CES 2013: Loudspeakers $10,000/Pair and Below – Part 1 (Hi-Fi+)

To my way of thinking, there is perhaps no single product category that more fully captures the excitement of today’s high-end audio world than this one: loudspeakers priced at $10K/pair and below. In this category, you’ll find what are arguably today’s greatest audio values and you will also find answers to one of the most pressing questions facing audiophiles today: namely, where should music lovers new to our hobby begin? With this thought in mind, I’ve included mentions of a couple of products that might not initially strike veteran Hi-Fi+ readers as “high-end” components at all, but that I think will nevertheless be of interest to next-generation music lovers first encountering high-performance sound systems.

In this report I’ve tried to capture some of the affordable loudspeaker highlights of this year’s show, yet in offering this report I do so knowing full well that there were many worthy manufacturers whose products I was not able to see or hear (too much show and not enough me to go around, I’m afraid). So, to those I’ve missed, let me offer a sincere apology in advance; no slight was intended. 

This is Part 1 of a two-part Hi-Fi+ report on affordable loudspeakers seen and heard at CES 2013. You can access Part 2 from the Hi-Fi+ homepage.

ADAM Audio

Key Product: Classic Column floorstanding speaker ($7000/pair)

The German firm Adam Audio is well regarded both in the pro-sound world, where Adam’s self-powered monitoring speakers are highly respected, and in the high-end audio world, where many have come to appreciate the firm’s top-tier Tensor-series loudspeakers. But what captured my ears at CES were Adam’s best mid-tier speaker, the Classic Column floorstander.

Over the years, Adam has been a consistent champion of folded diaphragm drivers (typically tweeter) patterned after the core design for a so-called Air Motion Transformer pioneered many years ago by the late Dr. Oskar Heil. But over time, as Adam has gained experience and expertise with Heil-type drivers, it was perhaps inevitable that the firm would wish to experiment not only with Heil-type tweeters but also with Heil-type midrange drivers (a configuration first seen in Adam more costly speakers). Now, the Classic Column makes that same core technology (that is, a Heil-type tweeter/midrange array) available in a vastly more affordable package. The sonic result is wonderful, giving listeners highs and mids that are lightning fast, yet not edgy, with excellent resolution and very good dynamics.  The exotic tweeter/midrange array, in turn, is combined with a pair of excellent Eton woofers, yielding an exotic, high-performance loudspeaker whose price, frankly, isn’t outlandishly exotic. Time will tell, but we think the Classic Column may soon earn a reputation for excellent value for money (as high-end gear goes).

Aerial Acoustics

Key Product: Model 7T floorstanding speaker ($9850/pair)

Traditionally, Aerial Acoustics’ reputation has been built on the performance of large and costly (five-figure) floorstanders such as the Model 20T V2, but the beauty of the firm’s new Model 7T floorstanders is that they look to convey much of the sonic goodness of the top-end Aerial speakers, but at a more accessible price point.

To this end, the 7T stands as a meticulously built 3-way, four-driver floorstander fitted with a 1-icnh soft ring-radiator tweeter, a 5.9-inch papyrus cone midrange driver, and two 7.1-inch composite cone woofers—all housed in a very heavily braced floorstanding cabinet.

Anthony Gallo Acoustics

Key Product:

• Strada 2 stand-mount speakers ($1969/pair) plus matching floor stands ($425/pair)
• TR-3D subwoofer ($984)
• 2.1-channel bundle containing all of the elements for about (~$3000)

Loudspeaker designer Anthony Gallo has always marched to the beat of a different drummer, so that when many designers preoccupied themselves with refining traditional construction techniques Gallo instead focused on radical new rigid metal enclosure systems, exotic ultra-wide dispersion piezoelectric tweeters, space-age damping materials, and fundamentally crossover-less speaker architectures. As you can readily imagine, Gallo speakers neither look nor sound like any others (in a good way).

Gallo’s latest creation is the new Strada 2 satellite/subwoofer system designed from the ground up specifically to please audiophiles, while also potentially meeting or (more likely) exceeding the needs of home theater enthusiasts. High-enders, I suppose, have a certain historical resistance to 2.1-channel sat/sub systems, but our bet is that the Strada 2 rig might well change their minds. Here’s why. First, the Strada 2 satellites sound very fast, pure, and dynamically authoritative; they are an essentially crossover-less design but with astonishing good power handling capabilities. Second, Gallo’s matching TR-3D subwoofer features a stout, all-metal, acoustic suspension enclosure, a beefy amplifier, and a very high quality woofer (one borrowed, in fact, for Gallo’s top-tier Nucleus Reference 3.5 floorstanding loudspeaker).  Best of all, US customers will be offered a special 2.1-channel bundle that brings them the satellites, stands, and subwoofer for around $3000 US. The upshot is that listeners get a system close in performance to Gallo’s Nucleus Reference 3.5 (and perhaps even better in some respects), but for less money.

