King Cobra. In the early animated movie The Jungle Book, wise python Kaa hypnotizes prey with eyes that begin to spiral like Van Gogh stars. I thought of Kaa with my final install. But first I needed to scare up lower perches. The Ikea rocker in this room sits me very low. Thankfully my British Track Audio stands are modular. By removing six segments each, I soon had the fab AMT at ear level. Next I bull's-eyed the stands' bubble levels then locked in toe-in. With Zu's 15-inch active Method sub in residence, I had another 20Hz reference. Once again Cobra proved complete. That said, I got more even amplitude when I high-passed the mains at 40Hz/4th-order to let the adjustable sub handle the first octave in a mono location. Its internal DSP is set to be up 3dB/20Hz and as active bass, I could trim its output. That minimized the room's longitudinal resonance which Cobra's stereo placement and/or greater boundary reinforcement narrowly rode. So Method stayed in play just for that. Whilst worshipfully on my knees to take photos, I felt bass pulses through the floorboards not from the sub on its Stack Audio Auva SW isolators. When I turned it off, the floor kept talking. Clearly these mass-loaded stands couldn't block Cobra's mechanical jackhammer action from entering my suspended 2nd-storey floor. That was despite Hifistay's roller-ball isolators beneath them. Out those came, in went trios of sound|kaos wire-suspension footers. Silenzio! I mention this to reiterate that very potent toys like Cobra demand proper respect and reward attention. With great bass power comes great potential for structural and acoustical noise. With that in the bag, I now had my rating of in-house showings here in ascending sequence¹: downstairs big room; downstairs office; upstairs nearfield; upstairs farfield. It's why for this install and page, Cobra gained the 'King' prefix.
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¹ Attentive readers saw that it wasn't the biggest room which won. As room dimensions grow, their associated resonant frequencies lower. Depending on whether those overlap with the passive radiators' bandwidth or are smaller to sit above them should be one deciding factor. Others are our speaker and chair position relative to boundaries. We could sit in a suck-out or peak zone and by simply moving the chair, change the response. If our speaker and chair placements are inflexible due to what layout and cosmetics enforce, it becomes more a roll of the dice. The nearfield option with 'endless' space behind it from the prior page can be an ideal solution to combat otherwise troublesome acoustics.

As currently an Irishman with pubs and bookmakers in every small village, calling my upstairs den King's Cobra would fit right in with our typical pub names of King's Arms, Hen & Fox and their endless variations. As an abstainer, mine wouldn't be a pub but could be a country disco, spinning heavy-hitting electronica and house like Govinda's Convergence and sundry Kalya Scintilla. It's a typical oft misdiagnosed scenario that our hifi dictates our musical tastes. Whilst we insist that it's the other way 'round, it's still possible that we don't play certain music because our rig isn't very good at it, not because we'd not enjoy it. Despite my high-brow conservatory upbringing which practiced Mozart, Spohr and Françaix whilst school mates listened to Deep Purple and Shawn Cassidy, I enjoy trance, tribal and semi-organic techno for example. I just wouldn't imbibe in this smaller space. I'd go downstairs. Cobra changed all that. If I still were a student, Cobra would have me the most popular guy in school—no need to be good at soccer—by hosting weekly raves. My pictorial subtext of subwoofers underlines it. Their presence anchors my comments in reality not wishful thinking. With Cobra you categorically won't need them for SPL or reach. You can look domestically acceptable then rock out like the monster-speaker guys when all objecting parties have left the premises. To remain civilized not on levels but cleanliness just mandates that your room and placement cooperate properly.

Where Cobra turns a hard left in the general traffic of rave-approved boxes is how sophisticated it remains when we do get highbrow and spin up a Baroque period orchestra. Given Greg's deep dive into very exotic parts, that's no real mystery but still a major point of distinction. Add the usual marketing margins of the big speaker houses. To find anything comparable in quality will cost a lot more but on size too weigh far heavier on your domestic peace accord. Plus, chances are high that such a speaker will still run frillier high-end-approved drivers that lack the dynamic capabilities of this Dayton set. Meanwhile getting more high-end approved than the tall Mundorf tweeters isn't really possible. We might say that Cobra is the archetypal bad boy rolling up to mom's on his Harley sporting skin ink and piercings who then turns out to have just graduated from Harvard with honours and already secured a job with a prestigious law firm. That taking him to a string-quartet concert in a black suit will be accompanied by black snake-skin Lucchese boots, pony tail and facial whiskers becomes part of the charm. In sonic terms, these aspects were the sound-reinforcement elements of bigger beefier images, more wall-of-sound thickness and elevated dynamic cresting. Truth told, when I heard Nigel Kennedy with a famous violin concerto against full orchestra in Montreux, I really wished they had a microphone on him. The symphonic forces utterly drowned him out. An Andreas Vollenweider gig also in Montreux meanwhile was superbly mixed so the electric harp balanced ideally against two full drum kits bracketing it on either side. The SPL in the open mixing booth embedded in the audience—I stood right behind it to see the dancing needle and numerical readout—never peaked beyond 90dB.

