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Author Archives: Andrew Quint

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Schubert: Die schöne Müllerin

Posted on by Andrew Quint

This recent reimagining of The Fair Maid of the Mill—there actually is not any good translation—with guitar quite than piano supporting the vocalist, could lead on you to surprise if the composer was an early Nineteenth-century prototype of the fashionable singer/songwriter. He wasn’t. Schubert was about 5 ft tall, chubby, socially awkward, and famously unhealthy at self-promotion; he wasn’t showing at Vienna Kaffeehausen. But there’s one thing about listening to the 20 songs that comprise the cycle, supported by the chief instrumental voice of up to date common music, that makes the narrative content material particularly potent. It’s been executed earlier than, by tenor Peter Schreier within the Nineteen Seventies, however this new association by guitarist and composer David Leisner is more practical, partially as a result of the keys required for a baritone occur to be extra guitar-friendly. Michael Kelly’s gentle baritone is completely suited to each the lyrical and dramatic calls for of the fabric; the pathos of the penultimate track, “Der Müller und der Bach,” is nearly insufferable. The brook—“der Bach”— will get the final phrase. The realistically scaled but quick recording was produced by Judith Sherman, liable for so many great classical recordings for half a century now.

The put up Schubert: Die schöne Müllerin appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

World News

Schubert: Die schöne Müllerin

Posted on by Andrew Quint

This recent reimagining of The Fair Maid of the Mill—there actually isn’t any good translation—with guitar quite than piano supporting the vocalist, may lead you to surprise if the composer was an early Nineteenth-century prototype of the trendy singer/songwriter. He wasn’t. Schubert was about 5 ft tall, obese, socially awkward, and famously unhealthy at self-promotion; he wasn’t showing at Vienna Kaffeehausen. But there’s one thing about listening to the 20 songs that comprise the cycle, supported by the chief instrumental voice of latest widespread music, that makes the narrative content material particularly potent. It’s been executed earlier than, by tenor Peter Schreier within the Seventies, however this new association by guitarist and composer David Leisner is more practical, partly as a result of the keys required for a baritone occur to be extra guitar-friendly. Michael Kelly’s gentle baritone is completely suited to each the lyrical and dramatic calls for of the fabric; the pathos of the penultimate tune, “Der Müller und der Bach,” is nearly insufferable. The brook—“der Bach”— will get the final phrase. The realistically scaled but rapid recording was produced by Judith Sherman, answerable for so many great classical recordings for half a century now.

The publish Schubert: Die schöne Müllerin appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

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Total Immersion: New Multichannel Mixes from Pink Floyd and Franco Ambrosetti

Posted on by Andrew Quint

How we discuss with recordings that require greater than two audio system for playback has developed over the past 60 years—from quadraphonic, to encompass sound, to multichannel, to the present in vogue time period, “immersive audio.” Whatever it’s known as, the purpose has been pretty constant—to supply a extra spatially convincing illustration of musical content material. This may be reality-based, as with an orchestral recording, or a very artificial assemble, as with many jazz and hottest recordings. The variety of music-only encompass releases has diminished considerably for the reason that SACD’s heyday, however there’s nonetheless a gentle, if slower, stream of latest immersive mixes to think about.

Female vocalists are a typical musical obsession for audio fanatics, however for a lot of audiophiles of a sure age, Progressive Rock isn’t far behind. Originating in Great Britain within the mid-Sixties and typified by bands like Genesis, Yes, ELO, and Van der Graaf Generator, the style struck some as more and more pretentious and overblown. Critical ambivalence apart, the music has had plain endurance, and none extra so than the recorded legacy of Pink Floyd.

Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall belong in any fundamental rock assortment; presumably Wish You Were Here as properly. Floyd’s tenth studio venture, 1977’s Animals, was a bleak idea album that took its inspiration from George Orwell’s Animal Farm. It was supposed as a critique of classist, capitalistic society—the prolonged alternatives describe pigs, canine, and sheep in battle—and whereas there’s nothing as memorably chart-worthy as “Another Brick within the Wall” or “Money,” the extent of musicianship is excessive, David Gilmour’s guitar work particularly. James Guthrie’s affiliation with Pink Floyd dates again to The Wall, which he engineered. More lately, he’s created the definitive 5.1 variations of DSOM and Wish You Were Here. The 24-bit/192kHz multichannel model could be very involving, revealing layer upon layer of depth and element in addition to the richly variegated tonal vary of Gilmour’s guitars and Richard Wright’s keyboard sonorities, in addition to the expressive implacability of Roger Waters’ lead vocals. Bass and drums are barely underpowered by present requirements however acceptable for the general scale and sonic perspective of the album.

With Nora, veteran Swiss trumpet and flugelhornist Franco Ambrosetti honors the custom of preparations for jazz soloist and strings. Classic albums from Fifties and 60s featured Clifford Brown, Charlie Parker, Ben Webster, and Stan Getz in related settings. The eight alternatives are largely gradual ballads, together with the title monitor composed by Ambrosetti and as soon as used for a stage manufacturing of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. Also programmed are compositions by Victor Feldman, Johnny Dankworth, George Gruntz, Joseph Kosma (the usual, “Autumn Leaves”), John Coltrane’s “After the Rain,” and a gently swinging association of “All Blues” that’s the one up-tempo choice and arguably the album’s spotlight; in actual fact, it’s as high quality a tribute to Miles Davis as I’ve ever heard. The supporting jazz musicians are a dream group that features pianist Uri Caine, guitarist John Scofield, bassist Scott Colley, and drummer Peter Erskine. Alan Broadbent wrote the harmonically luxuriant string preparations.

Though Nora is very recommendable on its musical deserves alone—TAS jazz author Bill Milkowski picked it as his favourite album of 2022—it’s additionally particular from a sonic standpoint. Leading the manufacturing group was Jim Anderson, acquainted to audiophiles from his work with Patricia Barber; amongst these collaborating with Anderson was his spouse, Ulrike Schwarz, a German-trained Tonmeister with intensive symphonic expertise. Schwarz’s skilled historical past might be at the very least partly chargeable for the exceptionally wealthy aural texture of the 22-person ensemble of violins, violas, and cellos that helps to determine the temper of heat introspection with which the album is saturated. The multichannel combine, created at Skywalker Sound, isn’t precisely “immersive” within the sense of enveloping the listener from all instructions however as a substitute generates an virtually palpable sonic object that couldn’t exist in actuality—musicians generally appear to be occupying the identical house—but it’s terribly clarifying of creative intent. It’s far simpler than ordinary for a receptive listener to take care of a number of musical occasions—the soulful flugelhorn, Caine’s crisp keyboard punctuations, and Erskine’s imaginative cymbal work, the melting string harmonies—concurrently. It’s a heightened sensory expertise, one you’re prone to return to usually.

The put up Total Immersion: New Multichannel Mixes from Pink Floyd and Franco Ambrosetti appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

World News

Total Immersion: New Multichannel Mixes from Pink Floyd and Franco Ambrosetti

Posted on by Andrew Quint

How we discuss with recordings that require greater than two audio system for playback has advanced over the past 60 years—from quadraphonic, to encompass sound, to multichannel, to the present in vogue time period, “immersive audio.” Whatever it’s referred to as, the aim has been pretty constant—to supply a extra spatially convincing illustration of musical content material. This could be reality-based, as with an orchestral recording, or a very artificial assemble, as with many jazz and hottest recordings. The variety of music-only encompass releases has diminished considerably for the reason that SACD’s heyday, however there’s nonetheless a gentle, if slower, stream of latest immersive mixes to contemplate.

Female vocalists are a typical musical obsession for audio lovers, however for a lot of audiophiles of a sure age, Progressive Rock isn’t far behind. Originating in Great Britain within the mid-Nineteen Sixties and typified by bands like Genesis, Yes, ELO, and Van der Graaf Generator, the style struck some as more and more pretentious and overblown. Critical ambivalence apart, the music has had plain endurance, and none extra so than the recorded legacy of Pink Floyd.

Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall belong in any fundamental rock assortment; probably Wish You Were Here as nicely. Floyd’s tenth studio venture, 1977’s Animals, was a bleak idea album that took its inspiration from George Orwell’s Animal Farm. It was supposed as a critique of classist, capitalistic society—the prolonged choices describe pigs, canine, and sheep in battle—and whereas there’s nothing as memorably chart-worthy as “Another Brick within the Wall” or “Money,” the extent of musicianship is excessive, David Gilmour’s guitar work specifically. James Guthrie’s affiliation with Pink Floyd dates again to The Wall, which he engineered. More not too long ago, he’s created the definitive 5.1 variations of DSOM and Wish You Were Here. The 24-bit/192kHz multichannel model could be very involving, revealing layer upon layer of depth and element in addition to the richly variegated tonal vary of Gilmour’s guitars and Richard Wright’s keyboard sonorities, in addition to the expressive implacability of Roger Waters’ lead vocals. Bass and drums are barely underpowered by present requirements however applicable for the general scale and sonic perspective of the album.

