Cobra

Reviewer: Srajan Ebaen
Financial interests: click here
Main system: Sources: Retina 5K 27" iMac (i5, 256GB SSD, 40GB RAM, Sonoma 14), 4TB external SSD with Thunderbolt 3, Audirvana Studio, Qobuz Sublime, Singxer SU-6 USB bridge, LHY Audio SW-8 & SW-6 switch, Sonnet Pasithea, COS Engineering D1, Laiv Audio Harmony; Active filter: Lifesaver Audio Gradient Box 2; Power amplifiers: Kinki Studio EX-B7 monos & Gold Note monos on subwoofer; Headamp: Enleum AMP-23R; Phones: Raal 1995 Immanis; Loudspeakers: Qualio IQ [on loan] Cables: Exact Express Flame, Furutech; Power delivery: 2 x Kinki/Vinshine Tai Hang on amps and source stack, Furutech DPS-4.1 between wall and conditioners; Equipment rack: Artesanía Audio Exoteryc double-wide 3-tier with optional glass shelves, Exoteryc amp stands; Sundry accessories: Acoustic System resonators, AudioQuest FogLifters; Room: 6 x 8m with open door behind listening seat; Room treatment: 2 x PSI Audio AVAA C214 active bass traps
2nd system: Source: FiiO R7 into Soundaware D300Ref SD transport to Cen.Grand DSDAC 1.0 Deluxe with POW; Preamp/filter: Lifesaver Audio Gradient Box 2; Amplifier: Kinki Studio EX-M7; Loudspeakers: ModalAkustik MusikBoxx + Dynaudio S18 sub; Cable loom: Exact Express Earth; Power delivery: Vibex Granada/Alhambra, Akiko Audio Corelli Corundum & Castello Solo; Equipment rack: Hifistay Mythology Transform X-Frame [on extended loan]; Sundry accessories: Furutech cable lifts, Furutech NFC Clear Lines; Room: ~3.5 x 8m
2nd headfi system: DAC: Cen.Grand DSDAC 1.0 Deluxe with POW; Headamp: Cen.Grand Silver Fox; Headphones: Raal 1995 Magna, HifiMan Susvara
Desktop system: Source: HP Z2 work station Win11/64; USB bridge: Singxer SU-2; DAC/headamp: iFi iDSD Pro Signature; Speakers: DMAX P61 Headphones: Final D-8000, aune SR7000
Upstairs headfi system: FiiO R7; Headphones: Meze 109 Pro, Fiio FT3
2-channel video system: Source: Oppo BDP-105; All-in-One: Gold Note IS-1000 Deluxe; Loudspeakers: Zu Soul VI; Subwoofer: Zu Submission; Power delivery: Furutech eTP-8, Room: ~6x4m
Review component retail: €9'500/pr ex VAT studio-direct

"I just finished reading your completed Viper review. It's truly amazing. I really appreciate how well you captured everything I aimed to achieve. I'm currently listening to Cobra which are truly next level. Imagine scaling up the sound of Viper by about three times. The scale, dynamics and overall impact are just incredible. I hope to have them ready for shipment in about a month if you're interested." Going back for seconds after a memorable first encounter is human nature. Naturally I wanted more. Cleopatra, legend has it, committed suicide by asp. That's not the way I'd like to go when my time comes. Lord Shiva is depicted wearing a living King Cobra like a necklace to indicate full mastery over his etheric bodies. I'll stick to inanimate sculptures. In the TV series Justified, scene-stealing baddie Boyd Crowder takes issue with a pentecostal preacher setting up tent on his criminal patch. He adds a wild adder to the man's brood all of which his sister had secretly defanged to protect her own business interests. When during a sermon the good priest reaches for a very much poisonous adder whilst spreading the Lord's gospel of redemption to a trailer hussy, he ends up getting bit. Even his undying faith can't save him. King cobras with fully inflated hood ready to strike scare the living shyte out of most folks unsure of the purity of their own etheric bodies. But when Grzegorz Rulka as one half of the Cube Audio and Qualio Audio brands launched his solo venture Virtual Hifi then decided to upscale his first Viper monitor, calling it Cobra was evolutionary necessity. It's even more deadly than a Viper if you give credence to degrees of death; and bigger. Setting up my own serpent shindig by the Shannon river took no guts, just greed to hear the promise of Viper x 3 in action. Viper had already been very much my kind of poison. How much deeper could it get?

"Viper's Dayton driver has an 180mm brother which sounds fabulous, too. Because it's just 83dB efficient and I like big sound and ultimate scale, it was obvious that I'd need two per side. The passive radiators not only add volume but bass tuning so I can squeeze one 7" driver and three passive radiators into one 9-litre box. Now stack two of those per channel and voilà, in stereo we have four 7-inch mid/woofers and 12 passive radiators in monitors sized just 20cm wide, 40cm high and 30cm deep. They do –6dB@25Hz! The dipole Mundorf AMT goes to the twice-sized model which also allows for a lower crossover point. This has become Cobra. Here is a quick video with early prototypes running off €1'000/pr Topping B200 monos¹."
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¹ Being unfamiliar with their specs, I looked them up: 200 mono watts into 8 and 4Ω, discrete class AB powered by large external switching brick. From what I gather, these are not high-power GainClone variants but more complex multi-stage affairs. However, Topping's descriptions are deliberately sparse on detail so this is mere speculation on my part. Here's my subsequent review of them.

