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Sennheiser HD 800 S headphones and HDV 820 DAC/amplifier

Sennheiser’s ‘functional’ top end (as in, excluding the “give me your Amex Black and repeat after me… help yourself!” Orpheus) was rebooted with the HD 800. This remains a stunning headphone that was launched with two tiny flaws; it was so detailed that it could seem a bit bright and it could get even brighter when partnered with the wrong amplifier. As Sennheiser at the time didn’t have a suitable DAC/amp partner to accompany the HD 800, the potential for brightness was a significant one.

The HD 800 S is a response to that criticism and a mark of how much Sennheiser has learned even in the last few years. It retains the awesome detail and resolution of the HD 800, but without the sheer amount of upper end information to hand. The HDV 820 addresses the other side of the issue, by providing what Sennheiser believes to be the optimum electronic partner for this and other headphones in the range. However, as the HDV 820 is somewhat ‘spendy’, it seems unlikely that it would be used with anything in the Sennheiser range below the HD 800 S, so in a very real way this is kind of Sennheiser’s top-end ‘package deal’ (Orpheus notwithstanding).

The open-backed HD 800 S can be recognised as distinct from the original HD 800 by its more ‘tacticool’ appearance. It’s all stealth black and – it must be said – somewhat bolder looking than its silver/black older brother. It’s also a perfect match for the ‘none more black’ look of the HDV 820.

In a very real way, the HD 800 S look and feel reflect the fact that Sennheiser faces one of the biggest challenges of all – staying relevant. It’s a company with a long history and a reputation for research-led design, in a market that is now incredibly fluid and filled with passionate newcomers with big ideas that can often shout down solid R&D. That makes a company as innovative as Sennheiser potentially seem like a part of a fusty ‘old guard’. Products like the HD 800 S quickly disabuse people of such thought-processes at the point of contact. Yes, Sennheiser is a mature brand and the HD 800 S reflects that maturity, but it does so in all the right ways; it’s not some reactionary paean to Sennheiser’s past glories, but a distillation of decades of development. The HD 800 S is not designed to be shiny bling, worn as a fashion accessory first and a music playing tool a distant second; it’s for those who appreciate the finer things in life – including excellent music – and don’t need to advertise their success in garish red plastic. That all being said, I think the look and feel HD 800 S are exceptionally refined, and intended for use in homes that people call ‘elegant’ and ‘sophisticated’.

A lot of what goes into the HD 800 S was developed for the HD 800. In fact, Sennheiser isn’t saying a great deal about the changes between the two. The two share the same ring diaphragm and Helmholtz resonator design, and they both use the same connectors (now in black for the HD 800 S). The HD 800 S does come with two sets of cables – one set single-ended with a 1/4” headphone plug and the other with a four-pin XLR for balanced operation, but you could have easily bought a balanced cable for the HD 800. Aside from the black livery, you’d be hard pressed to see what had changed.

In fact, the biggest change is an acoustic absorber designed to make the high-frequency range more even and extended, and a damping weight causing a small extension to the low-frequency range. These are comparatively small changes, but they add up to make a comparatively big difference.

Sennheiser’s HDV 820 is a flexible addition to the team. It’s a DSD256 and PCM 32bit, 384kHz compatible DAC (through USB, 24/96 and 24/192 PCM are the respective limits for Toslink and coaxial S/PDIF), but MQA is not on the radar. It has balanced and single-ended analogue line inputs, and balanced line outputs all on the rear panel. Moving to the front, it has provision for a standard 6.35mm stereo jack for single-ended output, and a single four-pin XLR and a pair of 4.4mm Pentaconn jack plugs for balanced connections. A source selector, rounded power switch and a volume control complete the deal. Display options are limited to selected source and the illuminated ring around the power button. Given its ability to cope with a wide range of digital file types, some indicator to suggest the file type would be useful, but sadly is not fitted.

The HDV 820 is extremely well built, with a functionalist appearance, in that it is black and minimalist to the point that it follows most – if not all – of Dieter Rams’ 10 principles of good design. And if it was good enough for classic Braun, it’s good enough for a headphone amplifier with a built-in DAC.

I have to admit I admire the sound of the HD 800, and was somewhat concerned that the ‘improvements’ to the HD 800 S would somehow undermine what was good about the original model. The detail of the HD 800 is like a surgical strike on your musical collection and if that is ‘fixed’ some of the rationale for owning a top-end Sennheiser potentially goes away. The fact both are still available did nothing to make me think this was a step in the right direction. That concern went away about 10 minutes into the listening test. This preserves all of what’s good about the HD 800, but changes the sound as suggested, with a smoother treble that seems a little more extended, with more authority and depth of bass.

I’m not sure whether the phrase “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” exists in German, but this is the perfect example of improving on a product without wrecking that product in the process. While I wasn’t too troubled by its high frequencies when I auditioned the HD 800 back in issue 65, many other listeners found the first headphone accented sibilants, especially in female vocals. So, in listening, I threw a disproportionate number of women at the HD 800 S (not literally), and none of them spat back at me. That little bump at 6kHz that sometimes came across as brightness had gone, but in its passing, Sennheiser didn’t lose any of the recording-opening analysis or sheer detail of the HD 800.

This is a crucial change. I liked the HD 800 because it was hyper-analytical, and can understand that could come across as too ‘austere’. The HD 800 S adds more ‘visibility’, ‘body’, and ‘humanity’ to strings and voices, making it less austere without making it any less analytical. It’s like a recording studio for the home, but in a wholly good way.

This is coupled to a mild improvement to the bass. This is not a game-changer, because I already felt the HD 800 had good bass. But there’s a definite increase in accessibility to the bass notes that wasn’t there in the HD 800. Not that the HD 800 was somehow veiled or light in the bass, but just that the HD 800 S manages to tease out a more energetic and more accurate bass line than before. This is more of a side-benefit compared to the improvement in the treble smoothness, but it adds to the sense that the HD 800 S is more than just an HD 800 with more black bits.

Everything else is classic HD 800, unchanged as it should be. I did feel the HD 800’s uncompromising detail at the top end was replaced with a better overall sound at the expense of some separation of instruments in the high frequencies, but once again this is mostly splitting hairs; the ‘better’ more than makes up for that.

I’d say neither 800 model is an exceptionally ‘organic’ sounding headphone, but that’s not what you are buying an HD 800 or HD 800 S for. Instead, you want that cool, ultra-accurate presentation of detail that makes everything else sound soggy.

Playing ‘The New Cobweb Summer’ by Lambchop [Is A Woman, Merge], you find the deceptively minimalist recording is cracked open on the HD 800 S. Where this might seem like a brutal exercise in studio analysis, it’s like peeling back the layers of a musical onion to get to its core. Unlike the HD 800, though, there are no tears; the overall performance is musically satisfying as much as it is analytical. Thinking back to the performance of the HD 800, I can’t help thinking that was more about the analysis and less about the enjoyment. It’s amazing how just a small change in the design, resulting in small changes in the sound, can muster large changes in the perception of that sound. I’ve often thought there can be too much detail in high-end audio, but the HD 800 S shows that if you can get to that detail and present it in a way that isn’t harsh or aggressive sounding, all that information is a heady brew.

The HDV 820 brings a sense of correctness and order. Back when the HD 800 first appeared, such things were rare, and many of the top-end headphone amplifiers were slightly wild and wacky designs. Although many of those still exist, there’s a maturity to the personal audio world now, and products that bring that sense of correctness and order are more common than before. Sennheiser’s offering stands close to the top of the tree, though, and it makes for an unusually honest sounding component, and one with a lot of power to back it up. This makes the HDV 820 a perfect match for both the HD 800 and HD 800 S because even the smallest deviation from tonal neutrality is drawn in sharp relief with these incredibly detailed transducers. Neutrality can seem like a loaded word, as it at once summons up a sense of balance and Orson Welles’ ‘Cuckoo Clock’ speech from The Third Man. In this case it means that sense of balance, and nothing whatsoever to do with Harry Lime.

Finding flaw with either component is difficult, although arguably the HDV 820 is merely ‘excellent’ in a market where that price-tag buys ‘outstanding’. However, the whole package works together extremely well, and there’s no drive to break up the band, here. In fact, that combination of HDV 820 and HD 800 S are so good, the tendency to turn the system up to hearing-threatening levels could be an issue. The point where the HD 800 S begins to struggle, and the point where the HDV 820 connected to the HD 800 S begins to clip is very loud indeed. If you cut your personal audio teeth on products made for lesser mortals (and let’s face it… that’s most of us) the amount of headroom on offer is well past most of our comfort zones, and potentially places great stress on the hearing of the listener. Which means the biggest problem with these headphones is the nut between the ear-cups!

There’s just one other thing ‘wrong’ with the HD 800 S, something that was a problem with the original HD 800, too. It redefines the notion of ‘open backed’ headphones, an issue shared with a handful of designs. The sound of the outside world is virtually unattenuated by the construction of the headphone, and the sound of the headphone doesn’t just ‘leak’, it positively floodsout of the HD 800 S. That means, this is not a headphone that can be used in company, because you’ll hear that company and that company will be able to listen to your music. As the review was being put together, Sennheiser announced a closed-back version of the HD 800 that is designed to address that issue. Sadly, we all need to wait until the Summer of 2018 to find out just how successfully the HD 800 sound ports to the closed-back headphone world, but having heard what the company did with the HD 800 S over the HD800, I’m hopeful for the future.

