Part of the same terminal plate is a treble toggle for a ±2dB cut/boost option on either side of neutral. Quadral recommend boost for highly damped rooms; or to activate a quasi loudness compensation during low SPL. Rocking down the house meanwhile had me much prefer the neutral position. Here one might even select the cut option; or when the speakers are toed in sharply. Experimentation is the motto. The designated treble driver is a quSense ribbon developed and built in-house. For their reviews of the Montan 9 and Rodan 9 models, colleagues Jochen Reinecke and Jörg Dames already had Quadral chef Sascha Reckert hold court on their custom tweeter. The wit of brevity has me refer the technically inclined to their prior articles.


One obvious advantage, of monitors over floorstanders, is that the former don't double as exercise machines during setup. Compacts set up quickly in the rough and whatever final adjustments are necessary won't strain your back. Such flexibility can benefit sonics as long as we remember that the Galan 9's rear port doesn't want to see a room corner or sit too close to a hard reflective wall. I had good luck with about 50cm from a book shelf and LP rack. Even 30cm worked but made it harder to get at my books and records. Without such acoustically benign wall treatments, 50cm should be minimum to avoid undue bass boost and ringing. Room corners are always taboo. So are sideboards or shelves with their unpredictable usually inferior acoustic conditions.


For placement honours, the Galan 9 moved where the Aurum Megan VIII had sat, happy regulars in our digs. An Abacus 60-120D Dolifet integrated did the heavy lifting, with either a Burson Conductor Air DAC or Denon DCD 50 player as source. Even a friend's Antique Sound Lab AQ-1001 on return from a repair made a short-lived appearance. Already during break-in my daughter was very keen to share a recent acquisition not just with me but Quadral's Galan 9: Symphoniacs, a project of classical musicians who, with the addition of synth bass, pursue new audiences for classic music and the instruments which perform it. It's not entirely to my taste but possessed of a certain charm. The music is quick, impulsive, dynamic and, yes, danceable. Important to me was how the Galan 9 cottoned perfectly to this album's enormous energy potential and, in high fidelity to recorded truth, clearly differentiated between unplugged and synth timbres. The massed strings weren't artificially smoothed over but exhibited realistic brilliance and bite; the double basses expressed all their harmonics above very solid fundamentals. The violin/viola pizzicatos on "Animals" timed perfectly to showcase true professionals: both relative to the musicians and the speakers which could translate such expert timing. Finally the synth bass reached a lot lower than a 15cm mid/woofer would have suggested.