With Nora, veteran Swiss trumpet and flugelhornist Franco Ambrosetti honors the custom of preparations for jazz soloist and strings. Classic albums from Nineteen Fifties and 60s featured Clifford Brown, Charlie Parker, Ben Webster, and Stan Getz in comparable settings. The eight choices are principally sluggish ballads, together with the title observe composed by Ambrosetti and as soon as used for a stage manufacturing of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. Also programmed are compositions by Victor Feldman, Johnny Dankworth, George Gruntz, Joseph Kosma (the usual, “Autumn Leaves”), John Coltrane’s “After the Rain,” and a gently swinging association of “All Blues” that’s the one up-tempo choice and arguably the album’s spotlight; in reality, it’s as nice a tribute to Miles Davis as I’ve ever heard. The supporting jazz musicians are a dream workforce that features pianist Uri Caine, guitarist John Scofield, bassist Scott Colley, and drummer Peter Erskine. Alan Broadbent wrote the harmonically luxuriant string preparations.

Though Nora is extremely recommendable on its musical deserves alone—TAS jazz author Bill Milkowski picked it as his favourite album of 2022—it’s additionally particular from a sonic standpoint. Leading the manufacturing workforce was Jim Anderson, acquainted to audiophiles from his work with Patricia Barber; amongst these collaborating with Anderson was his spouse, Ulrike Schwarz, a German-trained Tonmeister with in depth symphonic expertise. Schwarz’s skilled historical past could possibly be at the least partly liable for the exceptionally wealthy aural texture of the 22-person ensemble of violins, violas, and cellos that helps to determine the temper of heat introspection with which the album is saturated. The multichannel combine, created at Skywalker Sound, isn’t precisely “immersive” within the sense of enveloping the listener from all instructions however as an alternative generates an virtually palpable sonic object that couldn’t exist in actuality—musicians typically appear to be occupying the identical area—but it’s terribly clarifying of inventive intent. It’s far simpler than common for a receptive listener to take care of a number of musical occasions—the soulful flugelhorn, Caine’s crisp keyboard punctuations, and Erskine’s imaginative cymbal work, the melting string harmonies—concurrently. It’s a heightened sensory expertise, one you’re more likely to return to typically.

The publish Total Immersion: New Multichannel Mixes from Pink Floyd and Franco Ambrosetti appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

Uncategorized

Audiovector QR 7 Loudspeaker

Posted on by Andrew Quint

It was my enviable process to spend high quality time with two loudspeakers in Audiovector’s premium R-Series, the R3 floorstander ($13,500, Issue 305) and the standmount/bookshelf R1 ($7250, Issue 319). The R1 and R3 are every accessible in three variations and, in each cases, I reviewed the highest Arreté mannequin that employs the Danish producer’s finest Air Motion Transformer (AMT) tweeter and its Freedom Concept mechanical-grounding system, which will increase the price of every by $850. When Robert Harley proposed a evaluate of the flagship in Audiovector’s “entry degree”—the corporate’s time period—QR Series, I readily took the task. But, on a sunny October morning when Audiovector’s Brand Manager P.J. Zornosa pulled the 2 packing containers containing the three-way, four-driver QR 7s from the again of his well-traveled Honda Pilot, I’ll admit that some doubts started to come up. Would these audio system be a disappointment after I’d twice skilled the “high-priced unfold?” Would they finally really feel like a… compromise? As I checked out, listened to, examine, and requested questions relating to the $6500-per-pair QR 7s, I used to be looking out for what these compromises is perhaps.

Mads Klifoth, CEO and proprietor of Audiovector and his father Ole Klifoth, the founder and nonetheless R&D supervisor of the corporate, collectively defined that Audiovector has outlined 20 elementary ideas for manufacturing loudspeakers. “We all the time design our merchandise from scratch, with nice respect for our 20 golden guidelines of speaker design. The R11 Arreté and R8 Arreté are our reference fashions and characterize all 20 guidelines. We determined to decide on the ten most necessary for the QR 7 (for instance, asymmetrical inner cupboard construction, sandwich membranes, 7-nines copper wiring, AMT tweeters, and so forth.) Everything we design is in contrast in opposition to our reference fashions. Live music, after all, is the final word reference—music in small jazz or folks golf equipment, and music from the Tivoli Concert Hall, the place the favourite listening spot is the center of Row 13.”

So, how might manufacturing-cost financial savings (and a resultant decrease sticker value) be achieved? As most audiophiles are conscious, the costliest “half” in any loudspeaker is the cupboard, and it’s commonplace for some well-regarded producers to construct the enclosures for his or her prime fashions in Europe or North America, whereas these for the cheaper ones come from Asia. On the surface of the QR 7 cartons was printed “Handmade in Denmark.” This is probably deceptive, because the Danish authorities permits this designation if greater than half the worth of the elements and labor thought of could be proven to have been sourced domestically. But it seems that, since Audiovector’s Scandinavian cupboard fabricators went below, all Audiovector’s enclosures at the moment are made “elsewhere,” which I’d assume means China. The Klifoths do permit that completely different suppliers construct the R Series and QR Series cupboards, however as I extracted the audio system from their cartons, they didn’t seem like cheaply made by any measure. The darkish walnut veneer on the evaluate pair was a single thick piece that wrapped from the underside of 1 aspect excessive and down the opposite, due to diffraction-mitigating, front-to-back-rounded prime edges. They are actually fairly good-looking. Still, the QR audio system are principally rectangular packing containers which might be cheaper to construct than the teardrop-shaped enclosures of the R Series fashions. Beneath the fascia, each product traces use hardwood-based HDF loaded with acoustic glue, the fabric high-frequency-oscillated in the midst of manufacturing.

Unspiked, the QR 7 rises 45″ above the ground. This features a 1″-thick plinth that connects to the undersurface of the cupboard through 4 half-inch steel discs. The practical purpose for these spacers is that the field is vented downwards through a slit-like “Q-Port” that runs the width of the loudspeaker close to the entrance. Inside, bracing parts within the enclosure’s bass part guarantee that inner standing waves gained’t be generated; the compartment for the midrange driver additionally has an asymmetrical geometry.

The AMT high-frequency driver is a less complicated affair than the one used for the R1 and R3 Arreté fashions, which fires backwards into the listening atmosphere in addition to forwards to appreciate Audiovector’s “Soundstage Enhancement Concept.” As the QR tweeter’s backwave is absorbed in a double chamber behind the driving force’s membrane, the complete tweeter meeting could be sited inside the speaker’s midrange compartment. The HF extension is lower than that of the R sequence treble transducers, although nonetheless goes past 40kHz. So that the QR 7s might make the most of a sandwich membrane for the 6″ midrange driver and the 2 8″ woofers—Mads and Ole Klifoth preserve that this type of development permits for easy crossovers with little or no lack of sign integrity on the chosen handover factors of 425Hz and 3kHz—Audiovector specifies a cone created from two layers of aluminum bonded along with a “mild foamy glue” for its lower-priced audio system, versus the carbon-composite materials used for R Series merchandise. It’s a compromise, to make sure, but the design stays true to a type of 20 fundamental ideas noticed for all Audiovector loudspeakers.

Around again, there’s a single pair of high-quality binding posts—no possibility for bi-wiring no bi-amping is obtainable, as there’s with all however the smallest of the R Series fashions. One-piece grilles that connect magnetically and canopy all 4 drivers are offered. They are as acoustically clear as the perfect I’ve heard (from Sonus faber), although most audiophiles will take away them for important listening, as I did. Audiovector has restricted the selection of end to simply three: the walnut veneer of the evaluate pattern, plus white silk and piano black. This is, after all, a savvy manufacturing determination that contributes to a decrease retail price with no impression on sound high quality.

For positioning of the QR 7s, the four-page proprietor’s guide recommends in opposition to the continuously encountered equilateral triangle paradigm and as a substitute proposes an isosceles triangle—is middle-school geometry coming again to you?—with the gap between the audio system being three-quarters of that from the entrance baffle to the candy spot. This occurs to be precisely the disposition I arrived at in my 15′ x 15′ room, the place the ceiling top varies from 11′ to 13′ and a hallway leads off from a sidewall, lowering standing waves. After a number of hours of experimentation, the loudspeakers have been 7′ 9″ aside center-to-center and 9′ from my ears. (The lesson right here? Read the four-page proprietor’s guide.) Regarding the gap to the room boundary behind them, Audiovector suggests something from 20 to 60cm, about 8″ to 24″. I discovered {that a} distance of twenty-two″ resulted in the perfect spatiality with out diminution of the room’s inherent bass help.

The main amplifiers used with the QR 7s have been Tidal Ferios monoblocks, which offered the 6-ohm audio system with a hearty food regimen of 440 watts per channel. I drove them, as properly, with my different long-term reference, a pair of Pass XA60.8s, extra doubtless collaborators with the QR 7s by way of each their energy output and price. (My intention was to additionally report on the Audiovector’s efficiency with a Class D Bel Canto e.One REF501S stereo amplifier [$2495], borrowed from the producer. However, the fitting channel went out after just some hours, manner too quickly for any significant conclusions.) For a preamp/DAC, I used the lately reviewed (Issue 333) BACCH-SP adio processor, the crosstalk-cancellation filter bypassed for the needs of this evaluate. Transparent Audio interconnects and speaker cables have been in service. Although I did play vinyl and silver discs through the QR 7s over the 4 weeks that the well-broken-in evaluate pair noticed each day use, most of my important listening was completed by making my manner by the Roon playlist assembled to facilitate the method—largely native recordsdata residing on my Synology NAS, but additionally materials streamed through Tidal and Qobuz.