As I wrote earlier, I really admire the sound of the HD 800. The Sennheiser HD 800 S builds upon that, and makes it one of the most satisfying headphone experiences – make that one of the most satisfying audio experiences full-stop – I’ve had. The HDV 820 is more than just along for the ride, and completes the system with both a sense of balance and a balanced connection. If I had to pull the ejector seat on my audio career tomorrow, this combination would be one of those systems I’d reach for as I walked out of the door. And, unlike most of the others, it doesn’t cost a fortune or weigh more than an Airbus. If you can afford one of these systems, put it on the listening list. If you can’t afford the HD 800 S and HDV 820, start saving! These two come very highly recommended.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

HD 800 S

Type: circumaural open headphone

Frequency response: 4Hz-51kHz (-10dB)

Transducer principle: dynamic

Impedance: 300Ω

THD (1kHz, 1Vrms): < 0.02 %

Connectors: 6.3mm, XLR4

Cable length: 3m

Weight: 330g

Price: £1399.99

HDV 820

Type: solid-state DAC/headphone amplifier

Frequency response: <10Hz to >100kHz

THD: < 0.001%

Gain: UNBAL input/XLR-4 output: Adjustable 14 dB, 22 dB, 30 dB, 38 dB, 46 dB: BAL input/XLR-4 output: 16 dB

Dynamic range: >115dB @ 600Ω load (A-weighted)

Dimensions (W×H×D): 224 × 44 × 306mm

Weight: 2.25kg

Price: £2,099.99

Manufactured by: Sennheiser Electronic GmbH & Co. KG

URL: en-uk.sennheiser.com

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Townshend F1 Fractal loudspeaker cable

Max Townshend has been an interesting and highly creative force on the British and International audio scene for the past 43 years, making huge contributions in many areas. Examples include The Rock turntable with its floating stabilising paddle, supertweeters, and the Allegri preamp — the closest thing to a straight wire with gain. For the last 30 years, however, Townshend has increasingly focused on the role of vibration in audio, designing a family of Seismic Isolation products, to dampen unwanted isolation from the hi-fi system. While a relatively modest operation, Townshend is a mighty David to the industry’s Goliath!

Cable manufacturers tend to divide up into two sorts. There are those who listen to a vast number of cables, make their selection and market existing cables dressed up in artful sleeves. Then there are those who approach cable design from the ground upwards, using first principles and innovation. Townshend falls into category number two.

If I may be permitted to expound some of the thinking behind the design of the cables; the amplifier has effectively zero output impedance and the speaker load is mainly resistive with a nominal 8 ohm speaker having about 6.5 ohms resistance and the remainder reactive, comprising inductance and capacitance. Any speaker cable also has inductance, capacitance, as well as a small resistance. The value of inductance and capacitance is determined by the geometry of the cable, so the wider the spacing, the higher the inductance and the lower the capacitance and vice-versa. The optimum relationship between inductance and capacitance, as determined by computer modelling, for lowest distortion caused by reflections in the cable, is derived mathematically by making the ratio of inducance divided by capacitance equal to the resistance impedance of the speaker squared.

To achieve this correct ratio the cable must have a relatively high capacitance and low inductance. Townshend’s Isolda cable has used this design since 1980 to great acclaim using DCT treatment. (Townshend was the first UK adopter of this technology.) The new refinement is to use Fractal wire instead of DCT, a secret process that Townshend has developed. The two closely spaced, Fractally-treated pure copper strip conductors, which are now insulated with ultra thin PTFE, are encased in synthetic rubber and clamped within a strong, flexible conduit trimmed with woven polyester braid. The ends of the cable are terminated in a metal enclosure containing an RLC network to prevent unstable amplifiers from oscillating, to reduce distortion and to act as an RF filter; i.e., acting as an antenna. The cables, while flexible, look substantial.

In general, I’m not a believer in cables. In my experience, they are like tone controls, so in a system where a part of the spectrum is over or under represented, a cable can make a subtle, but useful difference. However, the area where F1’s excel most, is rather surprisingly outside this category.

The ability of a system to image well – that is, to provide a holographic soundstage – can often be down to the quality of the mains, cables, and isolation. Without each of these areas being sorted, the system will only be as good as the weakest link, and consequently the effect of precision space generation will be weakened or lost.

Having spent a fair deal of time sorting out these issues on my review system, I was hugely impressed by what the F1’s seemed to be doing.

Listening to the LSO recording of the Brahms 2nd Serenade, final movement [LSO Live], it was very clear that the F1’s were providing imaging not previously seen or heard on my system. The accuracy of the orchestra was eerily holographic, and seemed to roll out the orchestra in its front-to-back layers in a startling fashion. That’s not to say these cables are a one-trick pony, to paraphrase the colourful character on ‘The Apprentice’ a few years ago, they are a field full of ponies!

The bass is really tight, precisely formed, so the attack of the double bass section is absolutely clear, and keeps time very well. I am not aware of any colouration in the mid band or top, meaning the F1’s yield an airy sound packed with detail.

Moving on to a recent Tidal streamed MQA recording of the Haydn Sinfonia Concertante, Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic, this delightfully eccentric piece brings a smile to my face as the F1 cables work their magic. The delineation between the soloists and the orchestra is beautifully portrayed, the dialogues between the two groups seem to take on a clarity which adds to the humour of the piece. The fun these musicians are having is palpable. Opera for instruments! I’m also aware of a blacker noise-free background, the cables seem to be quieter than my experience of other cables.

These cables are most definitely expensive, but they come with a highly coherent concept to their design, manufactured from first principals upwards. The lack of reflection in the cables I think gives a clue to their greatest strengths, which is the ability accurately to portray lifelike 3D space in a way that I have rarely heard from a speaker cable. For anyone seeking to add this quality to their system, the F1 cables are required listening!

Price and Contacts

Type: Loudspeaker cable

Price: £2,200 per metre pair,

Termination options: Cables can be terminated in spades or 4mm banana plugs

Manufactured by: Townshend Audio

Tel: +44 (0) 208 979 2155

URL: townshendaudio.com

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MrSpeakers ÆON Flow Open planar magnetic headphones

The $799 price point for a high end headphone can be a lonely rung on the performance ladder that you will see many manufacturers tend to shy away from when coming to market with a new product. This price point traditionally is high enough to scare away many tentative first time buyers and low enough for seasoned upper tier shoppers to pass by following their search for maximized performance. Always proud to be swimming against the current, Southern California based MrSpeakers has doubled down on this ladder rung of sorts by introducing not one but two versions of their $799 ÆON Flow series headphones—one in closed-back form and the other an open-back model. With the ÆON Flow series models Dan Clark, President and founder of MrSpeakers, is fulfilling a well known promise to his attentive community that he would deliver a first class headphone to those who must live on a reasonable budget. Following this muse the ÆON Flow series headphones were conceived to mimic as much of the performance as possible from MrSpeakers’ reputation-making ETHER ($1499) and ETHER Flow ($1799) headphones. While $799 is certainly not chump change, considering that the ÆON Flow Open edition is $1000 less than his ETHER Flow, Dan Clark certainly seems to be living up to the budget end of his promise. In regards to the quality side of the bargain the ÆON Flow closed-back was reviewed in HI-Fi+issue 147 and achieved virtually instant fame as it received our 2017 Hi-Fi+ award for High Value Headphone of the Year. It might be a good idea to re-read Chris Martens’ enthusiastic August 2017 review because the ÆON Flow Open headphone reviewed here might be an even better performer.

My audition of the ÆON Flow Open happened to coincide with Valentine’s Day so as I was feeling inspired let’s start the review with love at first sight. The first thing that grabs you upon unboxing and inspecting the ÆON Flow Open is the beautifully distinctive “tear drop” shaped ear cup first introduced to the MrSpeakers family with the original ÆON Flow. This attractively shaped ear cup is constructed of an opaque thermoplastic polymer known as acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS for short) and is artfully finished with a deep metallic blue lacquer that gives the headphones an understated and confident pop. The beauty of working with ABS material is when heated it liquefies (instead of scorching and burning) which makes it an ideal candidate to injection mold into a complex shape. In fact, ABS is only used in the painted plastic part that holds the grille. The comfort and fit are due to the gimballed NiTinol memory metal headband, which is a remarkably simple arc-shaped and hinge free design with a dyed through leather headband strap. Also accompanied by plush, bevelled synthetic leather ear pads the ÆON Flow Open effortlessly delivers a wide variety of pressure and tension adjustments. The comfort of these relatively light 321 gram headphones is not taking a back seat to any set of headphones you are going to audition any time soon, including those much further up the price ladder. The ÆON Flow signal cable is the MrSpeakers standard “DUMMER” signal cables terminated like most MrSpeakers headphones with a HIROSE connection on the headphone end. The final noteworthy design element to the ÆON Flow Open is the visually arresting hexagon-shaped powder coated stainless steel grill on the exterior of the ear cup. This grill by association reminds those familiar that the ÆON Flow Open has friends in high places like the ETHER Flow and ETHER Flow C. This hexagonal grill gives the headphone a sophisticated and sharp look that again belies its price point. In fact, according to Dan Clark, “the ‘hex pattern is actually irregular to complement the shape of the headphone. Plain hex didn’t look right.” He’s correct – when you finally are ready to stop admiring the headphones MrSpeakers again rewards you with a durable well-designed clamshell carrying case that looks and feels the part of a top tier purchase.

Moving on from aesthetics MrSpeakers is intent on reminding you the operation of the ÆON Flow headphone owes much to the diligent development of its ETHER series headphones. The ÆON Flow Open does incorporate the two important innovative technologies that MrSpeaker drivers have come to be recognised by: the Trueflow motor optimization system and V-Planar driver diaphragms. The Trueflow system is aimed at reducing turbulent airflow distortion created by the magnets inherent to any planar magnetic motor. MrSpeakers’ Trueflow system in essence fills in the area between the driver magnets with a flat perforated material whose openings serve as smooth waveguides, so that the driver can move air freely without any unwanted distortions that would ordinarily be caused by the sharp, right-angle edges of the magnets. The smoother waveforms courtesy of Trueflow are said to help improve frequency response, dynamics, and resolution.

The V-planar driver diaphragm design for which Mr. Speakers has recently received patent approval is an equally important addition to the ÆON Flow Open headphone. Bruce Thigpen of Eminent Technology helped Dan Clark design around the reality that any inelastic driver is not a flat surface but rather a bowed one. Confronting this fact V-planar knurling or “pleating” was developed, which seeks to crease the driver surface enabling it to expand and contract like an accordion without stretching the material, while also allowing the entire diaphragm to move forward and backward in a linear way and without bowing in the centre. Dynamics again are said to be the beneficiary here, but notably this creased V-planar diaphragm can push more air at low frequencies also bettering bass response.