Definitive Technology

Key Product: Sound Cylinder self powered tablet speaker ($199)

I’d like to sing the praises of a small, inexpensive product that might be considered an entry-level “gateway drug” designed to turn music lovers on to the benefits of high(er) quality sound: namely, Definitive’s new Sound Cylinder self-powered tablet speaker. For listeners who have grown up on iPods and have now graduated to full-fledged iPads as their primary A/V entertainment devices, the options have pretty much been upgraded earphones or, well, nothing at all—until now.

What Definitive set out to do way to build a serious (but not too serious and hence not too expensive) self-powered tablet speaker that can easily clip on to the sides or bottom of an iPad or other tablet-type PC, providing a significant step up in sound quality, while preserving elegant good looks and extreme easy of use. The Sound Cylinder stands, then, as a compact, self-powered, self-contained 2.1-channel sound system complete with both Bluetooth and analogue audio inputs, plus onboard DSP systems to help broaden the soundstages the speaker system produces. Claimed frequency response is a respectable 60Hz – 20kHz. Definitive paid close attention to details, too, giving the Sound Cylinder a flip-out “kickstand” that lets the speaker serve as a perfect tabletop stand for associated tablet devices, plus cleverly a frame with positioned cutouts that provide easy access to the control buttons on both full-size and mini-size iPads. In this sort of product, smart ergonomics count for a lot.

Will the Sound Cylinder make you want to forget all about your exotic stand-mount monitors? No way. But, what it will do is to make a whopping big improvement in the sound of your iPad (and in ways that multiple listeners can enjoy along with you So, whether you consider the Sound Cylinder a true high-end audio product or not, it’s certainly a component with will point listeners in a quality-minded direction.
 

DeVore Fidelity

Key Product: Orangutan 093 floorstanding speaker ($8400/pair)

John DeVore of Devore Fidelity is a US-based speaker designer and manufacturer who has a gift for creating speakers that, in very powerful ways, remind me of some of my favourite British designs from the past (e.g., the ever-musical Spendor BC1, to name one such iconic design). By this I mean that DeVore speakers are naturally and neutrally voiced, full of nuance and subtlety, and capable of conveying the natural warmth and engaging qualities of live music. They also do imaging and soundstaging like champs—in the process putting many better-known speaker brands to shame.

But as one gets to know DeVore speakers (all of which are named for simians, by the way), one realizes that DeVore reserves a special place for his Orangutan models. DeVore’s Orangutan models are distinguished by their architectural simplicity (most are 2-way, two-driver loudspeakers) and their high-sensitivity/high-impedance designs (some might even call them “old school” designs, though there is nothing outdated about their sound).

DeVore’s relatively new Orangutan 093 is a perfect case in point; it features a 10-inch, phase plug-equipped paper-cone woofer/midrange driver, a “gently horn-loaded” 1-inch silk dome tweeter, offers 93dB sensitivity, and presents a 10-ohm load. The end result is a speaker that can sound, by turns, sumptuous, seductive, silky, and sophisticated—the sort of speaker that makes you want to keep on listening for hours on end (meaning that, yes, I had to drag myself out of the DeVore room in order to make time to visit other manufacturers).
 

Focal

Key Product: Sub Air wireless subwoofer (~$700)

Following hot on the heels of last year’s very popular Bird system, the Sub Air from Focal is billed as “a wireless subwoofer for the Cloud age.” The versatile Sub Air is slender (making it easy to place in locations where conventional subs would not fit), sports an 8-inch woofer, incorporates a 110-watt subwoofer amp, and features a 2.4Ghz wireless connectivity system with in-room range of about 15 meters. By design, the cabinet allows for tradition floor standing application, or alternatively allows the Sub Air to be wall mounted.

While the Sub Air will no doubt have many general-purpose low-frequency reinforcement applications, one very likely scenario is for the Sub Air to be bundled with five of the smallest Focal Bird-system satellite speakers, creating a high-performance yet bargain priced 5.1-channel system that could sell for about $1399.

GoldenEar Technology

Key Product: Triton 7 floorstanding speaker ($1398/pair)

Long-term Hi-Fi+ readers will already know that I hold the GoldenEar’s Aon 3 stand-mount monitor in extremely high regard (as does our Editor Alan Sircom), but if the Aon 3 is good (and it is very good), then GoldenEar’s new Triton 7 is downright unbelievable. Basically, the Triton 7 represents the answer to this question: what would happen if you took the design concepts behind the already excellent Aon 3, but applied them in a larger, wider-range, and more dynamically expansive floorstander.

