Impressions: Various Small Floorstanders

[aerius]

These are impressions/mini-reviews of some small floorstanding speakers I've heard over the last 6-8 months or so. They include the Dynaudio Audience 72SE, Sonus Faber Concerto Domus, B&W 804S, Fab Audio Brat, Living Voice Avatar, and Acoustic Zen Adagio. The first 3 were auditioned with Class? & Chord electronics, the others with Korato tube amps and Exposure CD players.

Part 1. The mainstream speakers.

First the Dynaudio Audience 72SE. My first impression was "are you sure this thing isn't broken?" I've heard a Dynaudio before (the Special 25) and I couldn't believe the 72SE could be this much worse, what I was hearing was awful. Guitars sounded muffled and the strings didn't ring out well at all, and in terms of dynamics it just sounded dead. So I asked the salesman if this was the way they're suppose to sound, he said yes and offered to switch in the 72 (non SE) for comparison. That was even worse so I guess the 72SE was working right.

Anyway, I went through about 3-4 songs and decided I couldn't take it anymore. Played some Beck, Tea Party, & Tori Amos. The big problem to me was it had very poor dynamics, a lack of detail, and it put a thick hazy veil in front of everything. It's like listening to speakers through a few sets of theatre curtains. Oh yes, it was s-l-o-o-o-w, the bass blended into an indistinct mess and I couldn't make out low piano notes at all on Tori's music. And yet TAS writes about it like it's the best thing since sliced bread, buncha clowns.

The Sonus Faber Concerto was thankfully a lot better, it was the warmest and most lush sounding of them, a little too lush & mellow, but it had some issues with the bass which I found to be too slow & a bit too "one note". Depending on your music, this can be a great thing or a bad thing. For Sarah Slean or Kate Bush fans, this isn't much of a problem, the extra midrange warmth compliments female vocals nicely and gives them a nice sexy tone. The highs are noticeably rolled off, soft sounding, and somewhat veiled which robs some shimmer & attack from snare drums & cymbals, but to me it's not that big of an issue.

In terms of soundstaging, well, I was a bit disappointed. You'd think a narrow speaker with curved sides ought to image better than a normal box, but it doesn't. Yes it can fill in the centre area and have sounds come out of thin air, but the soundstage ends a foot or 2 in front of the speakers and doesn't extend much past their outsides. The images don't solidly lock down in space and if I concentrated a bit I could localize the sounds to the speakers without too much difficulty, they never fully disappeared.

As mentioned before the bass is kinda slow, and furthermore the speaker just doesn't like to wake up and rock. Play some Led Zeppelin (Lemon Song) and it just feels like it's constantly falling behind the beat, which it is in a sense since it keeps slurring together JPJ's rapid bass notes. Not nearly as bad as the Dynaudio which mushes everything into a mess, but it will blend a couple notes, maybe 3 together at times so the timing on the bassline becomes all wrong. Also, when confronted with lots of different instruments playing at once as on many Tea Party songs and it starts getting confused & incoherent. Some instruments get drowned out in the mix and PRaT goes out the window.

Overall it's pretty and has a forgiving inoffensive sound, but it's not that special. Highly overrated by the audio mags, but what isn't?

Which leaves the B&W 804, the best of the 1st batch; the mainstream speakers. Not as lush as the Sonus Faber, but still a bit on the warm side. Highs were a little zingy until we switched it to a warmer amp, but other than that there were no serious issues. Had the best dynamics & drive, and was equally happy playing grungy rock & blues as sweet female vocal music.

But it's not without problems, the main one being bass integration. The midrange & treble is pretty fast & relatively clear of colourations, the bass isn't. It's fine down to about 80-100Hz or so, below that it becomes quite a bit more sluggish & boomy. The upper bass is fine, the lower, not so good. Grand piano sounds fine up to a certain range, then the tone shifts and it goes blendy blendy with the notes. Made a mess of "In the Springtime of his Voodoo" by Tori Amos, plus the kickdrums on that track sounded like a booming uncontrolled thud, and they shouldn't do that. The 802's which I also heard sound a lot cleaner & crisper down there.

Also of interest, they also had the best soundstage & imaging by far (other than the Avatar), and are also the most detailed & resolving speakers of the first batch. They could project sounds that come from only a couple feet in front of me and well off to the sides, the wrap-around effect was freaky. Other than the sloppiness in the bass, they disappear quite nicely. Overall, the best of the mainstream speakers.

Part 2. The smaller guys. These ones were auditioned in a different shop & a different day.

The Acoustic Zen Adagio was just released when I heard them, in fact the shop got'em only a week before I went there, and the owner had spent the whole time running them in. These things are fucking pretty, the gloss finish on them is unreal and it makes the Sonus Fabers look cheap. Sound? Not quite as good as they look. The problem once again being the bass, which though better than the above speakers still showed a trace of boominess and the speed & detail down low doesn't keep up with the rest of the speaker. Dynamics were also a bit lacking for my tastes, the huge impacts in the intro to "Space Dog" or "Caught a Lite Sneeze" by Tori Amos were a bit softened & compressed, and it didn't have enough weight to it.

Other than that, I have a hard time trying to find faults with it. The midrange is a little thin for my tastes, but I can fix that with a fat sounding tube like the RCA grey glass 6SN7's. There's a bit of hardness in a narrow band of the midrange which results in the tone of some piano notes being a bit off, they're a bit emphasized and it's as if the microphone's been moved closer for a more aggressive sound. There was also a similar colouration on some violin notes, there's one or two notes on the scale that stick out and don't sound quite right.