For this review the ÆON Flow Open was auditioned using Tidal hi-fi FLAC 16/44.1 kHz source files via an Audirvana-based music server running through a Chord Electronics Hugo TT headphone amp/DAC. Other headphones on hand for comparison purposes included Focal Elears and MrSpeakers Ether C and ÆON Flow (closed-back) models.

Northern Florida’s hometown legend MOFRO was the selection and their debut Blackwater[Fog City Records] felt like an excellent place to jump in and get the swamp party started. Blackwater’slong and spooky lead off title track has a break at about 3:45, at which point JJ Grey and the boys start to relentlessly hammer the keyboard bass tones deep into the listener’s brain, while attempting to command total submission to their deep backwoods groove. On an extended and open stretch such as this it is almost too easy to test the limits of a headphone’s bass response, and it was quickly apparent the ÆON Flow Open were aceing the exam. Through the ÆON Flow Opens, MOFRO’s bass extended far lower than I had expected, all the way down to what can only be described scientifically as “scary low” frequencies. The immediate head nodding produced by this scary low bass easily outclassed any bass extension in sub-£1,000-class headphones I have heard to date and was quite simply thrilling to experience. The low end was so tight and deep that it quickly became a focal point in the audition and added a new mystique to a favorite album that had been previously underappreciated in my listening.

The ÆON Flow Open continued to show its dynamic chops on Blackwater’sthird track appropriately titled “Air.” As the title suggests a silky reverbed electric piano is thrown like a well-placed curve-ball at the wet concrete like bass lines, all the while maintaining a spacious pocket for the midrange to squeeze into. The ÆON Flow Open didn’t miss a beat and with more to bite off showed remarkable sonic horsepower unpacking the varied and complex mix of sounds. The keyboards seemed to be barely constrained from floating away into the clouds, the mid-range was clear and well defined, and the bottom end was again satisfyingly fast and tight. The ÆON Flow Open Edition handled the spectrum so well that upon repeat listens I found that I was able to concentrate on different musical aspects every time with equal enjoyment. I suppose a connoisseur could argue the midrange was coloured slightly towards the warm end of the spectrum, but to my ears the little colouration I heard ultimately enhanced the presentation of digital tracks I was listening to in a positive way making them feel more accessible than if played through a rididly neutral headphone.

The ÆON Flow Open is an extremely well built and good sounding headphone and many will consider it another in a growing line of MrSpeaker instant classics. Across genres the ÆON Flow Open back edition seems to consistently find new eye-opening ways to shake listeners out of complacency and reinvent the music anew with artistic intentions intact. Do these $799 headphones do everything perfectly? No, of course not. But, do they make you wonder why you would consider spending another $500–$1000 for just a small potential uptick in performance? Yes, they certainly do!

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Type: Circumaural, open back, planar magnetic headphones

Drivers: Planar magnetic drivers with Trueflow motor magnet technology and V-Planar diaphragms

Frequency response: Intentionally not specified

Impedance: 13 Ohms

Sensitivity: 95dB

Distortion: Not specified

Weight: 321g

Price: £799 (VAT included), or $799 US

Manufacturer: MrSpeakers Headphone Products
3366 Kurtz Street, Suite 200, San Diego,
CA 92110 USA

Tel: +1(619) 501-6313

URL: mrspeakers.com

UK Distributor: Electromod
Beech Road, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire HP11 1RY UK

Tel: +44 (0) 1494 956558

URL: electromod.co.uk

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Echobox Explorer Digital Audio Player

Remember when your mobile phone was actually only a telephone? Can you still vaguely recollect life before texting, GPS location, and the never ending army of apps dictating your day to day events? Looking back it seems like a quaint memory that a person would carry around an iPod devoted exclusively to music through their bustling daily routines. However, the Digital Audio Player staged a comeback in the age of high-resolution audio, and Echobox Audio (based in Santa Barbara, California) is attempting to bring a new and fresh take to the paradigm. Echobox has proudly introduced a hip-flask styled portable DAP called the Explorer that is gently pressing against the ever-evolving market trends, which have prized combining devices over performance and functionality. With the Explorer, Echobox serves to remind a generation that values style and substance that exclusively dedicated mobile audio is still relevant in 2018, and worthy of finding a bit of extra space in your pockets and handbags. The Explorer isn’t in a rush to outpace competitors with a continuous rollout of new features and updates, but rather fashions itself as a steadfast carefully crafted and meticulously assembled device that has all needed features included for you to use for years to come. It is singularly focused on one mission: enhancing your listening experience (although looking good in the process isn’t far behind). Thankfully this direct and noble mission was not born in some corporate marketing focus group atop a 60-story ivory tower, but stems from the earnest passions of Director of Operations Sam McKinney and of the Echobox engineering team. Echobox’s founders are admitted audiophiles themselves, happy to approach music portability as steadfast allies of all things hi-fi.

The Echobox press videos start making their case for the Explorer with an admission of fact all of us audiophiles know to be true just by looking around us: for the majority of people on-the-go, audio quality is in a depressing spot these days and simply must be rescued. Although any new announcement of a handheld device isn’t exactly going to stop the presses these days, Echobox is committed to positioning their new Explorer device as the lifeline that could reset the mobile paradigm for a entire generation of new music lovers. Priced at $599 certainly the Explorer is not a given for every household, but is within reach if consumers agree on making quality a priority and deem the product worthy. So what exactly is the Explorer and what does it do?

The Echobox Explorer is a portable high-fidelity audio player geared for modern times with Wireless Connectivity, Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g/n), Bluetooth (4.0), DLNA, and set to run on open Android Marshmellow 6.0 software. By making the calculated choice to run the Explorer player software on Android’s platform, Echobox has created a true streaming device. Echobox is banking that its patrons are likely sick of Apple’s rigidity and micro-management of end use and deliberately makes it a point to offer users choices whenever possible. For starters, users can decide whether they will option to use a stock Android interface or an easy to use proprietary Interface designed by Echobox, creating a good first impression in terms of freedom of choice..

The attractively styled body of the Explorer is focused around a 3.5’’ LED touch screen surrounded by a block of milled solid hardwood. The hardwood comes in your welcomed choice of Mahogany, Maple, Ebony, and Zebra wood with a handsome laser etched Echobox logo. The hardwood is accented top and bottom with machined aluminum accents. It looks like a hipster’s hip-flask. and its dedicated volume knob cap is an outstandingly executed tactile feature that gives the feel of using a nice headphone amp by being able to micro adjust your playback levels to optimum levels. Thank goodness you won’t have to blow out your eardrums any longer by fat fingering a slide on a touchscreen! The volume knob is flanked by a 1/8’’ analogue headphone jack and also by an optical output. Outside the many offerings for user customisation, perhaps the biggest indication that Echobox is equipped for the times is a close alignment and support for Tidal streaming service. Currently Echobox has teamed up with Tidal to offer a three-month free subscription with purchase of the Explorer. Echobox is banking that this perk will send users willingly into a new long term relationship with a music service instead of the all too familiar shotgun wedding arrangement with iTunes that many potential buyers of the Explorer might still be trying to escape. The Echobox Explorer is designed to be fully compatible with most digital file formats, including WAV, AIFF, and FLAC. It comes with 64GB of internal memory, and has a MicroSD slot that allows you to upgrade to a total capacity of 192GB fully loaded. If you are into racking up points by decking out and showing off your work desktop you can add a very attractive docking station for an additional $50 that will match your choice of Explorer hardwood. It’s retro-futurist cool, without the need for horn-rimmed glasses!

The Explorer hardware recipe looks something like this: start with a powerful Texas Instruments 300Mw/channel amplifier capable of adequately driving a wide variety of in-ear and headphone models. No headphone amplifier needed, this audio flask has the power to get the job done, just bring your own ¼’’ adapter if needed. Next add a high powered Rockchip RK3128 Quad Core processor running at 1.3GHz and sporting 1GB of RAM. Garnish with a 4000mAH lithium rechargeable battery that can power the device easily for over a day of steady use without any issue. Sounds pretty good right? But before you place an order let us spend a minute talking about the main ingredient, the Explorer’s integrated DAC. Close to fifty percent of the circuit board inside the Explore is burnished with dedicated audio circuitry supporting the Texas Instruments Burr Brown PCM 1794 stereo DAC chip, a ‘highest performing’ chip delivering up to 24-bit, 192kHz resolution. DSD is supported, but are converted to PCM for playback. MQA support is not on the radar, however. Given the relatively pragmatic take on audio from the brand, and its intended audience of music lovers rather than out-and-out audiophiles, the need for MQA is perhaps a more complex issue than first imagined, as the formatt is attempting to encroach on a more mainstream audio market, but I suspect the market for good looking, great sounding DAPs will find their own niche, MQA or not.

In my auditions, I found the Explorer to deliver on Echobox’s bold sonic goals to produce an organic sounding playback reminiscent of a vinyl experience. In general I did find a laid back natural sound that was complemented by an openness of presentation that was wonderfully unexpected in a hand held device. Take Kurt Vile’s 2011 Wakin’ on a Pretty Daze[Matador] for example. Over a breezy set of tracks Mr. Vile sets up the melodic finale ‘Gold Tones’ that never fails to deliver you someplace special by way of hypnotic monotone vocals over an evolving interplay between traditional acoustic and slide guitars. The Explorer wrapped each of these crucial elements with a little sonic membrane of space and set a depth to the recording that would be hard not to describe as eye opening. The Explorer’s ability to construct the illusion of depth was tremendous and did offer a high fidelity listening experience that was solidly convincing. I did find myself missing some of the precise midrange detail offered by a good stationary piece of equipment like the underrated iFi-Audio Micro iDac-2, but the thrill of being able to enjoy a comparable and arguably better level of quality on the go left me with a positive impression of the Explorer’s value.

