Aquaman

Unleash the Kraken. With the recent expansion into a very large factory, Denafrips added a new team with much prior speaker design experience. Non-disclosure agreements prevent them from divulging more as in, where did those folks work before and on what speaker brands we'd recognize. On that score, nothing alleviates common concern that an established electronics house couldn't possibly know as much about competitive speaker design as a bespoke major in the field. Of course Denafrips have already choked out related knee jerks over what China knows about top-notch digital. Over the years, Denafrips discrete R2R converters have gained an enviable rep with all major hifi publications. Related growth into bigger premises and 50-strong staff scales up the mandate to keep everyone busy. Expansion into other OEM brands and new product categories are obvious consequences.

No matter what country we visit, if there's a Peking Palace or other Chinese eatery around, its décor will invariably feature a lot of red and gold. Those are the colors of China's national flag after all. It's little surprise then that for their Aquaman aka Poseidon debut, Denafrips would go with a red-stained burl veneer under gloss lacquer. How popular that'll prove abroad only time will tell.

Unexpected too could be the choice of 1.1" soft dome and 6½" paper-cone mid/woofer with 1.5" copper voice coil and Kapton former in a die-cast aluminium basekt. Both are from Italian specialists SICA so not the usual Scandinavian suspects.

Rear port, heavily braced MDF construction, 48Hz-20kHz bandwidth and 88dB sensitivity are all run-of-the-mill specs for the category. So are 26x40x36cm WxHxD dims and weight of 9kg. A ~€1'900/pr retail through Vinshine Audio's Singapore web portal then pushes the envelope again with a luxury finish, faceted baffle and 3-year warranty. How will the market respond? Only the market knows. Given the company's many victory laps with their existing electronics, it would seem only a matter of time until prevailing doubts over Denafrips loudspeakers calm down and buyers evaluate Poseidon purely on its own merit. And that could just make for a lovely surprise? If so, it wouldn't be the first time the brand over-delivered on expectations.