To wrap my intro, let's return to its core. Unlike previously reviewed Hagen designed to fly solo and act complete as is, Alberich-specific Hagen chucked bass reach to shift what's lost and then some onto a 12" dedicated bass driver. Rather than mere castration—chop et voilà, a higher pitch—the revised rear horn gives the monitor more weight in the lower mid/upper bass transition with a new driver no longer tweaked for ultimate LF. Even the separate woofer and its power module are new, making the docked combo a purpose-engineered unit not arbitrary hook-up of a lonely monitor looking for a generic sub in a dive bar. That blending ease and maximum effort without seam is a hard sell we know from Avantgarde's ultra-efficient spherical horns mated to conventional active subs. They put a super-fast Formula 1 racer on top, a slow tank on the bottom. Detractors insist that to ditch the seam requires going horns all the way. Single-driver purists always insisted too on going all the way unified so without assist. Voxativ's Alberich proposes a better way¹: seriously shrink the widebander but still run it widen open; integrate an active high-efficiency neodymium woofer in a folded open baffle to avoid boxy bass². Before my samples shipped, Herb Reichert of Stereophile had lent his ears to Hagen² and concluded, these "are, as I've already said, a 'perfect Herb speaker', an engineering achievement I've spent almost 50 years searching for."

¹ Someone else on board with this idea is Switzerland's Martin Gateley whose forthcoming sound|kaos Vox5 too will combine a small widebander with a RiPol bass system. Rather less posh is Zu's new Method monitor which shrinks down the brand's signature 10.3" whizzer cone to an 8-inch coax with compression tweeter, then adds a separate 15" active Method sub with 3 DSP presets. Do we spot a trend? btw, the German Alberich is the equivalent of the Old French Alberon or Auberon which the English render as Oberon. Regardless, the name always refers to a ruler of supernatural beings.

² What do widebanders and active subs have in common? Both direct-drive their voice coils off amplifier outputs without intermediate filter parts. It makes for more conceptual consistency than matching an active sub with a conventional passive speaker.

Once the Munich show was over, I was emailed the next photo to show just how close my samples were to receiving their final animating breath of life. Use the mouse-over loupe to better see the steel sub baffle of the woofer.

By the time my Voxativ samples shipped, I'd wrapped a long overdue spring cleaning to lighten the crib of excess hifi hardware sitting in the bleachers taking up space. As a result I could no longer compare Alberich² to Nenuphar v2 or precede it with any FirstWatt amps. My proven Enleum amp would do the honors in the driver's seat, my usual downstairs Qualio IQ and upstairs MonAcoustics SuperMon Mini or new ModalAkustik MusikBoxx provide speaker contrast. To collect the Voxativ pallet in South Berlin then deliver it to Western Ireland via Köln and Dublin, DB Schenker's lorry system took just four days to travel ~1'540km including a ferry crossing. Then my bell rang with a three-carton stack on some planks plus a small box for the inverted spikes. Once everything sat in my upstairs room for a photo op, I knew I'd been had. First that herbaceous Reichert fella had pipped me to the post with his get-personal quote of Hagen² being an Herb speaker. Should I now opine that Alberich² was a Srajan speaker, I'd be a classic cloner. Next the new widebander cone had gone white, its basket silver, all ideally matched to a white speaker. Finally the plate amp had relocated to the rear where it belonged all along, the somewhat dowdy plinth gone racier outriggers. Damn. I had nothing to complain about, nothing original to contribute. It teleports a reviewer into that dream of walking down Main Street nekkid as a peeled orange, all sweaty in the broad light of day. How to be a critic when things you were primed to point out have been comprehensively disarmed? Yeah, I'd been had – good.

Kidding aside, Alberich² in white and silver is quite the looker. Though its bass bin is deeper than the head, an elegant curve conceals the offset. From the front we're none the wiser. This also goes for the woofer wiring of RCA interconnect and power cord now. Those can route out of sight out of mind. The gold badging of Voxativ on top, Alberich below is elegant and minimalist, the wide low outrigger stance ideally stable for a narrow two-box affair. Because of the bullnosed vertical edges, the design's rectilinear aspects mellow beautifully. Unlike its namesake, my eyes called Alberich² a very handsome devil indeed.

Time to rejig my hardware. Lifesaver Audio Gradient II active crossover out, Wyred4Sound STP SE preamp in to create dual RCA outputs. Kinki Studio EX-M7 stereo amp out for being what in this case was 250-watt excess with unseemly low output impedance; 25wpc Enleum AMP-23R with ¼Ω outputs in. Finally I had to scare up a sufficiently long pair of RCA interconnects to meet those slot-loaded woofers. It's why reviewers need a bit of an inventory. One size doesn't fit all; at least not properly.

Set up in their final spots, I attended the usual compensation of my uneven parquet flooring. Now something finally called out the critic's carp which isn't just a fish species but "to find fault or complain querulously". The bolts connecting the soft-nosed footers to their dress caps didn't tap through the outrigger plate. It'll be an easy fix to thread the thru-holes but until then, Alberich² can't properly level. So I used HifiStay isolators which can and achieved my bomb-shelter solidity without any micro wobble.

The bass bins' layout of woofer slots mirror-images. We decide whether those slots should face out or in. Depending on sidewall proximity, this might make a difference? Try it then trust your ears.