To this end, the Triton 7 uses a D’Appolito array consisting of two wideband 5.25-inch mid-bass drivers flanking a centrally positioned Heil-type tweeter. But the real magic of the design is that the two mid-bass drivers load into a quasi transmission line-like enclosure that terminates, not in a port, but rather in a pair of side-firing passive radiators positioned low in the cabinet for more effective floor coupling.

The end result is an amazingly capable little floorstander that flat out shocks listeners with how much it does well and for quite modest sums of money.  Speed, focus, openness, and depth: the Triton 7 has them all in spades and thus gets my vote for the high-end audio bargain of CES 2013.

While listeners who want speakers that can go low and play loudly in larger rooms will probably gravitate toward GoldenEar’s Triton Two towers (which feature built-in, self-powered woofer systems), the Triton 7 will be a perfectly viable full-range (or very nearly full-range) high-end speaker for many listeners—especially those with mid-sized or smaller listening rooms.page.

High Resolution Technology

Key Product: Stage self-powered compact speaker system with dedicated preamplifier/power amplifier/DAC/digital filter module ($900)

Kevin Halverson and the team at HRT have created a soon-to-arrive product package that I think will come to be regarded as “High-End-audio-in-a-box.” Here’s the concept: for a $900, HRT will give you a complete, three-piece high end audio system whose size is small but whose sound is unexpectedly large.

The system consists of a pair of 2-way, three driver monitors featuring small diameter, ultra long-throw drive units, plus a dedicated preamp/DAC/amp/digital filter module that provides control unit, primary source component, power plant, and EQ functions for the whole system. At CES, Halverson et all had the Stage system set up behind a optically opaque scrim, so as to demonstrate (convincingly, I might add) that though very small the system could easily produce a big, sophisticated, room-filling sound. Judging by show attendee response to the Stage, I predict that HRT is likely to sell a gazillion of these things. Watch for the Stage system to enter the market around June of this year.
 

KEF

Key Product: LS50 stand-mount monitors ($1500/pair)

While KEF’s LS50 is no longer a truly new product (it’s been out for a while), its performance was so good on demonstration at T.H.E. Show (a high-end show run in conjunction with, but not under the auspices of, CES), that I felt compelled to mention it here. Significantly, KEF chose to demo the mighty Blade floorstander in one end of its demonstration area and the LS50 in the other end of the space. The funny and also telling part, I felt, was that the LS50 sounded much less like a typical “mini-monitor” and more like a “Blade, junior,” which, in a nutshell, is the magic of the thing.

KEF promotional literature is fond of drawing parallels between the LS50 and the original BBC LS3/5A mini-monitor, which makes sense in an historical and conceptual sense, yet misses a big part of what make the LS50 so special. With the LS50 you’ve got a compact speaker that simply refuses to sound small or tight constrained; instead, the LS50, which is based on a purpose-built and cabinet optimized version of KEF’s Uni-Q coincident driver array, holds forth with an expansive, full-bodied, self-assured sound that belies the speaker’s compact size.
 

King Sound

Key Product:

• Guitar hybrid electrostatic speaker ($1500/pair)
• Prince III full-range electrostatic speaker ($8000/pair)

King Sound (or King Audio, Ltd., as it is often called) is a Hong Kong-based developer of electrostatic loudspeakers and now headphones. But what is particularly impressive about King Sound is that it can provide full-range electrostatic speaker systems for about the price that some firms might charge for hybrid electrostats.

Why does this matter (or why might it matter)? The fact is that electrostatic drive units use diaphragms that are extremely thin and light and that therefore offer lightning fast transient speeds.  At the same time, it is also fairly difficult to get adequate deep bass response form electrostatic panels, which is why many designers look to create hybrid speakers combining piston-type dynamic woofers with electrostatic midrange/tweeter panels. The catch, though, is that it is challenging (some might say well nigh impossible) to get the disparate driver types to blend coherently. King Sound has neatly solved this problem by figuring out ways to get its electrostatic panels to go lower and play more loudly than most, thus enabling models such as the Prince III full-range electrostat, whose claimed frequency response is a very respectable 48Hz – 26kHz. For about a third again more money, King Sound offers an even more wide range electrostat called the King III ($12,000/pair), whose claimed frequency response is a very impressive 32Hz – 24kHz.

