Earlier this 12 months, in subject 205, I reviewed the EgglestonWorks Nico Evo stand-mount loudspeaker. It’s the one stand-mounter within the present EgglestonWorks lineup and at £6,500, together with stands, the least costly mannequin they make. But lots of their sellers apparently view the £7,900 Emma Evo because the entry degree EgglestonWorks mannequin. I bought to questioning about this; is the Nico Evo the odd-man-out? Does the Emma Evo sound by some means extra ‘EgglestonWorks’ than the Nico? Is there a presumption that EgglestonWorks clients aren’t actually stand-mount folks? Only one approach to discover out, actually…

The Emma Evos duly arrived, completed neatly in a silver-grey automotive gloss end that may in all probability mix into a variety of décor kinds. Visually, they draw very a lot on the Nico Evo, a tapering higher cupboard, tiny prime plate with a ‘fastback’ downward-sloping rear, and the acquainted backward-leaning EgglestonWorks stance. The metallic entrance plate now homes a second bass/mid unit to the Nico’s one, however the precise tweeter and bass/mid drivers are the identical for Nico and for Emma. Forever in the past, it appears now, I commented that the equipped stand did the Nico Evo few favours, so it’s going to be fascinating to see how the floorstander shapes up.

EgglestonWorks have now had stand-mount designs of their vary for nearly a decade, the Nico Evo being descended from the unique Nico, however drawing on classes realized from the rather more costly Viginti. The Emma Evo took many design parts from the Nico Evo, notably by way of cupboard building, using the slotted reflex port, and crossover know-how. So if we’re in search of a lineage right here, Emma is a much bigger Nico, slightly than Nico being a stand-mount Emma.

It’s not a very giant loudspeaker, it’s the smallest floorstander EgglestonWorks gives, however neither is it the form of mannequin you’ll be able to unobtrusively drop right into a small room with no second’s thought. Clever design means it hides its bulk properly, but it surely’s taller and deeper than you respect at first look, and a great deal heavier than a few of its friends on the worth. It’s sufficiently big that you’re entitled to anticipate a little bit of helpful heft in its efficiency, but it surely’s not the form of bruiser that wants some room round it if it isn’t to dominate the area. In brief, it exhibits each signal of being doubtlessly in that Goldilocks zone for a great vary of UK-sized rooms. After my constructive expertise with its smaller sibling, I had excessive hopes for this one.

Of infants and bathwater

So many manufacturers of extremely regarded stand-mount loudspeakers appear to stumble when creating a floorstander. There’s a magic one thing that so usually will get misplaced within the transition from small and agile, with pinpoint imaging, to scale, weight and beneficiant dynamics. It occurs so usually, it’s simple to assume these are mutually unique traits and the most effective you are able to do is attain a suitable compromise, that you simply’re at all times going to throw out the ‘disappearing loudspeaker’ child within the ’scale and dynamics’ bathwater. Partly, maybe, the challenges of cupboard design are simpler to resolve in a smaller enclosure; possibly a full vary design exposes the inexpensive drivers you will get away with in a bandwidth-limited mini monitor. Or simply presumably, what we’re listening to so usually is the designer’s journey on the large loudspeaker studying curve.

Compromise, what compromise?

Whatever the explanation, the Emma Evo doesn’t endure from this malaise. The child has been bathed, and stays intact. Similar drive models are used additional up the EgglestonWorks meals chain, and the port design and crossover know-how derives from that used within the £46,000 Viginti. There are tradeoffs, clearly you’ll be able to’t make an £8,000 loudspeaker the way in which you make a £46,000 loudspeaker. But EgglestonWorks inform me numerous that they realized when creating the cupboard for the Viginti has discovered its manner, through the Nico Evo, into the Emma Evo. So I believe that, worth apart, it’s not notably useful to consider the Emma as an entry-level mannequin, and on the worth they face some stiff competitors so let’s simply assess them on their very own phrases. That’s consistent with EgglestonWorks’ personal expressed philosophy, to let every mannequin be the most effective it may be, and to not obsess over becoming it into a variety at a worth level.