The Explorer suggests we might be misunderstanding the purpose of the Digital Audio Player. Many modern examples go for something like an ‘Ultra iPod’ approach, and while this might be a good plan, those outside of the headphonista circles may see this as being ‘Not An iPod’ rather than an intrinsically better iPhone. The styling of the Explorer changes all that. A wooden audio hip-flask is attractive for the terminally hip. Those who would never buy an iPod because it’s old news, or most DAPs because they’re iPod clones, will buy an Explorer. Better still, for $599 and a decent pair of headphones, the Echobox Explorer means you are going to be doing just fine no matter where you find your day taking you!

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Type: Solid-state digital audio player with built-in storage and DAC

Storage: Internal 64GB for music data storage/data storage, plus option for additional micro SD card storage

DAC Resolution/Supported Digital Formats: FLAC/wav/AIFF/mp3, etc. Sampling rate for D/A conversion up to 192kHz/24-bit

Analogue Outputs: one 1/8’’ headphone jack

Frequency Response: Not specified

Distortion (THD + Noise): Not specified

User Interface: 3.5-inch display (on main unit), preconfigured with Echobox supplied application software

Price: $599

Manufacturer: Echobox Audio

Tel: (+1) 206- 228-0595

URL: echoboxaudio.com

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WIN! Four chances to win fantastic Allnic cables worth $10,300!!!

We have teamed up with our friends at Hammertone Audio to bring an excitingcompetition with four chances to win fantastic Allnic Cables. Nicholas Ripley reviewed the Allnic Mu-7R interconnect cable and the ZL‑3000 loudspeaker cable and power cord in issue 159 of Hi-Fi+. He wrote, “Allnic uses Mu-metal as a braided shield in its interconnect cables both RCA and XLR), which protects the signal from both electric and magnetic noise… claimed to be a world-first in audio. Allnic’s MRCT, or ‘Mid-Range Control Technology’ uses metal plating along the length of the cable for what Allnic calls ‘slight midrange braking’, thick-gauge wire for low frequencies, and additional capacitance for more accurate high frequencies.”

He concluded by saying, “I thoroughly enjoyed my time playing with the Allnic cables. They are rewarding, and consistent enough to say universally so. The speed of attack and the silent backgrounds, alongside an intrinsic sense of getting out of the way of the rest of the system, are extremely satisfying and seductive properties. It’s hard not to be impressed with these Korean cables.”

Prizes:

• 2 Å~ 2m ZL-3000 power cord, worth $2,800

• A 3m pair of Allnic ZL-3000 loudspeaker cables, worth $2,500

• A 1.5m pair of Allnic MU-7R interconnect cables, worth $2,500

Competition Question

What does the acronym MRCT stand for?

A. Maximum Rigidity Cable Tension

B. Mostly Right Centred Treatment

C. Mid-Range Control Technology

To answer, please visit Hammertone’s dedicated competition page at http://hammertoneaudio.com/contest

Alternatively, send your answer on a postcard (including your name, address, and contact details) to Allnic Competition, 101 Skyland Drive, Kelowna, BC, V1V3A3, Canada.

Competition Rules

The competition will run from July 5th 2018 until September 6th 2018. The competition is open to everyone, but multiple, automated or bulk entries will be disqualified. The winner will be chosen at random from all valid entries, will be contacted via email (where possible) and their name will be published in the magazine. The Editor’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into. Absolute Multimedia (UK) Ltd. is compliant with the Data Protection Act and UK laws apply. Our policy is such that we will not pass on your details to any third party without your prior consent.

The world’s best headphones converge at CanJam London 2018, the UK’s only dedicated headphone audio show

4^thJuly, London: CanJam, the world’s premier headphone audio show with events in New York City, Singapore, Los Angeles, London, Denver and Shanghai, is returning to London this July. CanJam London 2018isthe UK’s only dedicated headphone audio eventand takes place on July 21-22 in Central London.

Designed for music lovers and headphone users of all ages, the exclusive audio technology event is ideally positioned in Westminster, Central London at the Park Plaza Hotel, Westminster Bridge. CanJam London 2018 is set to showcase the summer’s latest headphone tech and trends with over 100 of the world’s leading manufacturersin attendance across 20,000 sq. ft. of exhibition space. Weekend passes are just £20; day passes £15.

Occupying a huge, easy-to-navigate plaza at the Park Plaza Hotel, the event gives attendees valuable hands-on time and enables easy auditioning with innovative headphones at all price ranges, thanks to a number of listening demo stations.

Headphone audio predicted to hit USD $18 billion by 2023

The headphone audio industry, one of the hottest trends in consumer electronics today, is expected to grow by 60% to reach USD $18 billion by 2023. Market-leaders AKG, Astell+Kern, Audeze, Beyerdynamic, Chord Electronics, FiiO, Focal, Hifiman, Meze Audio, MrSpeakers, RHA, Schiit Audio, STAX Japan, V-Moda, Westone and many more, will all be in attendance.

CanJam London 2018 notes for editors

• CanJam London is the UK’s only dedicated headphone audio show

• Ideally positioned central London location at Westminster Bridge’s Park Plaza hotel

• 20,000 sq. ft. of exhibition space; easy to navigate plaza, no stuffy hotel rooms/corridors

• Over 100 of the world’s most innovative headphone and personal audio brands exhibiting

• A unique opportunity to get hands-on and listen from entry-level to audiophile luxury

• Experience the summer’s latest tech and trends from Astell+Kern, Audeze, Beyerdynamic, Chord Electronics, FiiO, Hifiman, MrSpeakers, RHA and many more

• Event held in one huge, spacious and easy to navigate plaza; no stuffy hotel rooms/corridors

• Walking distance from London Waterloo rail and Waterloo/Westminster Underground

About CanJam

CanJam is the world’s premier headphone audio show with annual events in New York City, Singapore, Los Angeles, London, Denver, and Shanghai and is exclusively produced by Head-Fi.org, the world’s largest online community of personal audio enthusiasts. CanJam is the leading space for exhibitors to introduce new products, interact with their customers, expand their product distribution channels, and engage with members of the press.

Introducing the next step in the evolution of the M-Series from Scansonic

With the introduction of the new M-Series from Scansonic HD, new materials and designs has been incorporated in the well-known M-Series. A new and different driver design, to reassure an even lower level of distortion has been developed for this new series that includes three different speaker models. This is the next and natural step in the evolution of the M-Series.

The M-10, M-20, and the M-40 are all using the same ribbon tweeter that ScansonicHD introduced in the exclusive MB-series a few years ago. A high-resolution ribbon tweeter which is chosen for its musicality and extreme frequency response and not at least for blending seamlessly with the 4” honeycomb enforced glass-fiber bass/midrange drivers.

The M-10, M-20 and M-40 are all using a single or multiple 4” bass/midrange drivers, with a honeycomb enforced glass-fiber design of the actual membrane. This technology in combination with a powerful magnet-system delivers an open and extremely detailed sound. A driver which is capable of being integrated in a speaker design with a ribbon tweeter due to its speed and wide frequency response.

The new M-series is all about the music!

The M-Series are available in satin black or satin white.

Supplied with a removable, protective front-grill and adjustable feet.

Designed in Denmark

Recommended Retail Prices:

M-10 (without stand): 649 EUR/800 USD

M-20: 1.499 EUR/1.800 USD

M-40: 1.999 EUR/2.400 USD

Please visit www.scansonichd.dk

M-10

Compact two-way mini-monitor.

Technical Information

• Size: (WxHxD) 130 x 303 x 196 mm

• Weight: 4 kg

• Freq. response: 70 Hz – 40 KHz

• Impedance: 6 ohm

• Crossover: 4 KHz 2. Order

• Principle: 2 -Way bass-reflex loaded

• Sensitivity: 85dB

• Enclosure: Heavily braced, rear firing ports.

• Drive units: 1 sealed ribbon tweeter with kapton/aluminum sandwich membrane. 1 Mid/woofer 4”, Honeycomb enforced glass-fiber cone.

• Finish: Silk White or Silk Black

• Amplification: We recommend high quality

• 50 – 100 W amplifiers

M-20

Compact and elegant 2.5-way, floor-standing speaker.

Technical Information

• Size: (WxHxD) 220 x 935 x 250 mm

• Weight: 12.1 kg

• Freq. response: 50 Hz – 40 KHz

• Impedance: 4 ohm

• Crossover: 4 KHz 2.Order

• 300 Hz1. order

• Principle: 2.5 -Way bass-reflex loaded

• Sensitivity: 86.5dB

• Enclosure: Heavily braced, rear firing ports.

• Drive units: 1 sealed ribbon tweeter with kapton/aluminum sandwich membrane. 1 Mid/woofer 4”, Phase-plug + Honeycomb enforced glass-fiber cone. 1 Woofers 4”, Honeycomb enforced glass-fiber cone.

• Finish: Silk White or Silk Black

• Amplification: We recommend high quality

• 100 – 200 W amplifiers

M-40

Powerful and elegant 2.5-way, floor-standing speaker

Technical Information

• Size: (WxHxD) 220 x 1085 x 295 mm

• Weight: 18 kg

• Freq. response: 45 Hz – 40 KHz

• Impedance: 6 ohm

• Crossover: 4 KHz 2. Order 300 Hz1. order

• Principle: 2.5 Way bass-reflex loaded

• Sensitivity: 88 dB

• Enclosure: Heavily braced, ported design, rear firing ports.

• Drive units: 1 sealed ribbon tweeter with kapton/aluminum sandwich membrane. 2 Mid/woofer 4”, Phase-plug + Honeycomb enforced glass-fiber cone. 4 Woofers 4”, Honeycomb enforced glass-fiber cone.

• Finish: Silk White or Silk Black

• Amplification: We recommend high quality

• 100 – 300 W amplifiers

Cardas A8 30th Anniversary earphone

This is one of those reviews that writes itself in seconds. Cardas’ excellent A8 earphone (reviewed in Issue 134: https://hifiplus.com/articles/cardas-audio-a8-earphones/) has now morphed into the Cardas A8 30th Anniversary earphone. Practically all of the sonic glories that applied to the A8 apply to the A8 30th Anniversary edition, but there are changes.

