This review page is supported in part by the sponsors whose ad banners are displayed below

Because the Job kit is budget-priced for its performance ambitions and origins, it's fun to determine what it can beat up on or come close to; or slip it into hardware context where it's the lowest-priced presence by far but doesn't let on. Arguably even more fun is to be had if the same a-lot-for-not-so-much motto gets applied to most if not the entire system. I mixed one up with the $829 Clones Audio 55pm gainclone monos; and Sven Boenicke's tyke on a spike called W5se. Because that solid-wood 2-way monitor parks its very long-throw 5-inch mid/woofer on one cheek, the front can be barely wider than the big Tangband tweeter crossed in at 600Hz to make for a very skinny sliver of a speaker. At CHF 3'500/pr it seems dear relative to size. Once fired up with suitable power breathing down its rear-firing slot port, it'll have you forget about bigger boxes.

With my 'early omni' Swiss (all direct radiators eventually turn omni at LF, this one's sidefiring mid/woofers do so sooner), rich tone and redolence are built in by design. If you're used to the drier more separated-out starker midband of a typical front-firing box; and if you drive a Boenicke type from a fat thick amp; you'll find the results a tad swimmy, with edges running together like wet water colours or overlapping 16th notes in a church. This can become particularly counter-productive on intelligibility for movie dialogue. On the other hand, if you reference live-sound dispersion and its natural interactions with the environment, you'll invariably blame conventional speakers for sounding too lean and desiccated. Now you'll pursue the greater succulence of a true or quasi omni whilst using your electronics to tailor the extent of tone density and softer transitions.

The black brick amps from Hong Kong aren't as aspirated and quick as the Job 225. They produced the richer heavier tone but gave up some attractive separation in the vocal band. More intricate stage action clumped together centrally a bit whilst the Job 225 spread it out laterally to surround each actor with more space. Playing four-way games between two Jobs and three Clones—I also had Funjoe's matching preamp without remote—the prior rule of greater amplifier impact held.

With the W5se whose more studly flat-cone woofer over the standard W5 increases power-zone heft, the Job 225 upheld the clearly greater resolution as the ability to prevent small discrete detail from getting blurred out. Going all Clones veered deepest into hall-sound dominance. The all-Job route arrived at the best insight. Swapping preamps was a rather smaller shift than swapping amps. Even so the general distinction of greater speed for the Swiss version held. Here one gets into personal taste. But it's fair to say that quasi omnis like the W5se, bipoles and dipoles; and true omnis like Düvel and German Physiks models benefit especially from wide-bandwidth fast gain circuits to balance out such speakers' reliance on more intense room reflections. So here's another entry for your little black book of copasetic component matches: Job Pre2/225 + Boenicke W5se. It's a well-balanced €7K package without cables or source.

To take the pulse on a true omni, the Job duo next moved upstairs into our loft and quite compact 2-channel video system. Here it bumped off Simon Lee's Aura Note Version 2. That's a €3'000 terrifically appointed CD/receiver with 24/192 USB/Toslink DAC and 125/250wpc 8/4Ω ICEpower. By virtue of Korean and not Swiss manufacture, it's a direct competitor to the simpler Jobsters. The speakers here are our German Physiks HRS-120 two-ways with Ohm-derivative bending-wave widebander crossed over to a down-firing woofer in the upper bass. First a few general words on class D. Unlike our Swiss wide-bandwidth circuits, class D just makes it to 20kHz. Most of it is 3dB down already an octave higher. Attentive listeners particularly of time-coherent speakers tend to agree. Class D's treble still tends to trail the best of traditional circuits. It's not as finessed or colour-rich.


Where early class D hifi amps erred on whitishness and produced a needling pixilated detail-obsessed rendition, most of 2013/14's crop I've heard has repented—turned about—to now err on the side of warmth, softness and meatiness. Specimens from Lindemann and mbl enjoy reviews which report on a quicker more energetic personality with more sophisticated HF. Those I haven't heard yet. The Aura Note is quite cunningly balanced to deliver strong saturated bass and the downward centredness that always comes with that; yet also fine detail to enjoy the advanced trickery of major motion-picture soundtracks with their intense layering of dialogue, music and location ambiance. From all of the above you can safely predict that the Job twins upped overall illumination and the teasing out of intertwined strands which benefited the intelligibility of actors who mumble annoyingly, enunciate poorly and whisper all at the same time. Claiming to be in character can justify all such sins but also has the viewer miss out on carefully scripted dialogue.

For this system, Job's neutral very quick well-lit action coupled to superbly controlled bass as the antithesis of bloated or fattened up and very 'visible' high-register purity was very much an ideal complement. Take the teenybopper Twilight saga when heroine Bella Swan has undergone her transformation to vampire immortality. Her lover Edward Cullen takes her through the woods for her first kill. All her senses are hyper heightened. Compared to her previous human state, she hears and sees everything. With the Job siblings, scenes of such subtlety set into a grand canvas of big natural scenery communicated more space, scale and the tiny foley-work machinations within in. The Swiss turned us as the viewers more into vampires ourselves. I doubt this would make for a catchy ad campaign but the effect was eminently attractive and useful.