As anticipated, the Emma Evo fills in additional of the underside octave than the Nico Evo, it brings scale and weight commensurate with the larger cupboard and driver floor space; gratifyingly, although, it concedes little or no to the Nico by way of that disappearing act that small cupboard loudspeakers can obtain.

Lucid

If single-word opinions ever develop into modern, my alternative for the EgglestonWorks Emma Evo could be ‘lucid’. But as long as our esteemed editor sees match to fee an extra 1999 phrases, I’m comfortable to oblige. What I imply by ‘lucid’ is that the loudspeaker reveals insights deep into the music. There’s readability and articulation to the presentation; a delicate vagueness has been disposed of, nearly as if a lightweight properly has been minimize into the soundstage, the higher to light up these denser, innermost areas. To use one other visible analogy, it’s as if the loudspeakers discovered a depth of subject you didn’t realise was obtainable.

Take Freddy Kempf, enjoying Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto with the Bergen Philharmonic [BIS, SACD]: I was struck by how rather more clearly I may observe the internal workings of the orchestra. When you attend a dwell efficiency, the orchestra is arrayed earlier than you and it’s simple sufficient to observe an instrumental line, or a phrase, just about at will. Whereas even superb hi-fi usually dissolves right into a extra impressionistic view, you expertise the orchestra as an entity, with solely the extra outstanding strains being obtainable for inspection. The Emmas approached this side of the dwell expertise extra intently than something I can recall at this worth, with textures and tunefulness properly past the norm.

And all of it works on smaller-scale music, too. Antonio Forcione Live [Naim] and ‘Tarantella’ gave me textures and timbres, intimacy and ebullience; it was very clear how necessary each member of this small ensemble was to the entire of the musical occasion right here. It does assist flip music again into an occasion – that sense of efficiency, of a bunch of individuals with a typical goal, that may usually be missed, sadly, by techniques which don’t resolve in addition to the Emmas can. Timing is basically necessary right here, too. ‘Maurizio’s Party’ from the identical album: bass notes from the cello have been tight and tuneful, solidly underpinning the music; the percussion is quick, but in addition fully-textured, the shapes of the notes have time to completely develop, they aren’t minimize off within the pursuits of tempo or dynamics. Olafur Arnalds ‘This place was a shelter’ from For now I’m Winter [Mercury Classics] was stuffed with fine-boned element, splendidly contrasting the sonorous piano and ethereal electronica with tight, sinewy enjoying from the string quartet. This loudspeaker appears to enjoy bringing out the total, lush element and color in a efficiency, however not candy-coated – there’s a agency grip on actuality right here, in all its multi-layered complexity.

For so long as I can bear in mind, I’ve been an advocate of straightforward, first order crossovers, and the significance of preserving the part relationships to the advantage of timing, and imaging. Yet right here I’m, marvelling at a loudspeaker so generously endowed with strengths in so lots of the areas I worth, and it has a <checks notes> fourth-order crossover. Umm. The crossover know-how has trickled down from the a lot greater, rather more costly Viginti, so clearly some very helpful classes have been realized.

Along got here a spider

If I had a criticism, I might be aware that the decrease treble can now and again draw consideration to itself. It’s not likely vivid – this can be a cloth dome tweeter in any case– however every so often there’s a slight fizz on the prime of the midrange. I observed it first on Elbow’s ‘One day like this’ from The Seldom Seen Kid [Geffen] when Guy Garvey’s vocals exhibited greater than his customary degree of softly silken sibilance, and the occasional barely acid edge to a be aware right here and there. But right here’s the factor: I’d take off each the magnetic grilles and a three-pronged metallic ‘spider’ that protects the tweeter. I’d additionally toed the audio system in a lot as I normally do. Refitting the spider and adjusting the speaker placement to kind of straight down the room handled numerous this higher midrange artefact. Resting the speaker spikes on AcouPlex discs rather than the metallic cups that have been offered additionally paid dividends by way of the sense of movement and musicality. This is clearly a loudspeaker that rewards a little bit experimentation in placement and setup. Oh, and I additionally found I used to be usually listening fairly unfeasibly loud, maybe 3 or 4 dB louder than my customary degree. I in all probability owe my neighbours a bottle of one thing good.

