Supernova

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, Gustard U26 USB bridge, LHY Audio SW-8 & SW-6 switch, Sonnet Pasithea; Preamp: Hattor Audio ARP-S; Active filter: spl Audio Crossover MkII; Power amplifiers: Vinshine/Kinki Dazzle & mono NC500 Nord Acoustic amps on subwoofer; Loudspeakers: Qualio IQ [on loan]; Subwoofer: sound|kaos D15; 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
1st upstairs speaker 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-B7 monos; Loudspeakers: sound|kaos Vox3awf; Subwoofer: Zu Method; 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
1st upstairs 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 workstation Win11/64; USB isolator: LHY UIP; LAN distributors: LHY AS6 Pro & SW6-SFP; Ethernet reclocker: Stack SmoothLAN; DACs: Gustard R26II & Audalytic DR70; Preamp: Topping A900; Speaker amps: Topping B200 monos; Headphone amp: Enleum AMP-23R; Loudspeakers: Virtual Hifi Viper; Headphones: Final D-8000, aune SR7000, FiiO FT7, HifiMan Susvara Unveiled
2nd upstairs headfi system: Shanling EM7; Headphones: Meze 109 Pro, Fiio FT3, HifiMan HE1000 Unveiled
2nd upstairs speaker system: Source: smsl PL200T CD transport, 1TB microSD; DAC: Shanling EM7; Crossover: Lifesaver Audio Gradient Box II;  Amplifiers: LAIV Crescendo Chorus monos; Loudspeakers: MonAcoustic SuperMon Mini with Dynaudio S18 subwoofer
2-channel video system: Source: Oppo BDP-105; All-in-One: Gold Note IS-1000 Deluxe; Loudspeakers: ModalAkustik MusikBoxx; Subwoofer: Zu Mission; Power delivery: Furutech eTP-8, Room: ~6x4m
Review component retail: €TBA

Today it's snaking R&D which opens a review before flowing into the final straight of the finished product. As you come along for the ride, you'll appreciate why we first took to the twisties.

If you're in the snake-charmin' biz as Grzegorz Rulka has been with his Viper and Cobra monitors, what to call your über snake? Ouroboros? Quetzalcoatl? If the speaker had a huge open-backed woofer, how about Basilisk with the word 'bass' in it even if partially swallowed already? 2026, January 12th: "Absolutely hammered by orders and manual labour. Whenever I try to work, constant calls and emails just then seem the worst thing. I must finalize one more project to complete my catalogue. I hope to stop R&D in about a month, then focus on regular day-to-day work whilst training employees to take over manual labour. So there's one more thing I'll have for review this year. Sonically it's basically ready but plenty of aesthetic calibration and print setup remains before it'll be ready commercially. It combines a frame and waveguides for two 7" Dayton Epique 180 and Cobra's tall dipole Mundorf AMT with an 18" dipole woofer in an H-frame horn/baffle. It's purely passive and sounds absolutely stunning."

With the Basilisk, bass is? A Zen koan with legs – unlike asking why snakes are hard to fool; because nobody can pull theirs.

Looking at Greg's render, I saw a short mast with two round sails. Energized extra by the woofer, what was this shaft made of to resist swaying like a toothless snake dancing for milk? How about the footer anchoring all to gravity? What of those trash bins on their sides? Two snakes slither along. One asks the other, "are we poisonous?" Goes the second, "don't know, why?" "I just bit my lip!" One snake is Greg the jovial acoustic designer. The other is Grzegorz the fussy decorator. How to unify the demands of immobile wave launches where high mass might win the day; and aesthetic concerns where less, slender and skinny is more? Is acoustic design after extreme performance destined to be toxic to interior design? A full-range dynamic dipole with hairy bum crack and exposed hookup wiring is intrinsically resistant to domestication. How would finalized Basilisk unite its mutually opposing natures to breathe sonic fire without burning down the crib? I thought the mast and sails most attractive already. What went on beneath I viewed more pear-shaped and tubby whilst inviting cats and dogs to curl up in.

What a project our man had bitten off. It refuses to walk the easier path which Matter Audio's classic open baffle represents below in occasional contributor Joël Chevassus' dedicated sound room. That's a more basic variance on the old plank o' Ply popular with DIY because it avoids building and finishing actual enclosures. With Viper Audio, 3D printing and creativity thus far had rescued us from anything ordinary.