What hasn’t changed at all is the driver. It retains the single, 10.85mm full range Ultra Linear, Contour Field, Dual Magnet driver and as before uses those two magnets to reduce eddy currents. It also retains the same brass enclosure of the original A8. But where the previous model was coated in blue rubberised ABS, this new model is all shiny black chrome, with the Cardas nautilus shell outline in white relief. It looks great in the flesh, even if it is a pig to photograph!

The biggest change is in the cables. Although these are still helical wound, fabric-wrapped copper cables that remain strong, flexible, and practically immune from conduction noise, there are two main differences. The trivial one is the move from bright blue to a subtler grey/black palette. The more significant change is the cable no longer terminates in a 3.5mm socket, allowing for a range of different connectors as optional extras. You can no longer ‘hot swap’ between 3.5mm TRS jacks and balanced connectors for PonoPlayers and the like. In no small part, this change is driven by demand rather than necessity; had PonoPlayer been a success, this might have been a more popular option, but instead it just left an extra break in the cable between ear and player. You can still get A8 30th Anniversary versions in balanced operation, but as a special order from the factory.

The removal of one break in the cable has made the A8 30th Anniversary fractionally better sounding than its A8 predecessor. In fairness, to hear this you need to have run-in versions of both earphones side by side to compare and contrast. If you do, you’ll hear fractionally more detail and mid-band clarity to the newer version. But this is a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ difference and if you already have a pair of A8s, the 30th Anniversary edition is not a ‘must have’ upgrade.

What has changed and changed for the better is the packaging. Not just in the presentation pack with individual cards written about the operation, functionality, and running in of the earphones (written in large print to allow us with mature eyeballs a touch of vanity), but in the inclusion of a pair of Comply foam tips, as recommended in that review in issue 134.

Cardas made a great earphone in the A8. It sounded tonally pure, with some surprisingly meaty deep bass, a transparent midrange, and a treble that soars. The A8 30th Anniversary edition does the same with just a smidgeon better performance (a smidgeon being equivalent to 0.5 metric tads). It was good then, and it’s just as good now. Highly recommended!

Product Details

Price: £349

Manufactured by: Cardas Audio

URL: cardasaudio.com

Distributed by: Audiofreaks

Tel: +44(0) 208 948 4253

URL: audiofreaks.co.uk

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Graham Audio VOTU floorstanding loudspeaker

The name sounds like the title of a 1950s sci-fi movie: VOTU – the Voice Of The Universe! Graham Audio’s grand statement loudspeaker is a bold departure from a brand best known for products very much in the BBC design school. In fact, there is some lesser-known lineage to the VOTU in the Graham Audio line. Several years ago, Paul Graham was approached by the Royal Opera House in London to develop a pair of ‘effect fill’ loudspeakers for one of its theatres. Unlike a typical Public Address system (which might be an active line array), the Royal Opera House wanted a passive design more akin to domestic loudspeakers, only writ large enough to reach a whole, opera-going audience. This became known as the SYSTEM3D loudspeaker. The three-way VOTU is basically that SYSTEM3D design, reworked for domestic use.

However, both the SYSTEM3D and VOTU are not so far removed from that BBC heritage as one might first imagine. As with all of Graham Audio’s designs, the VOTU is from the pen of Derek Hughes, the son of the late Spencer Hughes who was a key part of the BBC R&D team that first minted those classic designs. Also, despite the impressive scale and heft of the loudspeaker, and the bright orange livery of the review sample, the VOTU remains true to the BBC’s strategically damped, 18mm thin-walled birch ply cabinet design, albeit one with internal bracing. You might find that somewhat hard to believe when attempting to man-handle 65kg’s worth of loudspeaker cabinet into a listening room, but if it were made of Corian or aluminium, a loudspeaker of the VOTU’s dimensions would top the 100kg mark. That comes as cold comfort when you need your physiotherapist on speed-dial during set-up.

Where the great departure from classic BBC designs begins is in the shape of the front baffle. This is divided into three separate panels: the top, containing midrange and treble domes, which arches forwards slightly, the central 250mm driver, and the lower 250mm driver and front port, which is also angled forwards slightly. The result looks similar to the Focal Grande Utopia EM, only not adjustable and not as extreme: the depth of the VOTU goes from 43cm at the base to 38cm at its midriff. Once you start to include the 37cm width and the 116cm height, all wrapped in a high-gloss paint and lacquer finish, you begin to see where much of that weight comes from.

A fair chunk of the VOTU’s mass of loudspeaker comes from its drive units, too. A pair of Volt 250mm bass drivers coupled with a Volt 75mm dome midrange means a lot of heavyweight magnets behind the scenes, and even that SEAS 34mm dome tweeter is more massive than most. And that load-out represents perhaps the biggest change between the domestic and commercial version of this loudspeaker. The SYSTEM3D has three 250mm bass units.

The loudspeaker is a ported design, with a large, front-firing port tuned very low. The bass drivers cover the sub-800Hz region, handing over to the midrange until 4kHz, where the tweeter takes on the task. As you might expect, the crossover is full of high-spec components and air-cored inductors, although the design of the crossover and its slopes are not specified.

Although the VOTU describes moderately benign sensitivity and impedance characteristics (88dB and eight ohms respectively), this loudspeaker gives away its professional audio heritage by needing a lot of power, primarily needed to drive those two big Volt bass drivers. Graham specifies recommended power amplifiers in the 250W-1kW class, and there was nothing in the listening to recommend much in the way of ‘wiggle room’ here, and both an Aavik and a Devialet were called into place to provide suitable grunt. Fortunately, the VOTU shares the typical BBC characteristic of not being amplifier fussy, so the choice of amp in that 250W-1kW range is relatively open.

Room size is largely self-selecting. A loudspeaker of this size is going to dominate a small room, and this is never going to be used in the near-field. The relatively large amounts of low-frequency energy unleashed by both half a metre of bass speaker surface area and a fist-sized port does dictate a larger listening room, too.

A mild concern here is listening room temperature. These are not loudspeakers for the well-heeled Eskimo, as they require a reasonably warm room to free up those bass drivers. So, if you have to cut back on heating to afford the VOTU, choose another design!

This is on the one hand, a BBC design writ large. It has all the properties of those classics of the 1960s and 1970s, just more of them. It has the same extraordinary transparency across the midband (with a slight lift in the upper midrange that makes music sound all the more attractive), but that comes with a more deep, powerful underpinning, and the kind of dynamic range that can leave you almost gasping for air. And yet, on the other hand, this is a loudspeaker that demands to show you what music is capable of and wants to play loud. And, thanks to its amplifier demands, it can play very loud, very cleanly, indeed. Be mindful of this when first listening to the VOTU, as you’ll be keen to ‘open her up’ like putting the pedal down on a sports car. If you do, don’t make the rookie error of pushing it into distortion and backing off a notch. The distortion you might be experiencing is your ears relaxing after each pounding from a beat. Use a sound pressure meter instead. That’s the capability of the VOTU encapsulated: you run out of steam before they do!

These are extremely detailed loudspeakers. Paul Galbraith’s interpretations of Bach’s violin sonatas, played on a classical guitar held like a cello [Delos] are textbook audiophile material: a beautifully recorded acoustic instrument in a naturally reverberant space, with an extremely quiet background. And the VOTU returned a sound that perfectly encapsulated those properties. This was something of an early torture test for the VOTU, as it could so easily make the guitar sound lost, or too large. Instead, the VOTU helped Galbraith occupy the Goldilocks spot in the soundstage.

Moving over to something with more scale, such as Herbert von Karajan and the Berliner Philharmonic playing Wagner overtures [EMI], the VOTU stepped up to the more dramatic, dynamic performance. Playing ‘Tannhauser’, you got a sense of substance and energy, from the opening woodwinds, to the dramatic rolls of the tympani and swells of the brass. The properties the speaker brought to the fore changed, from soundstaging and detail on the subtle Bach piece to thrusting dynamics and power with the Wagner.

After a spot of Wagner, it was time to sweep majestically jazzwards, with ‘Young and Foolish’ from The Complete Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Recordings[Fantasy]. The VOTU carries Bennett’s voice perfectly, presenting his diction, passing tones, and overall tonality extremely well, while Evans’ piano tone shows his mastery of harmonic structure and effortlessness of playing. The tonal balance – easy to spot on this track – is a little more forward than the archetypal BBC design, but this fits better with more modern equipment, and more contemporaneous recordings.

I fired a lot of music through the VOTU and in almost every case got the same response; a sound that is at once extremely listenable and articulate. The overall presentation is clean and dry sounding across the midband and treble, but with a sense of earth-moving heft at the bottom end, and an easy, effortless treble. It’s probably not the loudspeaker for those seeking bat-eared high-frequency resolution, and it’s not ideal for fast-paced electronica bass notes; the fast-paced, almost square-wave broadband bass notes on the live version of ‘Numbers’ by Kraftwerk [Maximum-Minimum, Kling-Klang/EMI] tended to blur into one another, possibly their lowest frequency hitting the resonant frequency of that port and causing a spot of choke-up. In fairness to the VOTU, however, this was a ‘playing at party levels’ problem.

In a way, the Graham Audio VOTU answers a very American question. Audio is still very much locally-grown produce, and although there are products that cross the Atlantic, much of what’s perceived as a major player in the UK market remains virtually unknown in the US. The BBC designs – and subsequent post-BBC models from brands like Harbeth and Spendor – are rare exceptions. Almost every American audiophile I’ve spoken to in my time knows of the LS3/5a, the Spendor BC1, and probably loudspeakers like the Harbeth Compact 7es-3. And every one of them has then mused… “I wonder what they would sound like with some real bass?” Graham Audio’s VOTU is a response to that American question, with some styling changes to bring it up to date. In fact, what the VOTU shows is just how low distortion extends out when you scale up the design.

In fact, the VOTU is actually the voice of the opera house, brought home. Graham Audio couldn’t get that close to ‘Voice Of The Theatre’ without tripping over ‘Harmsung’s’ legal team, but actually Graham Audio doesn’t need to go for homage nomenclature. This is a Great British Loudspeaker!

