Haniwa Speaker/Digital Amplifier HSP2H08 System

There is always something fascinating about an audio system that represents the realization of a personal vision. Of course all audio designs partake of the subjective, as does any human activity. (Even mathematics has a style in it, in a subtle way). But the Haniwa system is one of those designs that seem informed by an unusually personal idea of how music ought to sound and how to make it sound that way. In this case, the person whose vision it is is Tetsuo Kubo, and his particular interest lies, according to his Web site, in getting things right in the time domain.

To realize this goal, he decided to move into the world of high-bit-rate digital to create digital-domain loudspeaker crossovers and amplification, as digital allows separate control of phase (and thus timing) and amplitude behavior.

This idea of using DSP to control phase and amplitude separately is far from new in audio. For example, an application of the mathematical possibility was offered as far back as the mid-1990s in an Arion/Essex “add-on” unit, which would correct speakers both in phase and amplitude. And there have been other add-on units that correct phase from Holm Acoustics (Issue 208). There are computer-based programs that do even more extensive phase correction: Acourate, for example, corrects the phase in the bass in-room, and other computer programs are also available. This is an idea whose time has come in audio, or so it seems. But there are still surprisingly few speaker systems that offer this sort of thing as part of the speaker system itself.

Other aspects of the design

Kubo’s search for musical realism is not restricted to using DSP as part of the design. The design is distinctive in other ways. The one that is the most visually apparent is the cabinet shape. Not only is it unusual, it also presumably gives rise to the name—Haniwa being a ceremonial sculptural style in old Japan, involving terra cotta figures, which often had rounded profiles.

But the shape is just the beginning. Experimental tapping on the enclosure suggests immediately that the cabinets are of extraordinary rigidity and deadness. This combination is attained by lamination: The cabinets are made of a great many layers of thin particle board laminated with glue. (This kind of technique has long been used in aircraft construction, where super-laminated plywood was observed to offer extraordinary strength-per-unit-weight).

The Haniwa combines a sealed-box mid/bass driver with a modified Tractrix horn—modified in the sense that the outer edges curve around and the whole forms an integral part of the double-rounded enclosure. (The picture is worth quite a few words here.) In general approach, this seems rather reminiscent of the Gedlee speakers, but the Gedlees do not have the distinctive enclosure or the DSP processing.

Indeed, while each aspect of the Haniwa might be considered to have some precedent, it is safe to say that no other speaker line has to date combined all these things—ultra-rigid enclosure, rounded shapes, DSP amplification and crossover, and horn tweeter/dynamic mid/bass drivers—in exactly this way. The whole thing gives the impression of the designer following his sonic vision wherever it led him, regardless of difficulties or cost. (The speakers are expensive).

The Sound: The up Side

In many respects, the Haniwas struck me as realizing their apparent design goals remarkably well. These speakers have, to the extent I could tell for sure, a total absence of audible cabinet talk. Audiophiles tend to believe that less in principle is always less in practice, but in fact below a certain threshold cabinet sound is no longer an issue, and that seems to me to be true here—with room to spare. The background here is really black.

Associated with this, and probably with the narrowed pattern (more on that in a moment) is a great deal of apparent detail. As one of my musician friends put it, “It is like the perfect monitor speaker—you hear everything.”

Everything in this case included not only detail as such but also very precise imaging, with a lot of dimensionality, when that is to be had on the recording. The combination of very precise sound with minimal background noise and the narrowed higher frequencies as a result of the horn loading of the tweeter gave exceptional imaging precision. This is about as precise as stereo gets. The designer is convinced that the phase linearity of the speaker is an important part of the perceived dimensionality. This is hard to decide since the speaker has, as noted, other properties that one would tend to associate with imaging accuracy. But in any case, the dimensionality is there.

Truth to tell, a number of the claims on the Haniwa Web site about stereo seem to me quite odd. For example, while I am surely a fan of not too many microphones, widely spaced microphones do not give all that much phase information that has a lot to do with what was really there, and the claims from Haniwa that they do are not really correct. But in any case, I am rather skeptical of the claims of the overriding wonders of phase linearity as it arises in recordings, since in practice it really does not except in (shuffled) Blumlein or ORTF or other such techniques. On the other hand, it is definitely true that phase linearity versus nonlinearity is audible with certain types of signals. so perhaps it does not matter that the exact reasons for wanting to have it are up for grabs.

In any case, precise imaging and dimensionality appropriate to the recording are available here. One hears where everything is—and “x” marks the spot, if the recording allows (except for one problem involving higher-frequency channel-matching—see below). If detail, spatial and otherwise, is the critical issue for you in audio, then you may find these speakers an ongoing delight.

Another aspect of the sound is more controversial, but to my ears has much to offer and indeed is probably connected to the sonic virtues already mentioned. Namely, the speaker is very directional at all frequencies above its crossover point of 500Hz. Why is this potentially a good idea? The reason is that in the lower frequencies, the ear hears both speaker and room, and one might as well use the room. In any case, you really cannot avoid using the room as part of the sonic picture in the low frequencies. But in the higher frequencies, early reflections off the walls are interpreted as part of the direct sound, but not a proper part of the direct sound. One can deal with this to an extent by making the early reflections be balanced tonally in more or less the same way as the direct sound, but a better approach might be simply not to have any early reflections of any substance.