"I just opened a package from Mundorf who sent me samples of AMT for special projects only and not officially listed for sale. Well, these are exactly what I need; barking bonkers. Check out the photo of one compared to Cobra's Mundorf on top. How about 136cm² of surface area and far more powerful magnets?" How boring our world would be without mad scientists. "Yes, your cat would love a bass bin until the first notes of music. I tested two woofers which overwhelmed the sound a bit. But with this new AMT listening for the first 30 minutes, it has so much energy that I may need to add a second woofer to balance it out; or do two versions, one for smaller and one for bigger rooms. I want to avoid the narrow front slot of RiPol. I like to feel the kick-ass push of air in my chest. But going back to the dual-woofer config might just work out with the big AMT especially since that's what I really enjoy – more. But after that, where to go? Maybe a 7" mid/woofer with 1" dome tweeter which the industry tries to convince everyone is the answer?"

In the classically planked OB, we see variations including horns and whizzer-coned coaxials with AudioLai and Diesis of Italy, Emerald Physic and Spatial from the US, Maco of Canada, Matter from Greece, PureAudioProject from Israel and sound|kaos from Switzerland. This includes Australia's Kyron except for their more radical Gaia which for its thrice-paralleled fore/aft woofer pairs does away with a baffle entirely. Bulgaria's Ecobox Daydream and A Priori combine an open-baffle array with nude RiPol bass. Once we lose the baffle, choices get very skinny. The obvious reasons are cosmetic, structural and acoustic. If solving that puzzle were easy, we'd see more successful examples. Most households would probably find the below red IO Design Naked, Reflektor Audio quad clover and outer Kyron at left cosmetically challenged. So the right Kyron dresses up its nude transducers with the large black fig leaf of a classic if contoured baffle plank. Still, all the nasty bits of driver baskets and magnetics hang out to dry. Pragmatists argue that you see none of it from the front. Will that appease she who must be obeyed?

To appreciate this project, it helps to know where the breed has been; and what Virtual mean to contribute.

The central OB tenet is freedom from box talk which avoids asymmetrical pressure loading on the drivers with the propensity for trapped rear energies to reflect back out their diaphragms delayed in time. Box talk also means structural resonances which cabinets store and release. With no box, the rear wave meets the room unhindered. Resultant figure-8 lateral cancellation where in/out-of-phase energies meet removes our sidewalls as reflective barriers. It's free if only partial room treatment. Dynamically, all generated acoustic energies propagate in the room because enclosures don't attempt to absorb half of them. That moves more air and all else being equal, scales bigger.

Without the restorative force of box-compressed air assisting a driver's return, particularly woofers meant for dipole use tend to run stiffer suspensions. Likewise, stronger amplifier damping can have audible benefits well into the midrange. Because dipoles radiate front/back, they energize our room differently. Stood too close to the front wall, the reflected sound occurs insufficiently delayed so our ear/brain still sums it with the direct sound to incur fine blur. Once that mechanism treats the reflected sound as separate because of sufficient distance/delay, it enhances ambience rather than undermines focus.

Lateral cancellation at wavelengths long enough to wrap around their origins means that dipole bass systems require larger cone surface to compensate for the loss of omni room gain. So multiple 12", 15" even 18" woofers are common for the breed. This page shows some alternate designs which all concur on this point. It forgets about slim is in. To be full range and openly baffled wants wicked bass surface. That means broad shoulders or at least a plump bottom. Twiggy and her mini monitors have left that building. Said departure includes Greg's Viper, even Cobra. What's worse than a box full of snakes? One that was supposed to be full of them. But it's not all disappearance act. As the animals left Noah's arch, the patriarch told them to go forth and multiply. After some time, Noah came upon two snakes lying about sunning to suggest reptile dysfunction. "Why aren't you multiplying?" "We can't. We're adders." We're right back at Basilisk's dual 7-inch midranges adding to a 10" compound diameter; and Greg's modern testament of more. Larger louder lower sound more suggestive of 'live' needs bigger more potent weaponry. Basilisk is Grzegorz's take on maximally liberated transducers with minimal structural intrusion. Additive manufacturing aka 3D printing is how he thus far materialized his ideas in the workshop.