Clearly, there have been no compromises to be made when it got here to the kind of musical content material that may make the QR 7s blissful. Vocals have been reproduced with their attribute colour and texture absolutely intact, whether or not it was the plush immensity of early music specialist Joel Frederiksen’s basso profundo (“Whittingham Faire”) or the informal intimacy of Diana Krall’s supply. Close-up recordings of small teams of singers didn’t appear claustrophobic—Anonymous 4 with Bruce Molsky performing “Weeping, Sad and Lonely” from 1985: Songs of Hope and Home from the American Civil War, as an illustration.

The QR 7s love piano in any context. That consists of the instrument recorded alone (Marc-André Hamelin’s astounding virtuosity on Kaleidoscope) or as a concerto soloist (Byron Janis’ for-the-ages recording of Rach 3 with Dorati and the LSO on Mercury.) They have been unperturbed by textural density of two-piano repertoire (Milhaud’s Scaramouche, as recorded by Christian Ivaldi and Noël Lee for EMI) and made sense of Wayne Horvitz’s superior however extremely communicative jazz vocabulary in a small group setting (Sweeter Than the Day). With all these examples, the Audiovectors saved up with fast passagework, believably related the preliminary assault of a word to the principle physique of the sound, and gave a superb sense of the amount and mass of the instrument.

Spatial info, when it’s on the recording, was rendered faithfully: The seating association of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra woodwind part for Bernard Haitink’s recording of the Shostakovich Symphony No. 15, or the seemingly countless depth of area (to borrow a time period from pictures) created within the studio for Dire Straits on “Why Worry” from the mega-classic Brothers in Arms. The scaling of different-sized devices—say, Anthony McGill’s B-flat clarinet and Gloria Chien’s Steinway—was good on their recording of the Brahms Sonatas for the Cedille label.

Dynamics are consideration grabbing, although by no means overrated. The sense of a concussive sound wave being produced by electrical bass and kick drum on a superb rock or blues recording was very satisfying—”Too Proud,” that includes “Mighty” Sam McClain on the Bernie Grundman-mastered BluesQuest SACD sampler, or Kevyn Lettau’s tackle “Wrapped Around Your Finger” from Songs of the Police. Coherence is maintained when the music will get advanced, as with the difficult charts created for virtuoso huge band ensembles led by Bob Mintzer and Gordon Goodwin, or with exuberant early twentieth century orchestral scores like Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (Järvi/Cincinnati) or Prokofiev’s Scythian Suite (Litton/Bergen).

High-frequency sparkle is current in abundance, due to the Heil AMT tweeter. It assures that the ethereal divisi violins at the start of Wagner’s Lohengrin are as otherworldly as meant, in addition to the charged sense of event that obtains on the Analogue Productions vinyl reissue of “Keith Don’t Go” from Nils Lofgren’s Acoustic Live. Once once more, the listener is reaping the advantages of a no-compromise compromise: The AMT driver designed for the QR Series loudspeakers “solely” extends out to 45kHz, versus the 53kHz specification given for the R Series merchandise. Both, after all, go away a typical comfortable dome tweeter receding rapidly within the rearview mirror in terms of high-frequency extension. Deep bass isn’t what you’d name prodigious, however LF slam and extension shall be fairly passable for many rooms, even with such demanding examples as Jean Guillou’s full Franck organ music set, recorded at St. Eustache in Paris for Dorian in 1989, or the bounding synthesized bass on Steve Winwood’s Higher Love. I’m cautious of modest-sized floorstanders that produce too a lot bass: For the sort of room they’re meant for, they’re destined to fail. For the primary time ever, Yair Tammam—Magico’s CTO who graciously volunteers to remotely optimize the combination of my Magico S-Sub with each loudspeaker I consider—concluded that, on this occasion, the subwoofer ought to stay off. At least in my room, Tammam felt, bass efficiency couldn’t be improved upon. Coming from a rival loudspeaker producer, that’s fairly excessive reward.

One thing more. Listening to a number of the assessments tracks with each the Tidal and Pass amplifiers was one other telling indicator of the QR’s high quality. It truly mattered which amplifier I used to be utilizing. That’s no shock with loudspeakers priced within the mid-five figures; it’s one thing of a shocker {that a} $6500 pair of audio system might so readily parse the variations between two elite manufacturers of electronics.

The Audiovector QR 7 is the best-sounding full-range loudspeaker I’ve heard at size in a well-recognized setting that prices lower than $10k. Is it “higher” than considerably costlier merchandise from Magico, Wilson, Von Schweikert, YG, Rockport or, for that matter, Audiovector’s bigger R Series fashions? Probably not. But that isn’t, I really feel, the query we needs to be asking. The QR 7 is an exceptionally overachieving product. By diligently growing different applied sciences and manufacturing practices, Audiovector offers entry to probably the most exalted degree of efficiency that high-end audio has to supply. It’s a compromise…that isn’t.

Specs & Pricing

Type: Floorstanding, three-way, bass-reflex loudspeaker
Driver complement: Air-Motion Transformer tweeter, 6″ aluminum-sandwich midrange, two 8″ aluminum-sandwich woofers
Frequency response: 28Hz–45kHz
Impedance: 6 ohms
Sensitivity: 90.5dB
Dimensions: 9.8″ x 44.9″ x 15.7″
Weight: 79.8 lbs.
Price: $6500/pr.

AUDIOVECTOR
Mileparken 22A
DK-2740 Skovlunde
Denmark
+45 3539 6060
[email protected]

P.J. Zornosa
Brand Manager USA
[email protected]

The publish Audiovector QR 7 Loudspeaker appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

World News

Audiovector QR 7 Loudspeaker

Posted on by Andrew Quint

It was my enviable process to spend high quality time with two loudspeakers in Audiovector’s premium R-Series, the R3 floorstander ($13,500, Issue 305) and the standmount/bookshelf R1 ($7250, Issue 319). The R1 and R3 are every obtainable in three variations and, in each situations, I reviewed the highest Arreté mannequin that employs the Danish producer’s finest Air Motion Transformer (AMT) tweeter and its Freedom Concept mechanical-grounding system, which will increase the price of every by $850. When Robert Harley proposed a overview of the flagship in Audiovector’s “entry degree”—the corporate’s time period—QR Series, I readily took the task. But, on a sunny October morning when Audiovector’s Brand Manager P.J. Zornosa pulled the 2 bins containing the three-way, four-driver QR 7s from the again of his well-traveled Honda Pilot, I’ll admit that some doubts started to come up. Would these audio system be a disappointment after I’d twice skilled the “high-priced unfold?” Would they finally really feel like a… compromise? As I checked out, listened to, examine, and requested questions concerning the $6500-per-pair QR 7s, I used to be looking out for what these compromises is perhaps.

Mads Klifoth, CEO and proprietor of Audiovector and his father Ole Klifoth, the founder and nonetheless R&D supervisor of the corporate, collectively defined that Audiovector has outlined 20 elementary ideas for manufacturing loudspeakers. “We at all times design our merchandise from scratch, with nice respect for our 20 golden guidelines of speaker design. The R11 Arreté and R8 Arreté are our reference fashions and signify all 20 guidelines. We determined to decide on the ten most necessary for the QR 7 (for instance, asymmetrical inside cupboard construction, sandwich membranes, 7-nines copper wiring, AMT tweeters, and many others.) Everything we design is in contrast towards our reference fashions. Live music, after all, is the last word reference—music in small jazz or people golf equipment, and music from the Tivoli Concert Hall, the place the favourite listening spot is the center of Row 13.”

So, how might manufacturing-cost financial savings (and a resultant decrease sticker worth) be achieved? As most audiophiles are conscious, the costliest “half” in any loudspeaker is the cupboard, and it’s common for some well-regarded producers to construct the enclosures for his or her prime fashions in Europe or North America, whereas these for the inexpensive ones come from Asia. On the skin of the QR 7 cartons was printed “Handmade in Denmark.” This is probably deceptive, because the Danish authorities permits this designation if greater than half the worth of the elements and labor thought-about may be proven to have been sourced domestically. But it seems that, since Audiovector’s Scandinavian cupboard fabricators went beneath, all Audiovector’s enclosures at the moment are made “elsewhere,” which I’d assume means China. The Klifoths do permit that completely different suppliers construct the R Series and QR Series cupboards, however as I extracted the audio system from their cartons, they didn’t seem like cheaply made by any measure. The darkish walnut veneer on the overview pair was a single thick piece that wrapped from the underside of 1 facet excessive and down the opposite, due to diffraction-mitigating, front-to-back-rounded prime edges. They are actually fairly good-looking. Still, the QR audio system are principally rectangular bins which might be inexpensive to construct than the teardrop-shaped enclosures of the R Series fashions. Beneath the fascia, each product traces use hardwood-based HDF loaded with acoustic glue, the fabric high-frequency-oscillated in the middle of manufacturing.

Unspiked, the QR 7 rises 45″ above the ground. This features a 1″-thick plinth that connects to the undersurface of the cupboard by way of 4 half-inch steel discs. The purposeful purpose for these spacers is that the field is vented downwards by way of a slit-like “Q-Port” that runs the width of the loudspeaker close to the entrance. Inside, bracing components within the enclosure’s bass part guarantee that inside standing waves received’t be generated; the compartment for the midrange driver additionally has an asymmetrical geometry.