The treble is clean & sweet, no sibilance that I could hear, it passed the "Little Earthquakes" test where if Tori hisses like a snake the gear goes in the reject pile. Ribbon tweeters, in this case a circular ribbon tweeter, have a pretty nice sound to them. Cymbals shimmer nicely, there's nice air, and the glockenspiel from Hendrix's "Little Wing" dings in a whole new way.

Soundstage, not as good as the B&W, but the imaging matches it. It doesn't have the full wrap-around feel, the soundstage extends nicely in all directions but it can't put an instrument 5 feet directly to the side of my head the way the 804 can. Radiohead's "Life in a Glass House" gives a nice demonstration of this, clarinet to the right, well out into the soundstage and almost on the same plane as my head on the 804, on the Adagio it's in a plane about 3-4' in front of me. Overall, a fine speaker, if I had the cash I'd get one just so I can look at it and fondle it every day, that is, if I hadn't heard the next speaker.

Which is the Living Voice Avatar, a small plain looking box that goes for $6500. I think they put all the money into the drivers, cross-over, and internal construction so it ends up being the best sounding speaker by far. There is only one real fault, and that is the bass doesn't go down to 20Hz, it starts rolling off at 30-40Hz depending on the room, you won't get the full slamming bass of say, a B&W 801. Everything else is essentially perfect, yeah the treble could use a tad more extension but I doubt I would've noticed that if I hadn't heard ribbons & electrostats before.

It's balanced just slightly on the warm side of neutral. It has a clarity and freedom from grain, glare, & colourations, especially in the vital midrange which makes all the other speakers sound flawed. Pianos, guitars, violins, voices & other instruments do not suffer tone shifts or any other weirdness as they go up & down the frequency range. It is also much more dynamic than the other speakers and has a much blacker background. Go to other speakers afterwards and it sounds like they all have background static & noise in the soundstage.

Soundstage & imaging betters the B&W, similar soundstage size & ability to disappear, and with a quieter background the images are much more solid & real. Speed, detail, & resolution are amazing. It cleanly separates the low notes on Tori Amos' piano no matter how fast she plays, it allows the bassline in "Wham" by SRV to be followed without break for the entire song, and it gets the tone right, no weird thumps or booms. It'll distinguish between the sound of Tori pulling her tongue off the back of her teeth or the roof of her mouth, you can tell different brands of cymbals & brushed apart, yada-yada-yada, I've hit my positive gush quota for the day so I'll stop.

To sum up, it is one of the cleanest, fastest, and most detailed speaker I've heard, and it's still fun, musical, and not harsh in any way, and it'll play anything you can throw at it. Other than the OBX-R version, it's the best under $10k speaker I've ever heard, and in the top 3 of all the speakers I've ever heard.

Which leaves the Fab Audio Brat, the cheapest of them all yet still pretty good sounding. Problems, a bit of a midrange "shout", similar to that heard in single-driver designs & some horns but not nearly as severe, also a bit of glare with the shout. Bass suffers the problem all the other speakers do except the Avatar, it's noticeably slower than the rest of the frequency range and doesn't quite blend in. Kickdrums get a bit loose & boomy and don't have a clean sharp impact, it's more of a rounded thud. Deep & strong, but lacks control in the lowest octave.

Soundstage & imaging is similar to the Adagio. It's balanced a bit on the warm side of neutral but there's a slight plateau in the lower to mid treble which makes it sound kinda bright.

Conclusion. Other than the Dynaudio Audience 72SE which sucked and needs a complete redesign and the Sonus Faber Piano which is a mediocre performer given its costs, these are all pretty decent speakers with one standout, the Living Voice Avatar. The Fab Audio Brat has remarkably few flaws for a $2500 speaker, a little more work with the cross-over should fix most of its problems. The Adagio I think is going to be a huge seller for Acoustic Zen. Maybe a bit of foam or damping and the midrange hardness should be gone. The B&W 804 needs to have the bass retuned, trade off some extension & volume for control & tightness. As is it's still one of the better speakers from a large, widely available brand. The Avatar I've gushed enough about, just go hear one if there's a dealer near you.

[hungrych]

You know what you have to do right? Build some Ariels, another T-Line design similar to the living voice (from the looks at least).

[aerius]

In theory the Ariels should be even better, same drivers, but with a better cabinet design. And yes, I've have Lynn Olson's page bookmarked for a couple years now.

[Dusty Chalk]

Could you describe the rooms? I think there was something wrong in the first case, because your description of the 72SE doesn't sound like what I heard -- but I heard them in a dedicated dealer's showroom.

[aerius]

Could you describe the rooms? I think there was something wrong in the first case, because your description of the 72SE doesn't sound like what I heard -- but I heard them in a dedicated dealer's showroom.

It wasn't the best room, about 15' x 17', about 9' high, carpeted floors with several chairs & couches and minimal room treatments. Not a bad room, but not great either. The Sonus Faber, B&W, and Dynaudios were all auditioned in this room. The dealer had a better room for the big speakers but they were understaffed that day and couldn't move the big ones aside to make room for the smaller ones.

The other 3 were auditioned in a slightly smaller room at a different dealer, about 13' x 15' with a slanted ceiling about 7' high on one end and about 12' high on the other. No treatments other than the carpet & couch. Slightly better sounding room but a lot more sensitive to speaker placement.