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Type: Reflex-loaded three-way floorstanding loudspeaker

Enclosure: 18mm birch plywood

Drive Units: 34mm soft dome tweeter, 75mm soft dome midrange, 2x250mm cone bass drivers

Crossover frequencies: 800Hz, 4kHz

Frequency response: 38Hz–18kHz ±3dB

Sensitivity: 88dB @ 2.83V, 1m

Nominal impedance: 8Ω

Recommended amplifier power:
500–1000W unclipped programme

Finish: High-gloss three part painted and lacquer finish (any colour, including McLaren Ventura as shown!)

Dimensions (W×H×D): 37 × 116 × 43cm

Weight: 65kg

Price: from £20,400 per pair

Manufactured by: Graham Audio

URL: grahamaudio.co.uk

Tel: +44(0)1626 361168

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Final D8000 planar magnetic headphone with air film damping system

Final is a respected Japanese manufacturer of premium-quality headphones, earphones, and other audio products. Founded in 1974 by the late, great audio legend Kanemori Takai, Final Audio Design (as the company was first known) was from the beginning a company known for a technology-rich but always music-centred approach to product design. In 2015, about a year after Takai-san’s passing, the company simplified its name to Final and today is led by Mitsuru Hosoo, the firm’s visionary President and chief of product design. Hosoo-san is keenly aware of Final’s ‘music first’ heritage and under his guidance the firm has launched an expanded range of SONOROUS-series dynamic-driver headphones as well as several important new families of affordable high-performance earphones. But at the Axpona 2017 and Munich High-End 2017 events, Final previewed what is arguably its most ambitious new product to date: namely, the revolutionary D8000 planar magnetic headphone that is the subject of this review.

In a way, Final’s planar magnetic D8000 came as a great surprise, given that the firm enjoyed such a strong reputation for building ultra-high-performance dynamic driver-based products (a good example would be the famous SONOROUS X headphone). However, through a series of seminar-type presentations on the D8000, Final made it clear that its aim was to create a breakthrough, ‘best of two worlds’ design that would, in Final’s terms, offer, “…the sensitive high ranges of planar magnetic models and the volume and open-feel bass tones of dynamic models.” With this objective in mind, Final took a ‘clean-sheet-of-paper’ design approach for the D8000 and in the process effectively wound up reinventing planar magnetic driver technology, as we know it.

From the start, Final was aware that planar magnetic drivers offer certain inherent benefits such as light, fast, and responsive membrane-like driver diaphragms that, unlike dynamic driver cones or domes, enjoy the advantage of being driven over their entire surface area and not just from a centrally positioned voice coil. However, planar magnetic drivers also pose certain design challenges that are not easily overcome such as potential membrane resonance problems and distortions caused by airflow turbulence as sound waves pass through the grid-like magnet arrays used in most planar magnetic designs.

After weighing these advantages and potential drawbacks, the Final team came up with what may well be a different and better kind of planar magnetic driver. First, they elected to use an essentially ring-shaped driver diaphragm featuring an inward-spiraling circular band of aluminium voice coil traces. In the Final design, these traces are not bonded to the diaphragm membrane via an adhesive (as in many other many planar magnetic designs), but rather are etched into the surface of an ultra-thin film diaphragm material with an extremely thin aluminium outer coating. This etching process, says Final, yields a diaphragm/voice coil assembly fully one third lighter than equivalent dynamic driver assemblies of the same diameter. The diaphragm also uses a series of concentric ring-like corrugations that help promote more linear motion over the diaphragm’s entire working surface. By dispensing with the usual voice-coil adhesives and using a corrugated diaphragm, the D8000 driver is said to achieve superior “reproduction of subtle high frequencies.”

But Final didn’t stop there, because each D8000 driver also features two sets of dual ring-shaped (or ‘doughnut-shaped’) magnets, where one magnet is placed just to the inside and the other to the outside of the voice coil traces; magnetic fields from the inner and outer magnet rings combining to create an evenly balanced magnetic field across the entire voice coil surface. Importantly, each driver features both front and rear-facing sets of magnets (both for improved efficiency and for lower distortion) with the magnet rings positioned so as to minimise obstructions to sound waves launching from the diaphragm surface.

Apart from resonance problems, one other challenge some planar magnetic drivers face is diaphragm over-excursion on high amplitude, low frequency bass notes (this typically occurs at the diaphragm’s centre where bass excursions are usually at a maximum). Final addresses this problem partly through its ring-shaped voice coil/diaphragm/magnet assembly, but primarily through an ingenious air film damping system (AFDS). The conceptual design for the AFD system was suggested to Final by a team of high-end microphone specialists from Sony who collaborated with Final on the D8000 driver design. As it happens, many high-end studio microphones use air film damping to control resonances and to prevent diaphragm over-excursion, so Sony’s engineers reasoned the same approach should work well in planar magnetic headphones, which in essence act like microphones in reverse.

Final’s air film damping system is conceptually simple, though the engineering mathematics involved in making it work are dauntingly complex (at least for maths-challenged audio journalists like me). The basic idea calls for sets of perforated metal screens to be positioned a precise distance away from the front and back sides of the driver diaphragm, in effect providing a semi-constrained layer of air between the diaphragm and the outside world. Sound waves are able to pass through the perforations in the metal screens, while the openings in the screens offer a just-right amount of resistance so as to provide critical damping for the diaphragm. In this way, the AFD system minimises ringing or spurious membrane resonances, while also providing what Final calls a desirable degree of “diaphragm braking” to prevent diaphragm over-travel on loud, low bass passages. In practice, the AFD system offers sonic benefits that are easy to hear and appreciate.

Completing the picture are driver/ear-cup frames that are precision machined from an aluminium/magnesium alloy and that receive a carefully applied textured coating (similar to the finishes found on some camera bodies), which is said to help dampen minute frame resonances. The ear cups come fitted with special fabric-covered breathable foam ear pads chosen, says Final, because the breathable pads gave demonstrably superior sonic results as compared to typical ‘sealed’ leather-clad ear pads.

The D8000 uses a frame/headband design similar to the ones used for Final’s popular SONOROUS dynamic driver headphones. The design uses a metal support band reaching from one side of the wearer’s head to the other. The overhead portion of the frame is covered with an attractive, finely crafted leather pad, while the left and right ‘arms’ of the frame provide sliding ear cup carriers and L/R channel markers. These carriers allow vertical ear cup positioning adjustments and enable the cups to swivel up-and-down and side-to-side for a comfortable fit. The headphones comes with an aluminium stand purpose-built to fit the D8000’s frame, plus two sets of very high-quality signal cables: a 3m cable fitted with bayonet-style locking connectors on the headphone end and a 6.35mm headphone plug on the amplifier end, plus a 1.5m cable terminated with a 3.5mm mini-plug. Packaging for the D8000 looks exquisite and is cleverly designed, but let me advise that you may need an advanced degree in Origami to figure out how to open the somewhat puzzle-like box without damaging anything (just take your time and be patient).

For my listening tests I used the D8000 in conjunction with the excellent Astell&Kern portable digital audio player but also in a larger multi-component system consisting of a Windows/jRiver Media Center-based music server (loaded with CD and higher resolution PCM, DXD, and DSD music files), a Chord Electronics Hugo 2 used solely as a DAC, and a hybrid valve/solid-state iFi Audio Pro iCAN headphone amplifier. The system featured a Chord Electronics USB cable made specifically for the Hugo 2, a set of Rega Couple interconnects, a pair of AudioQuest Jitterbug digital noise control devices, and a Richard Grays Power Company power conditioner.

Straight out of the box, the D8000 offered astonishingly fine bass and midrange performance, but with upper mids and highs that, though very clear, also seemed a bit reticent or subdued. However, after several hours of run-in time using a ‘Cascade Noise Burn-In Sounds’ track from Tara Labs, the D8000’s mids, upper-mids, and highs opened up in a magnificent way, so that the headphone’s tonal balance became pleasingly neutral while its overall resolution, transient speed, and focus took quite dramatic steps forward. The resulting sound was, I must say, simply breathtakingly good, though in an effortless and almost self-effacing way (the D8000 offers listener’s huge helpings of sonic excellence, but never sounds as if it is working hard to do so).

I find myself struggling for words to describe the D8000’s sound, in part because it draws together a number of sonic performance elements that rarely converge as comfortably as they do in this headphone. Stated simply, the D8000 combines in roughly equal parts the following qualities: accurate and neutral voicing, high levels of resolution, superb transient agility from top to bottom, finely shaded dynamic contrasts, energetic expressiveness and impact, and—here is the trickiest part of all—remarkable freedom from audible ringing, overshoot, compression, and other forms of sonic ‘gunk’ that might ordinarily cloud the sound. In other words, the D8000 achieves excellence partly through the many desirable things it does well, but also through the many potential bad things it doesn’t do at all. For me, this made listening through the D8000 a revelation, because it let me hear recordings in their most pure, unexaggerated, and unadulterated form—as if the slate suddenly had been wiped clean of a thousand and one small sonic obstructions, leaving just the music behind for me to study and enjoy.

I could probably cite dozens of tracks to illustrate the qualities I’ve just described, but let me pick just a few to highlight the Final D8000’s strengths. To hear the kinds of low frequency/high amplitude bass the D8000 can deliver try the Jim Brock Ensemble’s track ‘O Vazio’ from Jazz Kaleidoscope Sampler[Reference Recordings, HDCD]. The track opens with the subtle low-level tinkling of high percussion instruments and tentative low-level ‘thwoomps’ from lower pitched instruments, but then introduces a series of immense, very low frequency percussion ‘thwacks’—instrumental outbursts so violent that they routinely cause headphones and loudspeakers to bottom out and/or distort. The D8000, however, sailed through these passages not just cleanly, but exuberantly and with no compression artifacts that I could discern. Over and over again, the D8000 meets bass challenges head on with power, grace, and a wonderful sense of control.