How would Cobra's cab pick up where Viper left off with 3D printing? Would it explore new shapes or detailing beyond just growing larger like the main drivers? To get slithering, did you know about the actual Snake Island? It's Ilha da Queimada Grande off the Brazilian coast. Just 106 acres large and a mix of bare rock to rainforest, it's the only natural home of the venomous Golden Lancehead pit viper which lives on birds. The island is completely off limits except to the Brazilian Navy and select researchers into snake toxins and their possible medical applications. How did the snakes end up there? "They became trapped thousands of years ago when rising ocean levels disconnected these peaks from the mainland to form an island after the last Ice Age. The ensuing evolutionary pressure allowed the snakes to adapt, increasing rapidly in population and rendering the island dangerous to visitors."

Given Viper's showing, I expected Cobra to present its very own danger; not to the public but the top competition in the small über-monitor sector. Not many shop there. Most prefer to spend the longer green on floorstanders. But if one can secure equivalent bass extension, power and SPL from something distinctly smaller, must we really live on an isolated very small audiophile island before that becomes attractive? I happen to think that the more compact clever designers can package full-range SPL-stable performance with advanced drive units and enclosure tech, the easier such speakers will make the move from dealer floor, trade-show exhibit, glossy advert or web shoppe to actual homes. It's why I signed onto the Viper now Cobra gig. It's far too common to read "impressive for their size" lip service when the obvious subtext is, "get real, go big". What if such half-hearted support for compact speakers could become unconditional based on direct confrontations with far bigger fare? Are we saying this wouldn't open doors; or that we must wait for the next Ice Age before they do? To be sure, this shrinkage is about no trickery involving DSP and plate electronics. This shrinkage is about classic passive speakers to which we connect our own electronics. It's relatively easy to go small with DSP actives. That's its own audience. Today goes after the old-school audiophile. She prefers to curate her own playback system whilst carefully controlling how much physical and visual space it takes up. Considering how Viper already played as loud and low as I go—the #1 rationale for bigger speakers is louder and lower—I was curious. What would 3 x scaling sound like when I had to stay in my own lane as set by my ear and room limits?

Basic math says that the surface of eight 7" cones—two active, six passive—compounds into a single 19.8" woofer. It turns Cobra into quite the air-motion pump so presumably a powerful dynamic multiplier. Was I really ready for my own Cleopatra moment? If I get to meet her, I bet that she looks nothing like Elizabeth Taylor but honey-skinned or darker like a Greek or Egyptian. Already with Viper we could control complexion with different solid colours from white to brown, yellow to red and black. That continues with Cobra. We can order these in our own image; or grow a tan. What fun to play overlord in our own little paradise when we all know how the ancient story about a speaking snake and innocent apple ended in a garden owned by an unbending boss. Better be our own boss to avoid the eviction notice. But do consult with Eve and remember to count yer ribs. And you know what they call an important Irish snake? Sir Pent. Yeah.

Back on Greg's slithering spawn. If we call Viper his exercise in maximal bandwidth and loudness potential from a passive 7-litre cab with zero DSP compensation, Cobra at 18 litres and more cone surface enters the hyper viper domain. In the active sector we might pursue a Kii 3 atop its bass extension bin. In the passive sector, Cobra piles pressure on how much raw output and LF power to milk from a stand-mount nowhere near as porky as vintage monitors on a squat box-frame stand like classic Harbeth, JBL, Klipsch, Spendor or their contemporaries like this Revival Audio. Yet Cobra remains true to the 2-way credo. It stays well clear of the 3-way notion which most designers would raise under similar circumstances. The Cobra concept strikes me as a 2-way freak's testosterone creation for our audio scene's dragstrip. It might take fellow fun extremists to fully appreciate its madness? A pop quiz question on why a King Cobra's bite is so lethal is answered by 400-500mg of venom per bite. The average amount to kill a mouse is a little over 1mg. It's why a fully dosed Cobra bite can take down a mature elephant. Given our 9-driver monitor, it seems a rather fitting name for unusual potency.

Making zero sonic comparisons, would your household rather host this voluminous €9'400/pr 15" 3-way Atalante7 Évo of 82x45x48 HxWxD dims without stand, 23Hz/-6dB bandwidth and high 90dB sensitivity; or Cobra's half height, half width, slightly more than half depth yet virtually identical 25Hz/-6dB whilst merely giving up a measly four decibels of voltage gain in trade? If you claim that only sound matters and size and appearance are immaterial, you're probably a bachelor or still in mom's basement. Most everyone else has a distinct preference one way or the other. Cobra is about physical miniaturization for those who want to hear more but see less. So it re-allocates the cone surface of two 14" woofers across eight smaller units then arrays them on all four upright sides of the cab. It's an extremist effort of cubic volume to cone surface to secure going very low and loud. How will a civilized listener not intent on taking down elephants relate and rate Cobra's hyper aspects? With my loan of the Viper samples extended to overlap, I could answer that. Meanwhile Qualio had bowed the IQ30, a related project which scales up the 9½" 3-way IQ to a 12" 3-way equivalent so also enlarges the midrange then adopts Cobra's taller AMT. The bigger, better, lower and louder virus was making the Polish rounds. Would Cube be next?