In short, just because I'm predominantly Mister Acoustic doesn't mean I diss the amplified aesthetic. It's simply different. Facing it in this upstairs room demonstrated equal validity even if it did put its finger on my choice of music played. But it'd be very silly if hosting multiple systems had them all sound the same. Why bother? This classic stereo-triangle setup successfully uploaded a new audiophile OS in my grey matter. Now I had two: one for the left hemisphere, one for the right – very different from right or wrong! Aside from perennial favourite Mercan Dede aka Arkin Allen aka Arkın Ilıcalı it meant Bob Holroyd, Burhan Ökal, Smadj, Jamshied Sharifi, soundtracks from Hans Zimmer and Mychael Danna, e-bass exploits by Patrick Chartol and Antonio Ramos 'Maca' so highly calorific full-fat fare. When you play this stuff at audio shows, the contingent critical of the usual demo music calls such exhibits fun; or real music. By implication, the others are neither. My temporary King Cobra rig exploded such polarized dualistic thinking. 'Fun' and 'real' are far more varied than that allows.

Once this page published, Grzegorz punned that "I see you're having fun. It seems that Cobra is awakening in you a higher SPL enthusiast?" He wasn't wrong. With the music selections this rig triggered, I was listening louder than usual. Being a widower certainly played into giving myself permission. Having transducers that excel because they were groomed for it as a very concept did, too. Having now hit up all the stations of my sonic parcours, what was to be the customary concluding paragraph? Right then US reviewer Steve Huff was already on record saying that Viper driven by Kinki/Vinshine's new high-power Dazzle integrated was one of his most fun discoveries of the year. So it feels sensible to frame Cobra in Viper terms. Going in, Grzegorz had promised three times as much. My mind is notoriously incapable of affixing percentages to subjective impressions. It's just as bad at multipliers. That said, we all have an intuitive grasp of 'twice'. In my estimation, the jump from Viper to Cobra does exceed it. 'Thrice' indeed makes a fine symbolic stand-in to indicate not simply a next size up like needing an extra belt hole. Where Viper is still sane, Cobra is completely bonkers. Its bandwidth and decibel capabilities exceed most domestic needs and allowances. On that score it's a frat-house adolescent. In the very next sentence we admit that it's not only wildly beyond such a one's reach or ambition but far too advanced.

To fully appreciate the achievement and its value needs more than familiarity with JBL, Klipsch, the Butthole Surfers and Metallica. It wants genuine grovelling at the feet of overpriced floorstanders which neither fit the bill nor crib. Such exposure takes time and money far beyond frat-house concerns. It takes repeat ownership of various audiophile-approved compromises which did suit one's hifi slush fund and continued marital bliss but also implied capitulation at the sharp bite of reality. Only with that under a slowly expanding belt and receding hair line comes the necessary context to completely credit today's contrarious Cobra coup. So it's appropriate that I didn't meet Cobra sooner; or its likeness which, truth told, probably doesn't exist. Who else would be nuts and resourceful enough to dream it up then manifest it with consumer-grade 3D printers and a home-cooked goop of stainless-steel micro spheres and rubber? My only real question is whether Cobra's youthful charms will find themselves fully appreciated by those who could afford a pair. As for me? I did invite Cobra into my house and soon got bit. No complaints there. The snake did what a snake does; and I'm no mongoose to fight back though I did try for a bit. So pick your poison; carefully²…

Seeing the totality of dynamic cones needed for one pair of Cobra rather make the point.

² From the Poznan reptile farm: "I already have six large-size 3D printers so can print a pair of Viper and Cobra each week." Because of the colour options for cabs and dress plates, these will print to order so expect wait times. Grzegorz calls Cobra's low bass equivalent to a 15½" woofer. My math came to more than 19" because I included the two active drivers. Greg clarifies: "You are correct that the two active drivers contribute to the overall bass. However, the calculation for the low-bass portion—the tuning frequency and below—is primarily based on the passive radiators. At their tuning frequency, the active drivers basically stop moving and energy transfers to resonate the radiators. It's why you can add their surface area when discussing deep bass extension. For kick drum so 60Hz and above, the two active 7-inchers take over and have enormous headroom due to their high Xmax. This approach divvies out the kick-drum and 1st octave between active and passive radiators. So it is indeed strange that this approach isn't more popular in High-End audio especially given the current trend toward miniaturization." To my thinking, that actually makes Cobra a 3-way, just without a 3-way's more complex electrical crossover. Cobra's third way or built-in subwoofer decouples purely mechanically and is a quite discrete rather than overlapping bass system. That makes it a 15.5" 3-way with 10-inch midrange (2 x 7") and a dipole tweeter with 13 x the radiating area of a classic dome. Slytherin. It's a language one must learn since it's still so rarely spoken. Bite me? Indeed!