2026 Awards – Stand-mount Loudspeaker Over £10K

The entry point to Bowers & Wilkins’ flagship 800 Series, the 805 D4 two-way stand-mounts have been a permanent fixture in the lineup since the Matrix 805 from 1990, and have now received the company’s illustrious Signature treatment. The differences between the 805 D4 and the Signature don’t appear too large at first. They both use a 25mm Diamond dome tweeter and a 165mm continuum cone mid-woofer, with the familiar front-facing port and continuously curved single-piece wood cabinet. But the Signature’s sumptuous California Burl Gloss and Midnight Blue Metallic finishes are in a different league, while the top plate is both reinforced and leather-bound here. The tweeter grille’s different perforation pattern gives the unit far more openness, and the main driver’s larger pole-piece results in cleaner bass and mids. In reworking the crossover, the company also used superior – and twice as many – bypass capacitors.

Pour out emotion

These upgrades translate to performance gains. The Signatures are everything the talented 805 D4 are – accurate, detailed and dynamic, with excellent bass – but let all the emotion and musicality out to play too. “If the first piece of music you cue up is something hugely personally evocative and comes with some emotional baggage… you’re left listening to a studio recording that you know well but are gaining more insight into,” says reviewer Alan Sircom. For die-hard music lovers who want to hear their collection sound as good as it gets, without wading through all the audiophile fluff, these loudspeakers are revelations.

Reviewed in Issue 250

Bowers & Wilkins • bowerswilkins.com

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Bulgaria’s Thrax Audio has quietly transformed itself from a maker of high-end electronics into a company providing complete audiophile solutions. It planned to make these Sirens behave entirely consistent with the two-way mid-tweeter-mid Lyra – Thrax’s debut speaker – but in a smaller, more conventional, two-driver design, and that could only be successfully executed due to developments in drive unit technology. Specifically, the introduction of a PuriFi driver. More specifically still, PuriFi’s 17cm Ushindi mid-bass. It worked; that single unit delivers virtually the same performance as the Lyra’s pair of custom magnesium cones. 

That’s partnered with a fairly unusual 25mm ring-diaphragm tweeter developed by Germany’s BMS. It features a ferrite magnet in a deep, elliptical, solid aluminium horn, with the unique waveguide shape overcoming the quacking sound of horns of the past.

Truth tellers

The Sirens’ 87dB sensitivity, pleasingly flat four-ohm impedance and 250W power handling make them flexible partners. Fed by a large amplifier, you get sound far more dynamic than you would expect from a speaker of this size. The Sirens make music-making seem effortless; everything has great poise and balance, they’re honest and sensual. Alan Sircom can’t help but play Tim Buckley’s ‘Song to the Siren’, and praises the speakers’ deft handling: “You do feel like you are being drawn toward your fate on this track, and the Thrax loudspeakers brought that out perfectly, thanks to their absence of coloration and outstanding imagery.” 

The Sirens show what can be done with relatively small two-way stand-mounts when the gloves are off.

Reviewed in Issue 239

Thrax Audio • thraxaudio.com

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The Medea’s success could’ve been somewhat prophesied given that they’re two-way, stand-mount, non-limited-edition versions of one of last year’s biggest loudspeaker surprises, the Virtuosa Anniversario from the tiny, artisanal Czech brand Xavian. Their big and bold (for modern standards) sloped cabinets, which weigh 27kg, also accommodate Scan Speak Ellipticor’s woofers (22cm) and elliptical dome tweeters (38mm), as well as the same large, front-mounted, elliptical bass ports (here in landscape rather than portrait). They feature a crossover filter comprised of just three components. Two-way, minimalist-crossover designs are often lauded for their engaging, direct and compelling approach to music, and that certainly proves to be the case for the Medea.

Engagingly direct

Their rendition of Front 242’s electro cult hit Headhunter is “one of almost shocking directness,” says Eric van Spelde in his review, “only surpassed by very large horn systems in appropriate rooms, and then not by much”. What you get is the same rich tonality, easy-going balance and believable sense of scale as the Virtuosa Anniversario offer, simply aimed at real-world rooms rather than purpose-built auditoriums this time. “There’s top-to-bottom consistency and commendably deep, impactful bass, with all but the very lowest octave present at full force,” says Eric. And a frequency-spanning transparency that allows them to do justice to very high-end sources and amplification devices, whilst not being excessively punishing to more modest ones.

Ultimately, these highly revealing and engaging stand-mounts raise challenging questions regarding the necessity for ‘more’ in terms of size, complexity and expenditure. Must auditions.

Reviewed in Issue 240

Xavian • xavian.cz

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