The AMT high-frequency driver is a less complicated affair than the one used for the R1 and R3 Arreté fashions, which fires backwards into the listening surroundings in addition to forwards to comprehend Audiovector’s “Soundstage Enhancement Concept.” As the QR tweeter’s backwave is absorbed in a double chamber behind the motive force’s membrane, the whole tweeter meeting may be sited throughout the speaker’s midrange compartment. The HF extension is lower than that of the R sequence treble transducers, although nonetheless goes past 40kHz. So that the QR 7s might make the most of a sandwich membrane for the 6″ midrange driver and the 2 8″ woofers—Mads and Ole Klifoth preserve that this type of building permits for easy crossovers with little or no lack of sign integrity on the chosen handover factors of 425Hz and 3kHz—Audiovector specifies a cone comprised of two layers of aluminum bonded along with a “mild foamy glue” for its lower-priced audio system, versus the carbon-composite materials used for R Series merchandise. It’s a compromise, to make certain, but the design stays true to a kind of 20 fundamental ideas noticed for all Audiovector loudspeakers.

Around again, there’s a single pair of high-quality binding posts—no possibility for bi-wiring no bi-amping is obtainable, as there’s with all however the smallest of the R Series fashions. One-piece grilles that connect magnetically and canopy all 4 drivers are supplied. They are as acoustically clear as the most effective I’ve heard (from Sonus faber), although most audiophiles will take away them for vital listening, as I did. Audiovector has restricted the selection of end to simply three: the walnut veneer of the overview pattern, plus white silk and piano black. This is, after all, a savvy manufacturing resolution that contributes to a decrease retail value with no influence on sound high quality.

For positioning of the QR 7s, the four-page proprietor’s handbook recommends towards the steadily encountered equilateral triangle paradigm and as a substitute proposes an isosceles triangle—is middle-school geometry coming again to you?—with the gap between the audio system being three-quarters of that from the entrance baffle to the candy spot. This occurs to be precisely the disposition I arrived at in my 15′ x 15′ room, the place the ceiling top varies from 11′ to 13′ and a hallway leads off from a sidewall, decreasing standing waves. After a number of hours of experimentation, the loudspeakers have been 7′ 9″ aside center-to-center and 9′ from my ears. (The lesson right here? Read the four-page proprietor’s handbook.) Regarding the gap to the room boundary behind them, Audiovector suggests something from 20 to 60cm, about 8″ to 24″. I discovered {that a} distance of twenty-two″ resulted in the most effective spatiality with out diminution of the room’s inherent bass assist.

The main amplifiers used with the QR 7s have been Tidal Ferios monoblocks, which supplied the 6-ohm audio system with a hearty food plan of 440 watts per channel. I drove them, as properly, with my different long-term reference, a pair of Pass XA60.8s, extra seemingly collaborators with the QR 7s by way of each their energy output and value. (My intention was to additionally report on the Audiovector’s efficiency with a Class D Bel Canto e.One REF501S stereo amplifier [$2495], borrowed from the producer. However, the proper channel went out after just some hours, manner too quickly for any significant conclusions.) For a preamp/DAC, I used the lately reviewed (Issue 333) BACCH-SP adio processor, the crosstalk-cancellation filter bypassed for the needs of this overview. Transparent Audio interconnects and speaker cables have been in service. Although I did play vinyl and silver discs by way of the QR 7s over the 4 weeks that the well-broken-in overview pair noticed each day use, most of my vital listening was achieved by making my manner by way of the Roon playlist assembled to facilitate the method—principally native recordsdata residing on my Synology NAS, but in addition materials streamed by way of Tidal and Qobuz.

Clearly, there have been no compromises to be made when it got here to the kind of musical content material that may make the QR 7s completely satisfied. Vocals have been reproduced with their attribute colour and texture absolutely intact, whether or not it was the plush immensity of early music specialist Joel Frederiksen’s basso profundo (“Whittingham Faire”) or the informal intimacy of Diana Krall’s supply. Close-up recordings of small teams of singers didn’t appear claustrophobic—Anonymous 4 with Bruce Molsky performing “Weeping, Sad and Lonely” from 1985: Songs of Hope and Home from the American Civil War, as an illustration.

The QR 7s love piano in any context. That contains the instrument recorded alone (Marc-André Hamelin’s astounding virtuosity on Kaleidoscope) or as a concerto soloist (Byron Janis’ for-the-ages recording of Rach 3 with Dorati and the LSO on Mercury.) They have been unperturbed by textural density of two-piano repertoire (Milhaud’s Scaramouche, as recorded by Christian Ivaldi and Noël Lee for EMI) and made sense of Wayne Horvitz’s superior however extremely communicative jazz vocabulary in a small group setting (Sweeter Than the Day). With all these examples, the Audiovectors saved up with fast passagework, believably linked the preliminary assault of a be aware to the principle physique of the sound, and gave a great sense of the quantity and mass of the instrument.

Spatial data, when it’s on the recording, was rendered faithfully: The seating association of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra woodwind part for Bernard Haitink’s recording of the Shostakovich Symphony No. 15, or the seemingly infinite depth of area (to borrow a time period from pictures) created within the studio for Dire Straits on “Why Worry” from the mega-classic Brothers in Arms. The scaling of different-sized devices—say, Anthony McGill’s B-flat clarinet and Gloria Chien’s Steinway—was excellent on their recording of the Brahms Sonatas for the Cedille label.

Dynamics are consideration grabbing, although by no means overrated. The sense of a concussive sound wave being produced by electrical bass and kick drum on a great rock or blues recording was very satisfying—”Too Proud,” that includes “Mighty” Sam McClain on the Bernie Grundman-mastered BluesQuest SACD sampler, or Kevyn Lettau’s tackle “Wrapped Around Your Finger” from Songs of the Police. Coherence is maintained when the music will get advanced, as with the difficult charts created for virtuoso huge band ensembles led by Bob Mintzer and Gordon Goodwin, or with exuberant early twentieth century orchestral scores like Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (Järvi/Cincinnati) or Prokofiev’s Scythian Suite (Litton/Bergen).

High-frequency sparkle is current in abundance, due to the Heil AMT tweeter. It assures that the ethereal divisi violins initially of Wagner’s Lohengrin are as otherworldly as supposed, in addition to the charged sense of event that obtains on the Analogue Productions vinyl reissue of “Keith Don’t Go” from Nils Lofgren’s Acoustic Live. Once once more, the listener is reaping the advantages of a no-compromise compromise: The AMT driver designed for the QR Series loudspeakers “solely” extends out to 45kHz, versus the 53kHz specification given for the R Series merchandise. Both, after all, go away a typical smooth dome tweeter receding rapidly within the rearview mirror on the subject of high-frequency extension. Deep bass isn’t what you’d name prodigious, however LF slam and extension will probably be fairly passable for many rooms, even with such demanding examples as Jean Guillou’s full Franck organ music set, recorded at St. Eustache in Paris for Dorian in 1989, or the bounding synthesized bass on Steve Winwood’s Higher Love. I’m cautious of modest-sized floorstanders that produce too a lot bass: For the form of room they’re supposed for, they’re destined to fail. For the primary time ever, Yair Tammam—Magico’s CTO who graciously volunteers to remotely optimize the mixing of my Magico S-Sub with each loudspeaker I consider—concluded that, on this occasion, the subwoofer ought to stay off. At least in my room, Tammam felt, bass efficiency couldn’t be improved upon. Coming from a rival loudspeaker producer, that’s fairly excessive reward.

One thing more. Listening to a number of the exams tracks with each the Tidal and Pass amplifiers was one other telling indicator of the QR’s high quality. It really mattered which amplifier I used to be utilizing. That’s no shock with loudspeakers priced within the mid-five figures; it’s one thing of a shocker {that a} $6500 pair of audio system might so readily parse the variations between two elite manufacturers of electronics.

The Audiovector QR 7 is the best-sounding full-range loudspeaker I’ve heard at size in a well-recognized setting that prices lower than $10k. Is it “higher” than considerably dearer merchandise from Magico, Wilson, Von Schweikert, YG, Rockport or, for that matter, Audiovector’s bigger R Series fashions? Probably not. But that isn’t, I really feel, the query we ought to be asking. The QR 7 is an exceptionally overachieving product. By diligently growing various applied sciences and manufacturing practices, Audiovector offers entry to essentially the most exalted degree of efficiency that high-end audio has to supply. It’s a compromise…that isn’t.

Specs & Pricing

Type: Floorstanding, three-way, bass-reflex loudspeaker
Driver complement: Air-Motion Transformer tweeter, 6″ aluminum-sandwich midrange, two 8″ aluminum-sandwich woofers
Frequency response: 28Hz–45kHz
Impedance: 6 ohms
Sensitivity: 90.5dB
Dimensions: 9.8″ x 44.9″ x 15.7″
Weight: 79.8 lbs.
Price: $6500/pr.