But while King does a great job with full-range electrostats, the firm also offers some quite competent hybrid ESLs as well. One of them, however, called the Guitar Hybrid ESL, stands as perhaps the most unusual loudspeaker I heard at this year’s show. As its name suggest, the Guitar Hybrid ESL looks for all the world like, well, a big acoustic guitar, but one whose “fingerboard” contains a narrow, embedded electrostatic tweeter/midrange panel and whose “body” sports a roughly 6-inch mid-bass dynamic driver where the guitars “sound hole” ought to be. My first thought upon encountering the Guitar Hybrid ESL was that it was surely a gimmick, but to my surprise it produced a quite respectable sound for its price. Still, it remains to be seen whether audiophiles can or will embrace a speaker with such unorthodox styling. Time will tell.

Linn

Key Product: Kiko self-powered speaker system ($3990/system)

Linn’s Kiko self-powered, network streaming music system officially debuted at the CEDIA 2012 show last Fall, but the Kiko system reappeared at CES for those who might have missed seeing it earlier. The concept behind the Kiko system was to provide a three-piece system that would be exceptionally easy to set up and use, that would be highly computer audio-friend, and that would leverage Linn’s expertise in building self-power active (er, “aktiv,” as Linn would have it) loudspeakers.

Accordingly, the Kiko system consists of a control/network-computer interface/power module, plus a pair of Kiko speaker. The control module is UPnP-compatible and provides a plethora of inputs and outputs: two analog inputs (one 3.5mm stereo jack and one set of stereo RCA jacks), one coaxial S/PDIF input, one TOSLINK input, three HDMI inputs, one HDMI output, one headphone output, and one 100Base-T Ethernet interface (via an RJ 45 jack). Moreover, the control module provides four x 33WPC power amplifiers that drive the Kiko speakers via Speakon connectors/cables. The speakers for the system are two-way “fully Aktiv speakers” with claimed frequency response of 66Hz – 22kHz.

Rather than strive for all-out performance, the Kiko system deliberately strikes a calculated balance between convenience, easy of use, versatility, and sound quality.
 

Magnepan

Key Product: MG3.7 planar magnetic floorstanding loudspeaker ($5495) augmented by dual DWM supplementary planar magnetic woofer modules ($795/each)

Magnepan is famous for its full-range dipolar planar magnetic/ribbon driver-equipped loudspeakers and many knowledgeable listeners regard the firm’s top three models (the flagship 20.7, the 3.7, and the 1.7) as the three greatest bargains in all of high-end audio. Still, common wisdom holds that Magnepans aren’t for everyone, in large part because they tend to work much better in some rooms than in others. Even when there is a mis-match between “Maggies” (as US enthusiasts call them) and the listening room, the sound is still pretty good but may tend to show a somewhat frustrating degree of thinness in the mid-bass region.

Well aware of this criticism, Magnepan took action and brought to T.H.E. Show a compelling demo that showed how a pair of the firm’s auxiliary DWM mid-bass panels might be used to reinforce the mid-bass output of full-range Magnepan speakers in problem rooms.

The result was simply breathtaking—nothing short of near state-of-the-art sound, but at a comparatively sane price. With the DWM modules pitching in, Magnepan’s full-range 3.7 panels were spectacular, offering very high levels of resolution, compelling 3D soundstaging, and bass that was at once deeply extended and full of impact and punch, yet also tautly controlled with remarkable speed and pitch definition. Who says Maggies can’t make potent mid-bass?

In all candor, I felt the Magnepan demo represented one of the three best sounds I heard at CES/T.H.E. Show, which is pretty amazing when you consider that the other two contenders were systems well north of the $200,000 mark (man, that’s a lot of money whether you reckon it in dollars, Euros, or pounds sterling).  The joy of Magnepans is that they can lift you right up into stratospheric performance territory, yet without completely obliterating your bank account.

Monitor Audio

Key Product: AirStream S300 Airplay-enabled, self-powered tabletop speaker (~$500)

As an extension of some of the concepts employed in its AirStream WS100 stereo speaker system, Monitor has developed its not-yet-release Airstream S300 single chassis, 2.1-channel, Airplay-enabled tabletop loudspeaker system, which was previewed at CES. The concept of single-chassis Airplay-enabled speakers is not new, of course, but what’s rare (very rare) is to see a firm of Monitor Audio’s caliber apply serious high-end audio know-how in an inexpensive single-box system. Accordingly, the AirStream will use drivers similar to those found in Monitor’s critically-acclaimed Bronze BX-series loudspeakers and will incorporate a multi-curve EQ system that can optimize response for several application scenarios, such as placement in or near a corner or placement in the middle of tabletop).