwoofer. Meanwhile the absence of hi/lo-pass filters on the widebander render it electrically other than a classic two-way monitor plus sub. And if you hadn't made the link yet, the above XO² module now can bolt active drive and filtering also to Martin's existing passive folded open-baffle subs. Their shoppers no longer must supply their own electronics.
To cap off introductions, consider my editorial on the 2026 Vienna show. To escape the mind-numbing sameness of ever larger, heavier and costlier passive speakers in favour of more décor-friendly designs with greater acoustic smarts yet full-range performance can really feel like the proverbial haystack, needle, creek and paddle. In the mainstream, Børresen would arguably be in pole position to scale down their RiPol-fitted €1M flagship speaker to something regular folks could host. But given their target market, we must probably wait quite a few years on anything below €20K that will include bass electronics. For now I only know of the €16K Voxativ Alberich²; and today's sound|kaos Vox5. Daring to think different clearly doesn't come easy for our high-end industry at large.