AUDIOVECTOR
Mileparken 22A
DK-2740 Skovlunde
Denmark
+45 3539 6060
[email protected]

P.J. Zornosa
Brand Manager USA
[email protected]

The publish Audiovector QR 7 Loudspeaker appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

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Ten Best Classical Albums of 2022 | Andrew Quint

Posted on by Andrew Quint

Here with You options clarinetist Anthony McGill and pianist Gloria Chien in an exceptionally well-played and well-recorded program that features the 2 autumnal Brahms Sonatas. Yarlung recorded Petteri Iivonen’s intense studying of Bach’s D Minor Partita in 2008—it’s now had a well-deserved vinyl reissue. Opera aficionados ought to try the arias Mozart wrote between ages 11 and 16, as gloriously sung by soprano Marie-Eve Munger. A Native Hill is a 12-movement choral work by Gavin Bryars based mostly on a 1968 essay by Wendell Berry. Also environmentally themed is Manfred Honeck’s recording of Beethoven’s Pastorale Symphony paired with Steven Stucky’s Silent Spring, which honors Rachel Carson’s epochal ebook. Louis Lortie and Hélène Mercier play Debussy on two pianos, together with a compelling transcription of La mer. Upon Further Reflection is a brand new three-movement piano suite by Michael Tilson Thomas, recorded John Wilson, together with music of Gershwin and Copland. Dvorak’s Legends and Czech Suite include a few of his most memorably melodic materials and conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin continues to champion the orchestral music of the pioneering Black American composer, Florence Price. Lastly, pianist Igor Levit’s Wagner-themed program is centered on Hans Werner Henze’s sprawling, atonal Tristan but additionally consists of materials by Liszt, Mahler, and Wagner himself.

1.Here with You. Brahms/Montgomery/Weber. McGill/Chien. Cedille.

 

2.Bach: Partita No. 2 in D Minor. Iivonen. Yarlung (45rpm LP).

 

3.Maestrino Mozart. Munger. Les Boreades de Montréal, Bourque. ATMA.

 

4.Bryars: A Native Hill. Nally/The Crossing. Navona.

 

5.Beethoven: Symphony No. 6. Pittsburgh, Honeck. Reference.

 

6.Debussy: Music for two Pianos. Lortie, Mercier. Chandos.

 

7.Upon Further Reflection. Wilson. Avie.

 

8.Dvořák: Legends. Czech Suite. Măcelaru/WDR Sinfonieorchester. Linn.

 

9.Price: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3. Nézet-Séguin/Philadelphia. DG.

 

10.Tristan. Levit. Welser-Möst/Leipzig Gewandhaus O. Sony.

The publish Ten Best Classical Albums of 2022 | Andrew Quint appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

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Ten Best Classical Albums of 2022 | Andrew Quint

Posted on by Andrew Quint

Here with You options clarinetist Anthony McGill and pianist Gloria Chien in an exceptionally well-played and well-recorded program that features the 2 autumnal Brahms Sonatas. Yarlung recorded Petteri Iivonen’s intense studying of Bach’s D Minor Partita in 2008—it’s now had a well-deserved vinyl reissue. Opera aficionados ought to take a look at the arias Mozart wrote between ages 11 and 16, as gloriously sung by soprano Marie-Eve Munger. A Native Hill is a 12-movement choral work by Gavin Bryars based mostly on a 1968 essay by Wendell Berry. Also environmentally themed is Manfred Honeck’s recording of Beethoven’s Pastorale Symphony paired with Steven Stucky’s Silent Spring, which honors Rachel Carson’s epochal e book. Louis Lortie and Hélène Mercier play Debussy on two pianos, together with a compelling transcription of La mer. Upon Further Reflection is a brand new three-movement piano suite by Michael Tilson Thomas, recorded John Wilson, together with music of Gershwin and Copland. Dvorak’s Legends and Czech Suite comprise a few of his most memorably melodic materials and conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin continues to champion the orchestral music of the pioneering Black American composer, Florence Price. Lastly, pianist Igor Levit’s Wagner-themed program is centered on Hans Werner Henze’s sprawling, atonal Tristan but in addition consists of materials by Liszt, Mahler, and Wagner himself.

1.Here with You. Brahms/Montgomery/Weber. McGill/Chien. Cedille.

 

2.Bach: Partita No. 2 in D Minor. Iivonen. Yarlung (45rpm LP).

 

3.Maestrino Mozart. Munger. Les Boreades de Montréal, Bourque. ATMA.

 

4.Bryars: A Native Hill. Nally/The Crossing. Navona.

 

5.Beethoven: Symphony No. 6. Pittsburgh, Honeck. Reference.

 

6.Debussy: Music for two Pianos. Lortie, Mercier. Chandos.

 

7.Upon Further Reflection. Wilson. Avie.

 

8.Dvořák: Legends. Czech Suite. Măcelaru/WDR Sinfonieorchester. Linn.

 

9.Price: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3. Nézet-Séguin/Philadelphia. DG.

 

10.Tristan. Levit. Welser-Möst/Leipzig Gewandhaus O. Sony.

The publish Ten Best Classical Albums of 2022 | Andrew Quint appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

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Wolf von Langa 12639 SON Loudspeaker

Posted on by Andrew Quint

It’s widely understood that the Munich High End show may not be the best place to discover the screaming bargains of perfectionist audio. This is the industry’s biggest stage, and it’s understandable that elite manufacturers want to feature their flagship products. There are plenty of loudspeakers to consider on display in Munich if you’ve got $100k burning a hole in your pocket, considerably fewer if your budget is a fifth that much. So, I took note when, in TAS’s coverage of the 2018 Munich show, Jonathan Valin declared that the Wolf von Langa WVL12639 SON loudspeaker, driven by Air Tight electronics, was “by far the Best of Show combo for the money, and in spite of its diminutive size, it didn’t sound a bit miniaturized!” Four years later, when Robert Harley asked if I’d like to spend some quality time with the $17,995 per pair SONs, I didn’t need any convincing.

Wolf von Langa has been building his eponymous loudspeakers in Bavaria for 14 years. There are currently six models available, four of which feature at least one field-coil driver receiving current from an external power supply. For some of you younger folks who weren’t practicing audiophiles in the 1920s and 30s when this technology was “the cat’s meow,” some explication is warranted. As the saying goes, everything old is new again.

Modern dynamic transducers have a signal-conducting voice coil that interacts with the magnetic field produced by permanent magnets in the driver itself. The audio signal flowing through the voice coil creates a varying magnetic field that pushes and pulls against the fixed magnetic field created by the permanent magnets. But back in the day, permanent magnets were too weak, too bulky, and too expensive to be practical for this application, so dynamic drivers employed electromagnets, the magnetism generated by current flowing through a coil of wire provided by an external power source. With the rise of small, strong, and cheap permanent magnets—for example, the alnico and neodymium alloys that are ubiquitous today—the older “field coil” technology faded away.

Does it matter how the magnetic field in a dynamic driver is produced? Wolf von Langa, the man, explained in an email that it matters a lot, especially given the advances in field-coil technology that have recently been achieved. “While a permanent magnet is charged once,” von Langa wrote, “the magnetic force in an electromagnet is generated by electricity.”

He continued, “In the past, voltage sources with tube rectifiers were mostly used to supply the electromagnets due to technical circumstances. Exactly here is the actual approach of our new development. The loudspeaker industry has been researching for decades how diaphragm movement, especially overshoot, can be controlled. The best-known technology for this is the acceleration sensor. But a control circuit is necessary which, like all amplifiers, is bandwidth-limited and can only react with a time delay. We, on the other hand, provide a constant magnetic field by means of current control, reducing the interaction of moving mass on the magnetic force quite considerably. This results in more accurate diaphragm control or, in other words, better transient processing—faster transient on and off—which also reduces distortion.

“The current source has the special task of always keeping the current constant. If you try to extract power from the magnet, more current will flow because the current is kept constant and, with it, the magnetic field which is defined exclusively by the flowing current. With a constant magnetic field, the interaction of the voice coil with the amplifier is also reduced, and this is clearly audible.”

So, the quality of the power supply is critical to optimal functioning of a field-coil driver. Says the designer, “The Wolf von Langa Field-Coil-Constant-Current-Power-Supply is a development which took years. The difficulty is to supply a high inductance—the so-called field (which, by itself, already has a kind of self-preservation behavior) with constant current. For this purpose, various circuits had to be built, measured, and duration tested. The current power supply is in its fourth generation and sounds excellent with our field-coil speakers. It is available for 120 and 240 VAC, at 50/60Hz.”

The WVL 12639 SON is a two-way design. The low/mid frequency module is a rectangular box measuring 15.9″ x 27.6″ x 11.8″— diminutive, indeed—that’s fabricated from high-density fiberboard with a polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) coating. The user is advised to rest the box on four supplied thin rubber pucks (“Acoustic Absorbers”), which happen to be kind to wood floors and carpets but, in fact, are recommended for sonic reasons. Wolf von Langa prefers decoupling to spiking, though there are six M8-size threads tapped into the bottom of the loudspeaker for those who want to try some other aftermarket footer. Facing forward and mounted flush with the upper portion of the enclosure is the 11″, current-controlled, field-coil driver, entirely manufactured in von Langa’s facility in Neunkirchen, Germany—a stiff but lightweight paper/silk cone with an underhung voice coil made of edge-wound copper-coated aluminum flat wire. Facing backwards is an aluminum passive radiator of about the same diameter as the front-firing driver.