To appreciate what the D8000 can do in terms of resolution and expressiveness listen to Imogen Heap’s witty and deceptively complex song ‘Bad Body Double’ from Ellipse[RCA, 16/44.1], which contains a heady mix of natural, synthesized, and electronically processed sounds. The song combines funky and intricate riffs with high-energy rhythms, while Heap wryly uses her lyrics to describe herself as her own ‘bad body double’. The D8000’s make child’s play of teasing out the sophisticated multi-layered sounds used in the track while highlighting the crackling, feisty, and self-deprecating humour in Heap’s voice. What is more, the D8000’s reveal a cool sonic detail that sets the stage for the song: namely, the fact that as the track opens Heap is softly working out the lines of the song as she sings to herself in the shower (the brief passage seems so intimate that you’ll feel you ought to offer Ms Heap a bath towel).

Finally, as you might expect, the D8000s are masters of three-dimensional soundstaging at levels few other headphones can match. An interesting old-school example would be the track ‘Midsummer Nights Dream’ from guitarist Pat Metheny’s Bright Size Life[ECM/Tower Japan SACD PROZ, DSD64], which features the incomparable Jaco Pastorius on bass. Through most of the six-minute track Metheny and percussionist Bob Moses are mixed primarily to the right channel, while Pastorius is mixed mostly to the left channel. The trick, though, is that the acoustics of the right and left halves of the soundstage are not quite the same—something the D8000s make abundantly clear. However, at about the four-minute mark Pastorius introduces a soaring bass solo above his own lower-pitched bass lines and that is mixed toward the centre of the stage, acting as a spatial ‘bridge’ that ties the disparate halves of the soundstage—and thus entire song—together as a cohesive whole. Most headphones have a hard enough time reproducing just one soundstage, let alone three at once, but the D8000 makes the feat look easy.

To be candid, few headphones have captured my attention and musical imagination in the way that Final’s D8000 has. My opinion is that it is a breakthrough design that has an uncanny ability to capture the essence of the music while pushing the usual sonic obstructions aside. For this reason, the D8000 has become a go-to reference for me, whether listening critically or purely for pleasure. Heartily recommended.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Final D8000

Type: Planar magnetic headphone with air film damping system

Driver complement: Full range AFDS planar magnetic driver

Maximum SPL: 98dB

Impedance: 60 Ohms

Frequency response: Not specified

Weight: 523g

Warranty: 2 years

Price: £2,999 (VAT included), or $3,799 in the US

Manufacturer: Final
3-12-7 Kitakase, Saiwai-ku, Kawasaki-city, Kanagawa 212-0057, Japan

Tel: +81 44 789 5795

URL: snext-final.com/en/

Distributor: KS Distribution

URL: ksdistribution.co.uk

UK Dealers

URL: snext-final.com/en/dealers/

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Stax SR-L700 Lambda earspeakers/SRM-006tS Kimik 2 energiser

While it’s not good to start a piece of writing in the middle and sum up a whole review in a single word in the opening paragraph, the Stax SR-L700 Lambda earspeakers coupled with the SRM-006tS Kimik 2 energiser are neatly encapsulated in the word ‘graceful’. Everything about them, from the boxes they come in to the sound they make is graceful. That word has lost some of its glow in our hard-edged times, but the Stax challenges that. With good grace.

Perhaps the ultimate expression of the almost 40 year old SR-Lambda design, the rectangular SR-L700 contains a highly revised diaphragm, which in fact carries a number of ideas and parts over from the SR-009, to the point where the diaphragm could be considered a ‘SR-009 junior’, making it the best Lambda diaphragm ever made. According to Stax, this diaphragm features “a specially selected thin-film diaphragm as well as fixed electrodes, machined through three-layer stainless etching using heat diffusion.”

The fit has changed too. Its arc assembly is equipped with a 10-click slider mechanism for head-pad height adjustment. Once adjusted, the slider always maintains its optimal position, making readjustment unnecessary.

The other major difference from previous Lambda models is a new cup design. It may look identical, but the structure is much lighter, and its bars are much thinner, in an effort to create ‘less cup’! Stax also reversed that cup, so now the wider part is at the back and not the front. The diaphragms are mounted at a slight angle towards to ear. In the past the wider part of the cup was always in front of the ear.

This feels a little odd to those used to Lambda designs, as if you have got the earspeakers on back-to-front. However, that feeling goes away in a few seconds and is perfectly comfortable in use. British users will find themselves saying ‘bollocks!’ a lot as they instinctually put them on the wrong way round for the first few times – other swearwords are also available.

Other elements comparatively new to Stax have been seen before in other Lambda models, such as the change in structure to the sheepskin leather ear pads (to make them more comfortable for longer listening sessions), and the 6N high-purity annealed copper wires for the core and six silver plated wires for the external cable. All of this helps to build on a design first minted in 1979 and that shows no signs of running out of steam.

Many of the Stax energisers would be good partners with the L700, but such is its quality that it deserves a quality energiser to drive it. And in that respect, we welcome back an old friend; the SRM-006tS.

The SRM-006tS is a high-voltage, low current amplifier designed specifically to drive electrostatics, it uses two 6FQ7/6GC7 double triodes and sports two sets of RCA inputs, one set of RCA outputs, and one set of XLRs. Although there are some really big guns from Stax now (most notably the large SRM-T8000), it remains the top of the tree for Lambda users, as the solid-state SRM-727II and valve SRM-007tII are designed ideally to match the 007 and 009 earspeakers. Personally, I think the SR-L700 is more than a match for these more up-scale energisers, but such a combination would tip the price tag into a new high level.

Revisiting the SRM-006tS does give us a chance to look to the new Kimik 2 modifications (as distinct from the original Kimik mods) performed on the previous version under test.

Nigel Crump from Symmetry still works with Mark Dolbear of High-End Workshop and Electromod (when not selling MrSpeakers and Schiit, Mark repairs and modifies products for Symmetry) to create the Kimik modifications, which all-in-all take about a week to complete. The old EAT tube dampers have been replaced by a new design from Bermuda Audio Tuning. In the SRM-006tS this is a two-ring damper, while three ring dampers are used in the SRM-007t II. As before, the two 6FQ7 tubes are cryogenically treated and matched precisely as a pair, and the case fuse is replaced with a Synergistic Research Red. This is felt to be a step up from the previous Kimik modification. Kimik 2 modifications are now an option on both SRM-006tS and SRM-007t II. There is no specific upgrade path for Kimik users to move to Kimik 2, although the logical step would be to invest in a set of two-ring Bermuda Audio Tuning dampers.

Judging by the boxes the products arrived in, ‘running in’ is an academic discussion because it happened some time ago. The review samples were well-used demonstrators it seems with some mileage on the clock. You may have to plug in and wait for a while for the true magic of this combo to unfurl itself, but I was lucky… I got both at their best from the get-go. And what a best it is!

The concept of the SR-L700 being a ‘SR-009 Jr’ is both entirely justified and playing down the quality of the SR-L700. What the SR-L700 has is that effortless midrange presence and clarity that the SR-009 has in spades, but by winding the specifications back a notch, the SR-L700 isn’t quite as uncompromising as its big brother. And that’s where that ‘grace’ part comes into play. What this Stax combination serves up is a satisfying view of music that’s just so captivating and elegant, all other considerations pale into insignificance. Yes, the pairing isn’t just about making music with grace, but that is so rare and so ultimately satisfying, you just keep being beguiled by that aspect of music played through this pairing. Oh look, another day went past with no notes on the pad, just a lot of musical enjoyment.

I can’t overstate this. Music is so satisfying, so enjoyable, so poised through the Stax SR-L700/SRM-006tS Kimik 2 that you find it hard to pull yourself away to perform other tasks. Any excuse is the instant justification to listen to a few more tracks – ‘I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight’ by Richard and Linda Thompson from the album of the same name [Island] was playing in a scene in the movie Looperon TV. That led me to replaying the track through the Stax system, then reaching for ‘1952 Vincent Black Lightning’ from Richard Thompson’s Rumor & Sigh[Capitol], which itself led to playing ‘Sweet Gene Vincent’ by Ian Dury [New Boots and Panties!! Stiff], and so on and so on. That was a fairly typical evening’s entertainment for as long as the Stax was in place.

Then there’s the elegance of the sound itself. That calls for the Chairman of the Board. Playing the whole of the Come Fly With Mealbum [Capitol], you just sail through those Billy May orchestrations and Sinatra’s wonderful passing tones. That makes you reach back into Nelson Riddle territory and play Songs For Swinging Lovers [MoFi version of Capitol recording] and then on to Nat ‘King’ Cole, and so it goes on again. That’s the joy of the Stax system (and its curse for a reviewer of this Stax system); you just get swept up in the music, because it is played with such grace and verve.

There is a stillness and a calming effect to listening to this pairing that’s not just Zen-like, but physiologically significant. I am prone to bouts of grinding my teeth (bruxism) at night when stressed, waking up with headaches and an aching jaw as a result. Maybe it’s coincidence, but every time I listened to some Beethoven or some Miles Davis through this Stax system, no matter how much stress I dealt with during the day, I slept soundly, and woke free from headaches, jaw aches, or having a mouthful of freshly-squeezed tooth. Sadly, we can’t prescribe this medically (“take two earspeakers and call me in the morning”), but the nature of the Stax’s poised sound makes it the perfect stress-buster, and considerably less ‘om-y’ than other methods.

Eventually, when you get past being enthralled by the sound of the system, you can begin to point to its strengths. The most obvious is the speed of delivery, and it’s that speed that makes you so enthralled with music. Listening to Richard Thompson’s guitar playing requires a system that can translate his dexterity, or potentially ruin the performance. Here, the Stax pair shine, and it’s like the man is playing live in your listening room. That speed doesn’t just apply to fast folk guitarists, it is needed universally; when you experience it, it’s hard to break away from its thrall. Other systems – even supposedly fast ones – sound sluggish by comparison.

