Art. Framed.

Click on image to open very large photo of metal-stand option.

When Jarek Waszczyszyn's press release for today's Fram Arte hit just three days before the 2023 Audio Video show in Warsaw opened its doors, it announced the final production version of a prototype shown at last year's event.

"I had already developed a small prototype speaker for camper vans. When my colleagues at Fram saw it, they proposed a bigger version inspired by stage or cinema spotlights."

Warsaw's 2023 exhibition would fall on the same weekend that Jarek would also participate at Poznan's caravan show. He was feverishly busy training the latter's staff on how to demo his mobile kit. "It could be lovely to send you Arte for review afterwards. Right now I'm simply buried in prep for two simultaneous trade events. Also, I must confer with the rest of the Fram team because we do all our promotional scheduling together. Some other arrangements I don't know about yet might already be in the works. I'll let you know."

From his Fram press release I knew how he thought that "their sound reflects their appearance. They fill an entire room with a huge soundstage whilst illuminating all the details. The cabinet's vertical ribs not only add stiffness but act as acoustic comb filters to make the enclosure more invisible to in-room self reflections.

"Their internal volume combines three tubes which further improve our aluminium cab's overall rigidity. The drivers again are from the top Satori range of SB Acoustics so run huge neodymium motors on both the 9½" mid/woofer and unique dimpled soft-dome tweeter. Sensitivity is an easy 91dB. Our 16-part Jantzen crossover corrects both amplitude/phase linearity in a classic ported passive 2-way. Dims without stand are 462 x 534 x 420mm WxHxD. Wooden or metal stands are 870mm tall."

If Jarek's name triggers associations, it's because he's also the man behind Poland's possibly first brand to break into global high-end awareness. I'm talking about Ancient Audio with its valve-output¹ top-loading CD players in black granite which back when put our audiophile community on notice that Polish hifi products could mix it up at the very top.

Since then Cube/Qualio, Divine Acoustics, Ferrum, GigaWatt, J.Sikora, LampizatOr and others have added themselves to this growing list. The annual Warsaw show is a sterling op for foreign visitors to update themselves on the latest domestic hifi developments.

Fram are a kind of sister brand to Ancient Audio. They add a team of friends already involved in precision metal machining for other industries. It's where Jarek gets to enjoy collaborating with fellow hifi fans in Krakow rather than be his home workshop's lone wolf. Once the Warsaw show closes its doors again, curious readers might follow show reports in their favourite hifi media. Perhaps they'll spy a mention or two of Fram's exhibit for some first impressions. I know that's what I'll do. Industrial espionage.

From Qualio's YouTube show report, here's a screen capture of the Fram exhibit. We appreciate how the wooden stands are fixed height whilst the metal stands offer height adjustments to potentially get a lot taller.

¹ The latest Lektor Joy edition has replaced granite with milled-from-solid aluminium, tubes with transistors and the Philips CD-Pro 2 mechanism with the latest StreamUnlimited CD-Pro-8. Even volume control has become 32-bit digital to upgrade the prior analog PGA chip.