The power supply itself is a tidy black metal box, 9.5″ x 3.5″ x 9.5″. It connects to each loudspeaker via a supplied 10-foot cable. (Most owners will surely choose to position the LPS somewhere between the SONs.) A dial on the rear aspect of the power supply controls the amount of current provided to the speakers’ electromagnetic drivers, thus adjusting the magnetic field; a meter calibrated in amperes of current through the coil on one side of the case lets a user make reproducible alterations to the setting. Changing the amount of current that reaches the speaker alters the perceived “grip” of a given amplifier on the field-coil driver. More quantitatively oriented audiophiles will understand that such a change impacts the Thiele/Small parameters that define the low-frequency performance of any dynamic driver.

Sitting atop the low/mid-frequency module and held loosely in place by hidden magnets is a transparent plastic rectangle—the material, again, is PMMA—that spans the width of the speaker and holds the 2.75″ x 4.50″ air motion transformer (AMT) high-frequency driver, which fires both forward and back into free air. It’s manufactured by Mundorf for WVL to precise parameters to assure an ideal synergy with the field-coil transducer. The tweeter is positioned eccentrically in its thermoplastic housing, and the two high-frequency modules can easily be swapped so that a user can experiment with outside versus inside tweeter placement. A cable leading from the base of the AMT driver splits into positive and negative limbs that connect to a pair of binding near the top/rear aspect of the mid/bass module. From there, out of sight, there’s presumably a connection to the crossover network, something that Wolf von Langa is loathe to talk about with much specificity. According to WVL’s North American importer and distributor, Colin King of Gestalt Audio Design in Nashville, von Langa feels that if he were to reveal the crossover point, audiophiles would make assumptions regarding the sound of the speakers—and he’d rather they just listen. On the WVL website, we’re assured that decisions regarding the separation of treble and bass frequencies have been “based on measurements, simulations and ultimately through weeks of fine-tuning by ear—so you don’t have to worry about the exact crossover frequency.” Honestly, it’s not been keeping me up at night.
Toward the bottom of the speaker’s rear aspect is a connector for the cable providing power to the field-coil driver and two sets of WBT NextGen Plasma Protect pure-copper terminals to permit bi-wiring and bi-amping. For those using just a single pair of speaker cables per side, WVL provides some of the most elegant jumpers I’ve ever come across; they evoke a church key-style bottle opener. The SON’s standard finish is a high-gloss black that will have you rubbing away fingerprints with some frequency. Limited edition wood finishes can be had for a $1000 upcharge: these truly are small-batch production runs, so the veneers that are available change from time to time. The current choices are Italian Olive, Prune, and Tineo (a straight-grained hardwood that comes from South America). Magnetically attaching grills are provided.

Colin King is WVL’s primary dealer in North America. He will either ship the speakers to an interested individual for a home audition (they can be returned for a “modest restocking fee” which, given shipping costs these days, probably isn’t that modest) or fly him or her to Nashville to hear the product. King spent a few hours installing the WVL 12639 SONs in my 225-square-foot room. I thought they sounded pretty good when he departed but learned over time that slight changes to the loudspeakers’ toe-in toward the listening position can make a significant difference. The SONs are effectively full-range dipoles with a directional radiation pattern, and you stand to lose some of their effortless top-end extension if you’re not fairly meticulous about positioning. When all was said and done, the WVLs rested 27 to 32 inches from the front wall (they were angled in toward the sweet spot, remember), 8 feet apart, and 8 feet from my listening position.

My time with the WVL 12639 SONs was both illuminating and musically rewarding. Illuminating, in terms of what’s possible with a physically small loudspeaker, especially when it comes to the reproduction of scale. Musically rewarding in that at no point was my choice of recordings determined by the capabilities of the transducer. The analog front-end comprised a Vertere MG-1 turntable with SG-1 tonearm, Acoustical Systems Archon cartridge, and Pass Labs XP-27 phonostage; digital source components were the 432 EVO Aeon server, Baetis Reference 3 music computer, BACCH-SP adio processor, Ideon Absolute Epsilon DAC, Sony UBP-X1100ES (used as a transport) and an Anthem D2v pre/pro (used strictly in “pass-through” mode).

Given their 8-ohm impedance and 94dB sensitivity, you’d expect that the WVL 12639 SONs would be quite amplifier-friendly, and you’d be right. I used three amps in the course of my listening, including my two reference monoblock pairs, the unflappable Tidal Ferios and the lower-powered Pass XA 60.8s that manifest an admirable blend of nuance and control, so long as the speaker load and musical program aren’t exceptionally demanding. (Mostly, the monoblocks were biwired with two sets of T+A Speaker Hex cables.) But I also got to experience the SONs for two wonderful weeks with the sort of electronics I can’t usually employ because of the requirements of the loudspeakers that come my way—that is, a low-powered tube amplifier. It wasn’t just the milk of human kindness—he was making a point, of course—but Colin King shipped me an 18Wpc tube amplifier, the New Audio Frontiers Supreme 300B, which I connected to the WVLs with a single pair of the T+A speaker cables. I did my best to embarrass the Italian product with dynamic source material featuring plenty of low-frequency information. But it didn’t happen, especially when I took advantage of that nifty knob on the back of the power supply to increase the current delivered to the field-coil driver. With hard-driving jazz fusion—the Yellowjackets’ blazing, odd-meter “3 Circles” from their 2008 album Lifecycle—the SONs kicked some serious dynamic butt with the tube amp. The experience was much the same with orchestral “power music” (the Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony from Philadelphia/Eschenbach or Mahler’s Third played by San Francisco/MTT) and exuberant big band recordings (favorite tracks from albums recorded by Bob Mintzer and Gordon Goodwin’s virtuoso ensembles). There was a real disconnect between what I was seeing—a smallish 2-way loudspeaker powered by an 18W amp—and what I was hearing. And what I was hearing was a thoroughly satisfying representation of music that requires an approximation of its scale to succeed. Did the Tidal monoblocks, with their 300Wpc into 8 ohms, provide more low-end control and extension? Sure, but I’m not convinced that most listeners would have felt anything was deficient without the chance to make a head-to-head comparison before the aural memory dissipated.

With all three amplifiers, reproduction of the human voice was exquisite. From jazz chanteuse Norah Jones (“Don’t Know Why”) to basso profundo Early Music specialist Joel Frederiksen (“Whittingham Faire”), the expressive shaping of phrases and dynamics was beautifully revealed. Whatever the top-secret value of the crossover frequency (and specifying a specific number is somewhat bogus anyway, as the transition occurs over a range) the integration of the two drivers was seamless. This of-a-piece tonal consistency was also very apparent with sparingly scored instrumental material. Toughest of all may be when a single, exposed instrument spans a wide range that necessarily must be covered by more than a single driver. A torture test of a loudspeaker’s capabilities in this regard is “Teardrops for Jimmy” from a Turtle Records release titled Jungle Boldie, featuring three Dutch musicians—reed player Maarten Ornstein, bassist Tony Overwater, and drummer Wim Kegel. When the tune begins, you may think Ornstein is playing a soprano saxophone or, a little later, a standard B-flat clarinet. It’s only at about the 1:20 mark when Ornstein descends gradually below the range of either of those instruments that a listener realizes he’s been playing a bass clarinet all along, initially at the very highest part of that instrument’s tessitura. The sooner you can tell that’s the case, the more tonally neutral you can conclude your system is—the speakers, in particular. A bass clarinet producing the same pitch as a B-flat clarinet or a soprano sax just doesn’t sound the same timbrally. The Wolf von Langa WVL 12639 SON identifies the instrument that’s actually being played as readily as any other loudspeaker I’ve encountered.

When carefully positioned, the WVL SONs create an expansive and continuous soundfield with correct localization of instrumental and vocal images. Compared to my reference Magico M2s, some sharp edges may have been smoothed down—but this is definitely an issue of personal preference. For some, the SON’s spatial presentation will seem a touch soft; others will consider the WVL just right and a product such as the Magico to be “over-etched.” My last equipment review before the SON was the Theoretica Applied Physics BACCH-SP adio processor, the key feature of which is its crosstalk cancellation (XTC) filter. Room reflections undermine the effectiveness of any XTC algorithm and to achieve the best results with the BACCH filter, room treatment was beneficial. As the WVL SON is a relatively directional dipole, even without much room treatment, better spatialization was achieved than with the M2s.

I’m ambivalent when it comes to head-to-head comparisons to other products in equipment reviews. In principle it sounds like a good idea but, in practice, it’s pretty unusual for a reviewer to have on hand truly “competitive” gear, certainly more than one or two alternative components when there may be a dozen more options for an audiophile considering a purchase—especially in the loudspeaker realm. Honestly, you’re better off looking at the latest TAS Buyer’s Guide issue, reading the succinct reviews, and then generating a short list of products to seek out and hear in person. But since I actually had an appropriate product to compare sitting in the back of the room, it seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up. My usual surround speakers for multichannel playback are the similarly priced Magico S1 MkII floorstanders (currently $19,600 in the M-Cast finish) and it wasn’t much trouble to move them up front.