The Haniwa acts like a built-in reflection-free-zone room—in the higher frequencies, you hear direct arrival and then, for a long time, nothing else. This makes for a sound much different from what one hears from speakers with “wide dispersion” or wide radiation patterns that bounce a lot of sound off the sidewalls, which arrives very early.

The Sound: Other Aspects

The first problem in a sense is not a problem at all. The manufacturer is reluctant, indeed unwilling, to publish -3dB lower-limit bass figures, but in practice the sealed-box bass goes down quite far, well below 40Hz, the frequency which is essentially the bottom of both orchestral music and rock. But the level is very controlled. In my room, the speaker did not exhibit the bulges that often happen around and below 100Hz. This means that the speaker sounds less bass-oriented than one might be accustomed to, though it is arguably correct in the bass, at least in my listening room.

This does not mean that the speaker is cold. There is a lot of output in the region between 100 and 200Hz for one thing. But the Haniwas do have a good deal of tonal character, as it were, compared to ordinary speakers. Above the strong lower-mids, the Haniwas sound somewhat recessed while the upper ranges are pushed up—in one of the channels, but not so much in the other. (Why there is this difference between the channels is unclear to me.) Listening to say “sanctus” on one of Reference Recordings masterpieces, the Rutter Requiem, the voices are oddly balanced, with lower ones too loud relative to the upper ones, the low bass rather less in evidence than usual, and the high things, the bells and the like, are overly loud and aggressive. Imaging is impressive and words are ultra-clear. But the whole thing just sounds peculiar, not to put too fine a point on it.

Probably some of this has to do not with literal on-axis response but with the unusual pattern. At crossover (500Hz), there is an abrupt change in perceived (and measured) directional behavior. With pink noise, the two drivers, mid/bass dynamic and upper mid/treble horn, do not sound integrated. One hears quite obviously that one is one thing, the other the other. I have no explanation for the fact that one of the channels has a considerable rise around 8–10kHz and the other one does not. But there it is.

The somewhat unusual sound of the Rutter Requiem is not an exception. Familiar recordings will not sound so familiar on the Haniwas. They are likely to present new and intriguing spatial aspects. But they are not likely to sound in general character the way one expects. Orchestral music is especially revealing of this. Haniwa’s USA distributor left for me a number of high-resolution versions, made from vinyl of Golden Age recordings, many of which I was familiar with from their vinyl incarnations. The detail was impressive. One could hear a lot. And the conversion to digital at such high bit-rates is really not a source of problems at all. But the speaker itself presented these recordings in a truly peculiar way, warmed up lower mids but not much below, and a peculiar character anywhere near the transition between the two drivers.

The same was true of my usual orchestral references. They did not necessarily sound bad in any sense. But they sounded quite different from what I was accustomed to on almost all other speakers. Radiation pattern really does matter!

Back to the up Side

The suppression of sidewall reflections is a major matter. And I found the results very impressive, intriguing, and overall pleasing, at least potentially. Geddes’ theoretical case for this type of speaker played out very well in many respects in the Haniwas. While phase linearity may play a role, I tend to believe that the extraordinary clarity and insight into the recorded venue were primarily created by the absence of early reflections at any frequency about the crossover point. (Off-axis response really nose-dives about, say, 1kHz.) I have discussed this idea, that one gains a lot by controlled radiation pattern, many times, starting as far back as the 1980s, with the Quad 63 and the Spendor SP1/2. And, of course, many other people have observed the same thing. Wide radiation pattern is popular, but it is not the only way to go!

Writing and theory are one thing; listening is another. You really ought to try to listen to this speaker, just to see how well- controlled radiation can work in taking your room out of the sonic presentation. I found it fascinating, but I also found it a bit hard to get around the distinctive tonal character of the Haniwas.

Where the Speaker Stands in the Marketplace

The Haniwas are an individual vision and reaction to them is likely to be equally individual. If precision and stereo focus and suppression of your listening room are the main things you are looking for, and if the desire to hear absolutely everything revealed is paramount in your audio life, then the Haniwas may be just the thing for you. But you need to listen carefully to the general presentation and the consequences of the unusual radiation pattern. The shift in directivity of the drivers is very real, with the far off-axis sound having very little content above 1kHz. And the overall tonal presentation is unusual. Things just do not sound as one supposes that they do from listening to other speakers.

These speakers are definitely worth a serious listen. For one thing, it is of great interest to hear how well they can differentiate against the room around them. And in some ways, they are in the top echelon of speaker behavior. But in other ways they are so unusual in overall sonic character that potential buyers need to consider carefully how the speaker fits with their personal sonic priorities. At the price, one would need to think hard. For the right person, they might be the speaker of a lifetime.

SPECS & PRICING

Device type: Two-channel speaker system with supplied DSP crossover and digital amplification (bi-amped). 
Driver complement (per speaker): One 8″ woofer, 3″ compression driver hornloaded, Tractrix horn-shape
Price: $48,000

Kubotek USA, Inc.
2 Mount Royal Avenue
Marlborough, MA 01752
(508) 304-9940
rbean@haniwaaudio.com
haniwaaudio.com