This in some respects displays simply how clear these loudspeakers are, as aside from that barely ‘sizzling’ higher midrange, the form of distortion artefacts that usually give cues as to loudness have been largely absent. EgglestonWorks don’t make any suggestions as to energy dealing with, the drivers are ‘sturdy’ and can deal with just about something you throw at them, apparently, and as I discovered with the Nico Evo, I do assume the Emma Evos respect a great dollop of high quality energy. Stanley Clarke’s ‘Bass Folk Song No. 5’ from The Stanley Clarke Band [Heads Up] didn’t have fairly the final word diploma of ‘push’ within the funky bit and there’s maybe a temptation to show it up a little bit extra to compensate. Perhaps that is the place the compromise is discovered. If so, it’s a reasonably well-chosen one.

The EgglestonWorks Emma Evo has maybe essentially the most lucid, limpid and insightful presentation of any loudspeaker at its worth that I’ve but heard. Time and once more I discovered myself marvelling on the sheer depth of subject this loudspeaker may reproduce. Take Jacques Loussier, ‘Pastorale in C Minor’ from Plays Bach [Telarc]: there’s beneficiant spatial separation between the trio, with strong, secure and convincing photographs of the gamers. Instrumental color is vivid, and constant, timing tight and exact. There’s an oddity in the way in which André Arpino performs percussion on this observe, constantly simply behind the beat for complete sections of the music. It’s fairly disconcerting, however clearly intentional; the Emma Evo exhibits the percussion to be set properly again within the soundstage, however that’s not why he’s a little bit late, he’s very clearly doing this on goal as a result of he locks-in to different sections of the identical observe. It’s these kinds of insights that elevate the Emmas above the competitors.

So the place the Nico Evo exemplified the most effective in a smallish, standmounting loudspeaker – coherence, velocity, imaging, invisibility – the Emma Evo takes these qualities and provides scale, weight and one other layer of color and texture. You nonetheless get all of the tempo, coherence and readability, the limpid, lucid imaginative and prescient into the guts of the music, however you additionally get a bit extra of that coronary heart. It’s fairly clear that if there’s a ‘home sound,’ each the Emma and the Nico Evos conform to it. The Emma Evo isn’t a big loudspeaker, although neither is it small, however due to the sheer ranges of perception and element there’s no actual sense that you simply’re being short-changed on large-scale performances, and small-scale stuff simply invitations you proper in to share within the intimate, immersive music-making expertise. They reply to a little bit tweaking, they usually’ll reward high quality within the upstream parts of your system, they’re simply so very communicative of what’s occurring. They are proof that in shifting from stand-mount to floorstander you don’t should compromise on the strengths of a superlative small loudspeaker, you’ll be able to simply add different qualities on prime in case you do it proper.

Technical specs

• Type Two-way floorstanding, reflex-loaded loudspeaker with rearward-facing slotted port
• Driver complement 1× 1” cloth dome tweeter, 2× 6” poly composite mid/woofer
• Power dealing with no higher restrict specified
• Crossover frequency 2.1kHz
• Crossover kind Single-wired, low go and excessive go crossover 4th order Linkwitz Riley Acoustic slope through a 2nd order electrical circuit
• Frequency response (in-room, typical) 30Hz-24kHz +/-3dB
• Impedance 6 Ohms nominal, 4.1 Ohms minimal at 150Hz
• Sensitivity 88dB for 1 Watt at 1 Metre
• Dimensions (H×W×D) 1090 × 190 × 400mm
• Weight 31 Kg every
• Finishes white, silver or black excessive gloss end. Any automotive paint color by association (additional value possibility)
• Price £7,900/pair

Manufacturer

EgglestonWorks

www.egglestonworks.com

UK Distributor

Auden Distribution

www.audendistribution.co.uk

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