Using the Tidal amplifiers, the S1s manifested bass that was tighter, if less extended. Both speakers were tonally accurate and highly resolving of detail; the Magicos were leaner in texture, which I prefer. The WVLs played “bigger,” even though they stood more than foot shorter (without the tweeter module) than the S1s. Driving the Magicos with the 18W tube amplifier, however, was decidedly unsuccessful. There was obvious congestion with loud orchestral passages and throughout the Yellowjackets selection noted above, dynamic punch and bass power were lacking. Unless your taste in music runs mostly to solo clavichord music, gentle folk, and Bill Evans, the S1s and a low-power tube amp are not a good match. The WVL SONs have no such limitations.

Audiophiles have been accused of fetishizing the past, and the accusers have time and again been shown to be wrong. Tube electronics were once viewed as impossibly colored and prone to malfunction, but modern examples, such as the New Audio Frontiers model I employed with such pleasure while preparing this review, are sonically neutral and reliable while still sounding very different from solid-state gear. The entire vinyl “craze”—TAS’ Michael Fremer has led the charge for 30 years—is anything but, and perhaps the salvation of this hobby, with younger listeners enthusiastically maintaining a turntable beside their streaming DACs.

But loudspeakers are different. The assumption is that progress has been steady and linear, due to computer-modeling techniques, increasingly exotic (and expensive) enclosure and driver materials, software-based equalization, Class D onboard amplification, and other developments. There’s nothing wrong with that stuff, of course. Loudspeakers are better than they were even just a decade ago. But every so often, an older engineering approach is identified that deserves a second look and, perhaps, modernization. The field-coil driver is one such technology, and Wolf von Langa, with the WVL 12639 SON, has brought to market a product that fully actualizes a design principal that came of age back in the Roaring Twenties. It’s still the cat’s meow.

Specs & Pricing

Type: Two-way floorstanding loudspeaker
Driver complement: 11″ field-coil, current-controlled woofer with passive radiator; 2.75″ x 4.5″ AMT tweeter
Frequency response: 25Hz–25kHz +/-3dB
Impedance: 8 ohms
Sensitivity: 94dB
Dimensions:19.9″ x 27.6″ x 11.8″, mid/bass module; 15.9″ x 6.7″ x 2.4″, tweeter module
Weight: 92.4 lbs.
Price: $17,995/pr.

WOLF VON LANGA
Roedlas 54
91077 Neunkirchen a. Br.
Germany

GESTALT AUDIO DESIGN (North American distributor/dealer)
4305 Utah Ave Unit B
Nashville, TN 37209
(615) 838-7178
gestalt.audio

The post Wolf von Langa 12639 SON Loudspeaker appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

World News

Wolf von Langa 12639 SON Loudspeaker

Posted on by Andrew Quint

It’s widely understood that the Munich High End show may not be the best place to discover the screaming bargains of perfectionist audio. This is the industry’s biggest stage, and it’s understandable that elite manufacturers want to feature their flagship products. There are plenty of loudspeakers to consider on display in Munich if you’ve got $100k burning a hole in your pocket, considerably fewer if your budget is a fifth that much. So, I took note when, in TAS’s coverage of the 2018 Munich show, Jonathan Valin declared that the Wolf von Langa WVL12639 SON loudspeaker, driven by Air Tight electronics, was “by far the Best of Show combo for the money, and in spite of its diminutive size, it didn’t sound a bit miniaturized!” Four years later, when Robert Harley asked if I’d like to spend some quality time with the $17,995 per pair SONs, I didn’t need any convincing.

Wolf von Langa has been building his eponymous loudspeakers in Bavaria for 14 years. There are currently six models available, four of which feature at least one field-coil driver receiving current from an external power supply. For some of you younger folks who weren’t practicing audiophiles in the 1920s and 30s when this technology was “the cat’s meow,” some explication is warranted. As the saying goes, everything old is new again.

Modern dynamic transducers have a signal-conducting voice coil that interacts with the magnetic field produced by permanent magnets in the driver itself. The audio signal flowing through the voice coil creates a varying magnetic field that pushes and pulls against the fixed magnetic field created by the permanent magnets. But back in the day, permanent magnets were too weak, too bulky, and too expensive to be practical for this application, so dynamic drivers employed electromagnets, the magnetism generated by current flowing through a coil of wire provided by an external power source. With the rise of small, strong, and cheap permanent magnets—for example, the alnico and neodymium alloys that are ubiquitous today—the older “field coil” technology faded away.

Does it matter how the magnetic field in a dynamic driver is produced? Wolf von Langa, the man, explained in an email that it matters a lot, especially given the advances in field-coil technology that have recently been achieved. “While a permanent magnet is charged once,” von Langa wrote, “the magnetic force in an electromagnet is generated by electricity.”

He continued, “In the past, voltage sources with tube rectifiers were mostly used to supply the electromagnets due to technical circumstances. Exactly here is the actual approach of our new development. The loudspeaker industry has been researching for decades how diaphragm movement, especially overshoot, can be controlled. The best-known technology for this is the acceleration sensor. But a control circuit is necessary which, like all amplifiers, is bandwidth-limited and can only react with a time delay. We, on the other hand, provide a constant magnetic field by means of current control, reducing the interaction of moving mass on the magnetic force quite considerably. This results in more accurate diaphragm control or, in other words, better transient processing—faster transient on and off—which also reduces distortion.

“The current source has the special task of always keeping the current constant. If you try to extract power from the magnet, more current will flow because the current is kept constant and, with it, the magnetic field which is defined exclusively by the flowing current. With a constant magnetic field, the interaction of the voice coil with the amplifier is also reduced, and this is clearly audible.”

So, the quality of the power supply is critical to optimal functioning of a field-coil driver. Says the designer, “The Wolf von Langa Field-Coil-Constant-Current-Power-Supply is a development which took years. The difficulty is to supply a high inductance—the so-called field (which, by itself, already has a kind of self-preservation behavior) with constant current. For this purpose, various circuits had to be built, measured, and duration tested. The current power supply is in its fourth generation and sounds excellent with our field-coil speakers. It is available for 120 and 240 VAC, at 50/60Hz.”

The WVL 12639 SON is a two-way design. The low/mid frequency module is a rectangular box measuring 15.9″ x 27.6″ x 11.8″— diminutive, indeed—that’s fabricated from high-density fiberboard with a polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) coating. The user is advised to rest the box on four supplied thin rubber pucks (“Acoustic Absorbers”), which happen to be kind to wood floors and carpets but, in fact, are recommended for sonic reasons. Wolf von Langa prefers decoupling to spiking, though there are six M8-size threads tapped into the bottom of the loudspeaker for those who want to try some other aftermarket footer. Facing forward and mounted flush with the upper portion of the enclosure is the 11″, current-controlled, field-coil driver, entirely manufactured in von Langa’s facility in Neunkirchen, Germany—a stiff but lightweight paper/silk cone with an underhung voice coil made of edge-wound copper-coated aluminum flat wire. Facing backwards is an aluminum passive radiator of about the same diameter as the front-firing driver.

The power supply itself is a tidy black metal box, 9.5″ x 3.5″ x 9.5″. It connects to each loudspeaker via a supplied 10-foot cable. (Most owners will surely choose to position the LPS somewhere between the SONs.) A dial on the rear aspect of the power supply controls the amount of current provided to the speakers’ electromagnetic drivers, thus adjusting the magnetic field; a meter calibrated in amperes of current through the coil on one side of the case lets a user make reproducible alterations to the setting. Changing the amount of current that reaches the speaker alters the perceived “grip” of a given amplifier on the field-coil driver. More quantitatively oriented audiophiles will understand that such a change impacts the Thiele/Small parameters that define the low-frequency performance of any dynamic driver.

Sitting atop the low/mid-frequency module and held loosely in place by hidden magnets is a transparent plastic rectangle—the material, again, is PMMA—that spans the width of the speaker and holds the 2.75″ x 4.50″ air motion transformer (AMT) high-frequency driver, which fires both forward and back into free air. It’s manufactured by Mundorf for WVL to precise parameters to assure an ideal synergy with the field-coil transducer. The tweeter is positioned eccentrically in its thermoplastic housing, and the two high-frequency modules can easily be swapped so that a user can experiment with outside versus inside tweeter placement. A cable leading from the base of the AMT driver splits into positive and negative limbs that connect to a pair of binding near the top/rear aspect of the mid/bass module. From there, out of sight, there’s presumably a connection to the crossover network, something that Wolf von Langa is loathe to talk about with much specificity. According to WVL’s North American importer and distributor, Colin King of Gestalt Audio Design in Nashville, von Langa feels that if he were to reveal the crossover point, audiophiles would make assumptions regarding the sound of the speakers—and he’d rather they just listen. On the WVL website, we’re assured that decisions regarding the separation of treble and bass frequencies have been “based on measurements, simulations and ultimately through weeks of fine-tuning by ear—so you don’t have to worry about the exact crossover frequency.” Honestly, it’s not been keeping me up at night.
Toward the bottom of the speaker’s rear aspect is a connector for the cable providing power to the field-coil driver and two sets of WBT NextGen Plasma Protect pure-copper terminals to permit bi-wiring and bi-amping. For those using just a single pair of speaker cables per side, WVL provides some of the most elegant jumpers I’ve ever come across; they evoke a church key-style bottle opener. The SON’s standard finish is a high-gloss black that will have you rubbing away fingerprints with some frequency. Limited edition wood finishes can be had for a $1000 upcharge: these truly are small-batch production runs, so the veneers that are available change from time to time. The current choices are Italian Olive, Prune, and Tineo (a straight-grained hardwood that comes from South America). Magnetically attaching grills are provided.

