Tidal’s New Contriva G3 Loudspeaker

Tidal (technically pronounced “tee-dahl” relatively than “tie-dull”) of Germany, headed by Jörn Janczak and repped within the US by Doug White, organized two non-public shows for press and distributors. Jim Austin received to listen to the forthcoming Tidal for Bugatti system, which incorporates the corporate’s forthcoming cost-no-object loudspeaker. For this Stereophile reviewer, nonetheless, Tidal demmed the system that included the corporate’s new Contriva G3 loudspeakers ($79,000/pair) with the Contros Digital Controller ($60,000), Intra Stereo Amplifier ($28,000), and Tidal Reference XLR, energy, and speaker cables.

The Contriva G3, which sits in the midst of Tidal’s line, consists of all-new drivers. “Every component of the speaker, together with its polished stainless-steel, serves a sonic objective,” White informed me. “Think of it as a speaker for grown-ups who do not need a coloured sound. Which doesn’t suggest which you could’t select electronics and different parts that may coloration it as you want.”

Through its all-proprietary drivers and enticing shiny cupboard, the Tidal Contriva G3 performed a Red Book stream of Yosi Horikawa’s “Bubbles” that sounded extraordinarily fluid however a bit extra toned down than on my admittedly sizzling reference system. Yo-Yo Ma’s cello, on his efficiency of Bach’s Suite No.1 in G Major for Unaccompanied Cello, sounded extraordinarily convincing with right tonal stability. That’s one other method of claiming that I used to be fairly impressed. I additionally found that when quantity was turned up a bit, way more pure coloration emerged. This phenomenon, which appeared associated to room acoustics and selection of dampening gadgets, was encountered in lots of rooms on the present.

“We wished to make it sound extra refined and disappear extra,” Janczak informed me. “The Contriva G3 is designed for rooms that vary from 30 to 60 sq. meters. Ultimately, our merchandise are costly as a result of they’re costly to make.”

The Contriva G3 is a 3-way loudspeaker with a 30mm Gen3 diamond-diaphragm tweeter with an under-hung neodymium motor, a 173mm Gen4 black ceramic-diaphragm midrange with an under-hung neodymium motor, and two 220m carbon-fiber/aluminum-cone woofers with long-excursion under-hung neodymium motors. The speaker’s nominal impedance is 4 ohms.

The Contros Digital Controller, which was launched through the pandemic, features a totally discrete class-A output amplifier and a 32-bit non-oversampling 8×R2R ladder DAC that helps a number of codecs together with PCM, PCM MQA, and DSD. The reference Intra twin stereo energy amplifier, additionally launched through the pandemic, consists of totally discrete front-end class-A amplifier with a class-D output stage. It consists of 4 amplification channels for 3 totally different modes and has 4 XLR outputs. The Intra is specified as outputting 340Wpc into 8 ohms and 670Wpc into 4 ohms.