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For a serious desk-top hifi, I set up April Music's 500 Series CDA500 and Ai500. Let's introduce then my usual Era 5 Sat in this setting for context.


These Chinese-made but Michael Kelly designed mini monitors are supremely capable compact 'budget' speakers. They're built to the nines with dense boat-hull curvature cabinets, real wood veneers and purpose-designed drivers. Conceptualized and marketed by the same folks who brought us the various Peachtree Audio Decco and Nova integrateds, the Era brand has successfully leveraged Aerial's speaker design acumen, the decades-long import and distribution experience of the Era owners and the cheap labor advantage of the PRC. Particularly on speaker cabinets, veneer and lacquer finishing, China has displaced most American and European facilities on quality years ago. Only a few lone holdouts in Scandinavia are still considered superior when speaker houses shop for the most uncompromised of complex compound-angled MDF enclosures.


On perceived value then—chassis-mount superior posts vs. recessed plastic cups and lesser terminals; curved chassis vs. rectangular box; quality veneer vs. paint; significantly greater weight; pre-tapped bolt receivers for wall mounts—the Era 5 Sats came out ahead. In their cool white skins, the Finns meanwhile looked arguably more iPod-ready and modern.


Sonically, voicing offsets hinted at different origins. Not for the first time, US-based boxes exhibited a lower acoustic center and stouter more developed bass. And, the Europeans had the greater sophistication. Era's soft dome is a very good unit. In previous encounters, it showed other Chinese efforts a clean set of heels. Still, Amphion's driver and/or waveguide implementation was the more informative and integrated. More upper-band data routinely leap out. By their obviousness, they betray a lack of coherence. After all, nobody ever walked away from a live gig babbling entranced about the awesomeness of the trumpeter's treble or singer's midrange.


Talking about discrete bands is nothing but hifi artifice. It's rooted in the dominance of multi-way speakers which indeed break up the audible range into different sections. Because human hearing is most sensitive in the 2-4kHz window, higher intelligibility there always means greater perceived resolution. If it were amplitude related however, it'd soon become irritating. Only absolute beginners relate to forwardness and hot treble as welcome signs of distinction. More apparent detail thus can't really be bought on the cheap with a noticeably bumped-up response even though numerous brands over the years—earlier Triangle comes to mind—did try.


When non-linear and pronounced in the upper bands, dynamic expression or the speed whereby dynamic differences register also can create more apparent detail. To my ears, that's what certain Heil-based tweeters suffer from. Even when linear in amplitude, they're clearly faster than the drivers mated to them. More dynamic treble then registers as sharper, more zingy and possibly outright edgy. Mark & Daniel models can show traces thereof and high-level show demos with Burmester speakers did more than that. In short, improving resolution cannot involve a skewed balance in the time or amplitude domains. In today's €900/pr speaker sector, we also can't rely on fancy diamond, Beryllium or ribbon drivers (even though their mention here does not imply any categorical superiority). If anything advances in this sector, it's unlikely to be wildly superior transducers. That leaves crossover design; and physical solutions like waveguides.


Which of the latter two created the Finnish advantage no review can determine. But even a brief session demonstrated it without a lit-up or brightened top end or any textural discontinuity. Amphion thus second-placed the very good Era speaker on the high in fidelity. I strongly suspected the waveguides because this greater lucidity occurred decidedly lower than the treble per se. If there was a smidgen of added air, this wasn't in the least decisive. Decisive was being able to penetrate more deeply into vocals and separate them out more cleanly from their surroundings. This was particularly obvious on soloists against backup singers. Decisive was greater overall visibility from reduced compaction of the musical fabric. Decisive was hearing more on-string finger action with guitars and uprights without any upshift in tonal balance.


I focused my extended A/Bs particularly on the accuracy of that last statement. And I did conclude that the Era Designs' lower center of gravity wasn't simply relative to the Amphions. That could have rendered the Finns' higher than realistic. No, to my ears the Eras were very cannily voiced for impressive bass from a small enclosure. Their warmer tonal balance was deliberately fattened up a bit. This smartly benefits lesser leaner transistor gear as the most likely electronics which prospective users own in this sector. The price to pay is slower perceived speed and openness. The Helium 510 struck me as spot-on neutral in that regard. Its trade-off was lower amplitude response in the bass.


As it turned out, Amphion's solution was just as well behaved on the cheap Dayens Ampino integrated from Serbia fed from my iPod. It did not rely on truly upscale kit of Stello's 500 caliber to be audibly relevant and distinctive. Anssi Hyvönen's design brief was to convert folks with reasonable hifi budgets—marginal compared to big TVs, computers and cell phones—to the joys of higher fidelity. I was surprised and truly impressed by just how demonstrable this higher-fi aspect was in this entry-level box. The Eras are anything but muddy or indistinct. Yet by comparison, the Amphions played in a different league despite their obvious refusal to goose the bass alignment which might have certain listeners shopping this sector hold off.


In fact, I'll disagree with Hyvönen's project brief on one count. The innate neutrality of the Helium 510 which does not doctor the bass response or fattens up tone could be too 'advanced' for what many shoppers in this price range are looking for and will mate with on electronics. The Era Design team very craftily has their speaker tell a few white lies. But they're the kind of lies people want to hear. On that score, the Amphion really highlights the concept of fidelity or truthfulness. The question is, are Helium buyers shopping for that?


On the other end of that scale, the high-end press which should know better routinely and predictably goes ape over the latest trophy hifi monstrosities. Those are the easy attention grabbers. Their mere existence seems justified only by—and thus to be proof of—real and meaningful advances. Something as unprepossessing as a second-generation waveguide in an affordable Finnish speaker that seems to work just as advertised is bound to fly below the radar and by the wayside.


Yet obtaining higher true resolution in the affordable sector involves more real engineering. In the cost-no-object sector, much money is spent lowering distortion with premium drivers, 'heroically' inert enclosures and custom-tuned crossovers that are matched to individual drivers. For the Helium 510, the declared focus was on blurring the dividing lines between two affordable drivers to more closely behave like that idealized single full-range unit. Crowd control. I'm not certain how exactly this relates to greater transparency particularly in the mid and upper midband but that's where I heard the greatest distinction to my Era speakers. Those perform quite at the top of their class. Or so I thought.


As a desktop monitor in the nearfield, the Helium 510 was excellent. While it didn't plumb the depths like the Era—relatively speaking; this scenario doesn't lend itself to infrasonics—it more than made up by conveying more micro information and thus, greater involvement. Most laudable was how this higher magnification power did not trade against the frequency domain. There was nothing tiring or unnatural to suggest (cheap) special effects. The speaker also didn't sound dry. This can be a byproduct of pursued neutrality. Granted, the Amphion did routinely benefit from the 2nd-order THD dominance of the class A/B Stello Ai500 for a small infusion of sweetness. But that dash proved sufficient to not trigger desire for valves or more pronounced textures. Now the big rig was next to learn what kind of space the Helium 510 could properly energize without losing its footing to turn lightweight from lack of boundary reinforcement.

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