Colin King is WVL’s primary dealer in North America. He will either ship the speakers to an interested individual for a home audition (they can be returned for a “modest restocking fee” which, given shipping costs these days, probably isn’t that modest) or fly him or her to Nashville to hear the product. King spent a few hours installing the WVL 12639 SONs in my 225-square-foot room. I thought they sounded pretty good when he departed but learned over time that slight changes to the loudspeakers’ toe-in toward the listening position can make a significant difference. The SONs are effectively full-range dipoles with a directional radiation pattern, and you stand to lose some of their effortless top-end extension if you’re not fairly meticulous about positioning. When all was said and done, the WVLs rested 27 to 32 inches from the front wall (they were angled in toward the sweet spot, remember), 8 feet apart, and 8 feet from my listening position.

My time with the WVL 12639 SONs was both illuminating and musically rewarding. Illuminating, in terms of what’s possible with a physically small loudspeaker, especially when it comes to the reproduction of scale. Musically rewarding in that at no point was my choice of recordings determined by the capabilities of the transducer. The analog front-end comprised a Vertere MG-1 turntable with SG-1 tonearm, Acoustical Systems Archon cartridge, and Pass Labs XP-27 phonostage; digital source components were the 432 EVO Aeon server, Baetis Reference 3 music computer, BACCH-SP adio processor, Ideon Absolute Epsilon DAC, Sony UBP-X1100ES (used as a transport) and an Anthem D2v pre/pro (used strictly in “pass-through” mode).

Given their 8-ohm impedance and 94dB sensitivity, you’d expect that the WVL 12639 SONs would be quite amplifier-friendly, and you’d be right. I used three amps in the course of my listening, including my two reference monoblock pairs, the unflappable Tidal Ferios and the lower-powered Pass XA 60.8s that manifest an admirable blend of nuance and control, so long as the speaker load and musical program aren’t exceptionally demanding. (Mostly, the monoblocks were biwired with two sets of T+A Speaker Hex cables.) But I also got to experience the SONs for two wonderful weeks with the sort of electronics I can’t usually employ because of the requirements of the loudspeakers that come my way—that is, a low-powered tube amplifier. It wasn’t just the milk of human kindness—he was making a point, of course—but Colin King shipped me an 18Wpc tube amplifier, the New Audio Frontiers Supreme 300B, which I connected to the WVLs with a single pair of the T+A speaker cables. I did my best to embarrass the Italian product with dynamic source material featuring plenty of low-frequency information. But it didn’t happen, especially when I took advantage of that nifty knob on the back of the power supply to increase the current delivered to the field-coil driver. With hard-driving jazz fusion—the Yellowjackets’ blazing, odd-meter “3 Circles” from their 2008 album Lifecycle—the SONs kicked some serious dynamic butt with the tube amp. The experience was much the same with orchestral “power music” (the Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony from Philadelphia/Eschenbach or Mahler’s Third played by San Francisco/MTT) and exuberant big band recordings (favorite tracks from albums recorded by Bob Mintzer and Gordon Goodwin’s virtuoso ensembles). There was a real disconnect between what I was seeing—a smallish 2-way loudspeaker powered by an 18W amp—and what I was hearing. And what I was hearing was a thoroughly satisfying representation of music that requires an approximation of its scale to succeed. Did the Tidal monoblocks, with their 300Wpc into 8 ohms, provide more low-end control and extension? Sure, but I’m not convinced that most listeners would have felt anything was deficient without the chance to make a head-to-head comparison before the aural memory dissipated.

With all three amplifiers, reproduction of the human voice was exquisite. From jazz chanteuse Norah Jones (“Don’t Know Why”) to basso profundo Early Music specialist Joel Frederiksen (“Whittingham Faire”), the expressive shaping of phrases and dynamics was beautifully revealed. Whatever the top-secret value of the crossover frequency (and specifying a specific number is somewhat bogus anyway, as the transition occurs over a range) the integration of the two drivers was seamless. This of-a-piece tonal consistency was also very apparent with sparingly scored instrumental material. Toughest of all may be when a single, exposed instrument spans a wide range that necessarily must be covered by more than a single driver. A torture test of a loudspeaker’s capabilities in this regard is “Teardrops for Jimmy” from a Turtle Records release titled Jungle Boldie, featuring three Dutch musicians—reed player Maarten Ornstein, bassist Tony Overwater, and drummer Wim Kegel. When the tune begins, you may think Ornstein is playing a soprano saxophone or, a little later, a standard B-flat clarinet. It’s only at about the 1:20 mark when Ornstein descends gradually below the range of either of those instruments that a listener realizes he’s been playing a bass clarinet all along, initially at the very highest part of that instrument’s tessitura. The sooner you can tell that’s the case, the more tonally neutral you can conclude your system is—the speakers, in particular. A bass clarinet producing the same pitch as a B-flat clarinet or a soprano sax just doesn’t sound the same timbrally. The Wolf von Langa WVL 12639 SON identifies the instrument that’s actually being played as readily as any other loudspeaker I’ve encountered.

When carefully positioned, the WVL SONs create an expansive and continuous soundfield with correct localization of instrumental and vocal images. Compared to my reference Magico M2s, some sharp edges may have been smoothed down—but this is definitely an issue of personal preference. For some, the SON’s spatial presentation will seem a touch soft; others will consider the WVL just right and a product such as the Magico to be “over-etched.” My last equipment review before the SON was the Theoretica Applied Physics BACCH-SP adio processor, the key feature of which is its crosstalk cancellation (XTC) filter. Room reflections undermine the effectiveness of any XTC algorithm and to achieve the best results with the BACCH filter, room treatment was beneficial. As the WVL SON is a relatively directional dipole, even without much room treatment, better spatialization was achieved than with the M2s.

I’m ambivalent when it comes to head-to-head comparisons to other products in equipment reviews. In principle it sounds like a good idea but, in practice, it’s pretty unusual for a reviewer to have on hand truly “competitive” gear, certainly more than one or two alternative components when there may be a dozen more options for an audiophile considering a purchase—especially in the loudspeaker realm. Honestly, you’re better off looking at the latest TAS Buyer’s Guide issue, reading the succinct reviews, and then generating a short list of products to seek out and hear in person. But since I actually had an appropriate product to compare sitting in the back of the room, it seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up. My usual surround speakers for multichannel playback are the similarly priced Magico S1 MkII floorstanders (currently $19,600 in the M-Cast finish) and it wasn’t much trouble to move them up front.

Using the Tidal amplifiers, the S1s manifested bass that was tighter, if less extended. Both speakers were tonally accurate and highly resolving of detail; the Magicos were leaner in texture, which I prefer. The WVLs played “bigger,” even though they stood more than foot shorter (without the tweeter module) than the S1s. Driving the Magicos with the 18W tube amplifier, however, was decidedly unsuccessful. There was obvious congestion with loud orchestral passages and throughout the Yellowjackets selection noted above, dynamic punch and bass power were lacking. Unless your taste in music runs mostly to solo clavichord music, gentle folk, and Bill Evans, the S1s and a low-power tube amp are not a good match. The WVL SONs have no such limitations.

Audiophiles have been accused of fetishizing the past, and the accusers have time and again been shown to be wrong. Tube electronics were once viewed as impossibly colored and prone to malfunction, but modern examples, such as the New Audio Frontiers model I employed with such pleasure while preparing this review, are sonically neutral and reliable while still sounding very different from solid-state gear. The entire vinyl “craze”—TAS’ Michael Fremer has led the charge for 30 years—is anything but, and perhaps the salvation of this hobby, with younger listeners enthusiastically maintaining a turntable beside their streaming DACs.

But loudspeakers are different. The assumption is that progress has been steady and linear, due to computer-modeling techniques, increasingly exotic (and expensive) enclosure and driver materials, software-based equalization, Class D onboard amplification, and other developments. There’s nothing wrong with that stuff, of course. Loudspeakers are better than they were even just a decade ago. But every so often, an older engineering approach is identified that deserves a second look and, perhaps, modernization. The field-coil driver is one such technology, and Wolf von Langa, with the WVL 12639 SON, has brought to market a product that fully actualizes a design principal that came of age back in the Roaring Twenties. It’s still the cat’s meow.

Specs & Pricing

Type: Two-way floorstanding loudspeaker
Driver complement: 11″ field-coil, current-controlled woofer with passive radiator; 2.75″ x 4.5″ AMT tweeter
Frequency response: 25Hz–25kHz +/-3dB
Impedance: 8 ohms
Sensitivity: 94dB
Dimensions:19.9″ x 27.6″ x 11.8″, mid/bass module; 15.9″ x 6.7″ x 2.4″, tweeter module
Weight: 92.4 lbs.
Price: $17,995/pr.

WOLF VON LANGA
Roedlas 54
91077 Neunkirchen a. Br.
Germany

GESTALT AUDIO DESIGN (North American distributor/dealer)
4305 Utah Ave Unit B
Nashville, TN 37209
(615) 838-7178
gestalt.audio

The post Wolf von Langa 12639 SON Loudspeaker appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

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