Stax Lambda designs are traditionally placed in the ‘light, but fast’ camp, but the combination of SR-L700 and SRM-006tS Kimik 2 adds some muscle and heft to the bottom end. Let’s put this into context; organ music lovers and people who sign off emails with ‘Yours, in dub” are unlikely to see the Stax as bringing enough muscle to the bass, but this is about precision, not just power and paunch. The Stax combination has a fast, deep, and dry bass, more than good enough to keep most listeners happy. And those who seek fast-paced EDM tracks will need to work out whether they prefer the speed and resolution to parse those fast bass beats against ‘phatness’. Personally, I think I’d go with the Stax sound, because when I’m not playing Squarepusher or Autechre, I might be playing Mahler or Mozart, and I’ll take the clarity and refinement the Stax bring to the sound every time.

There is a good stereo stage, too, far more in line with conventional loudspeaker systems than many personal audio rigs. There is little sense of ‘lateralisation’ of instruments, and instead there’s a sense of scale and image width, and even solidity of instruments within a virtual stage. This is, I suspect dependent on the energiser, and it’s here where the latest Kimik modifications help improve the size and precision of that staging. Dynamic range is also predominantly a function of the energiser, and this scores high marks, too.

In absolute terms, the next step up the ladder gives you even more. In that respect, we are dealing with a ‘SR-009 Jr’ here, and the difference between the Junior version and the SR-009 proper is like the difference between having your car cleaned and having it professionally detailed. There is a level of resolution that is hinted at here, which the SR-009 (and a handful of rivals) lay open for inspection.

However, I can’t help but think this pairing of products represents the Goldilocks zone for electrostatics, and possibly for personal audio in a wider context. There are better, more detailed, more transparent, and more dynamic electrostatic designs out there, many of which have a Stax badge. All of which are more expensive; some, an order of magnitude more expensive. And, while these more expensive electrostatic designs do justify their place in the audio pantheon, it’s hard not to listen to the Stax SR-L700 and SRM-006tS Kimik 2 without hearing the phrase ‘the law of diminishing returns’. Although this law is said not to apply to audio (usually said by audio enthusiasts trying to justify spending the cost of a small yacht on a cartridge), I think there is a point beyond which improvements come in small increments at substantial price increases, and I think this pair comes in just on the right side of that point of inflexion. They have a synergy that makes the combination just magical, and hour upon hour of musical enjoyment are the result. For that alone, they would receive strong recommendation, but that they make this truly graceful, poised sound without the kind of lofty price tags one normally expects with high-grade high-end sound, means they are simply a must-hear.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

SR-L700

Type: Push-pull oval sound element, open-back, electrostatic headphone

Frequency response: 7Hz–41kHz

Electrostatic Capacitance: 110pF (including cable)

Impedance: 145kOhms nominal (including cable)

Sensitivity: 101dB/100V rms @ 1kHz

Maximum Sound Pressure: 118dB/400Hz

Bias Voltage: 580V DC

Weight: 496g (with signal cables)

Price: £1,195

SRM-006tS ‘Kimik 2’

Type: Vacuum tube output stage Low noise dual FET input Class A operation, Pure balanced DC earspeaker energiser 

Vacuum Tubes: 2×6QF7/6CG7

Inputs: two stereo single-ended (via RCA jacks), one stereo balanced (via dual 3-pin XLR jacks) 
Outputs: one RCA parallel output, five pin balanced headphone socket (×2)

Frequency response: DC – 80kHz, +0dB, -3dB

THD+N: Max. 0.02%, (1kHz, 100V rms) 

Gain: 60dB (x1000) 

Rated Input Level: 100mV/100V outputs

Maximum Input Level: 30V rms at min. volume

Maximum Output Level: 300V rms (1kHz)

Dimensions (H×W×D): 103×195×375mm

Weight: 3.4kg

Price: £1,395

Price (as complete package): £2,495

Manufacturer: Stax Ltd

URL: stax.co.jp

UK Distributor: Symmetry

Tel: +44 (0)1727 865488

URL: symmetry-systems.co.uk

Magnepan 30.7 four‑panel dipolar planar loudspeaker system

The White Bear Lake, Minnesota-based loudspeaker manufacturer Magnepan never takes the launch of a new flagship model lightly and this is especially true in the case of the recently released four-panel 30.7 dipolar loudspeaker system ($30,000/pair in the US). For readers who have never seen Magnepan loudspeakers in the flesh, it helps to know that they are tall, wide, thin, and completely ‘boxless’ dipolar, panel-type speakers that look much like tasteful room divider screens. I have long used Magnepan speakers in my reference system and – to be candid – visitors who see the ‘Maggies’ for the first time often find it difficult to believe they even are loudspeakers (as in, “Riiight, they’re ‘loudspeakers’ if you say so—now what are they really?”). After a few well-chosen musical tracks, however, disbelief typically turns into the good kind of shock and awe. My point: Magnepans don’t look like typical box speakers and don’t sound like them either.

For more than a decade, Magnepan’s models geared for two-channel applications have used a single, multi-driver speaker panel per channel. In earlier years, however, Magnepan offered top models such as its Tympani-series speakers (culminating in the famous Tympani IVa) that employed three vertically orientated panels per channel. In fact, the largest variant of the Tympani (the Tympani IIIa) used an astonishing total of eight panels (two tweeter/midrange panels on the left, another two on the right, and four bass panels in the middle), which meant that in most rooms it was a literal ‘wall-to-wall’ loudspeaker.

While undeniably legendary in their day, the Tympani models required very careful set-up and equally careful selection of ancillary components in order to sound their best. What is more, they took up so much space that they probably set records for generating spouse acceptance problems (“Look dear, you can’t seriously be planning to put those things in our lounge; not now and not ever.”). Even so, the sound of the late, lamented Tympani’s was so compelling, so realistic, and so unforgettable that enthusiasts have been pestering Magnepan ever since to create a modern-day Tympani equivalent, but updated with 21st century materials and technologies.

This is precisely where the model 30.7 comes in. The 30.7 is by far the highest performance loudspeaker Magnepan has ever made and though it is a large speaker, it seems visually more compact than the original Tympanis. Nevertheless, through extremely space efficient design the 30.7’s manage to offer fully 22% more driver surface area than did the Tympani IVa. Each 30.7 speaker consists of a large bass/lower-midrange panel and a considerably narrower midrange/tweeter panel, where the tweeter/midrange panel is designed to stand beside and a little behind its companion bass panel (this in order to achieve proper time alignment). Like most Magnepan speakers, the 30.7’s are built in mirror-image pairs, thus giving users numerous set-up options through which panels can be positioned to optimise greater imaging focus and specificity, broader and deeper soundstages, or—in the best cases—both.

The 30.7 model is so new that Magnepan has not yet published the new model’s manual nor finalised its specifications, but through discussions with Wendell Diller, Magnepan’s head of Marketing and Sales. I was able to learn much about the design. The 30.7’s large bass/lower-midrange panel, says Diller, is the same size as Magnepan’s 20.7 loudspeaker (that is, 79 × 29 × 2.062 inches or 200.7 × 73.7 × 5.2 cm—H×W×D). The tweeter/midrange panel, in turn, is the same height and depth as the bass/lower-midrange panel, but a bit more half the width (it is 16 inches or 36.8 cm wide).

Importantly, the 30.7 is Magnepan’s first-ever four-way speaker. The woofer/lower-midrange panel uses two differently sized rectangular ribbon-type planar bass drivers—an arrangement that means the two bass drivers have different diaphragm resonances thus yielding a smoother response curve overall. The smaller bass driver features—along its outward facing side—an also rectangular quasi-ribbon-type “transitional line-source driver” that covers lower midrange frequencies. Interestingly, the smaller bass driver and the lower-midrange line-source driver share a common diaphragm membrane, but use entirely separate voice coils, each optimised for its assigned frequency range. The drivers in the bass/lower-midrange panel use front and rear magnet arrays, just as do the drivers in the 20.7 loudspeaker—a design touch said to increase efficiency while minimising distortion.

The tweeter/midrange panel features Magnepan’s signature pure-ribbon linear tweeter widely regarded as one of the finest high frequency transducers in the world. The tweeter is positioned alongside a tall and relatively narrow ribbon-type planar midrange driver that introduces an all-new, proprietary, and ultra-low mass diaphragm material, which Diller says helps to make this by far the fastest and most responsive midrange driver Magnepan has ever produced. The midrange driver, like the other quasi-ribbon drivers in the speaker, uses front and rear magnet arrays. First order (6dB per octave) crossover networks are used throughout, with part of the network built into the bottom of the bass/lower-midrange panel and part built into the bottom of the midrange/tweeter panel.

By dividing its workload between four groups of drivers—a set of two planar woofers, a transitional line source lower-midrange driver, an extremely low-mass midrange driver, and a pure ribbon tweeter—the 30.7 aims, says Diller, to provide “lower mass (vs. frequency), better power response, and better bass” than any previous Magnepan design. It is also the most adjustable Magnepan ever, in that it allows separate adjustment of lower-midrange, midrange, and tweeter driver output levels and also positioning adjustments between the bass/lower-midrange panel and the midrange/tweeter panel. The good news is that the 30.7 can be made to work well in a surprisingly large variety of rooms (and to fit a broad range of listener tastes), but please note that it may take a significant time, patience, and experimentation to achieve optimal sonic results. For this reason, Magnepan requires all dealers wishing to sell the 30.7 to commit to providing the painstaking set-up and adjustment services the speaker needs and deserves.

What I hope to provide here is not so much a definitive loudspeaker review of the 30.7, but rather a preliminary assessment of its performance potential. With this goal in mind, I accepted an invitation from Magnepan to audition the speaker in the firm’s Minnesota-based sound room/development lab. During my listening session we drove the 30.7’s with an Audio Research Corporation CD6 CD player/DAC, an ARC Reference 6 preamplifier, and a pair of ARC Reference 250 valve-powered monoblock amplifiers, with entry-level Kubala-Sosna cables used. For part of the session, however, we removed the Ref 250 monoblock amps and substituted the power amplifier section of a prototype, third-party solid-state stereo integrated amplifier, mostly to see how the speakers would respond to solid-state amplification.

Beforehand, Diller positioned the 30.7 panels for ideal (and empirically verified) time alignment. In practice this meant all the panels were toed in toward the listening position, with the bass/lower-midrange panels placed near the sidewalls of the room and with the tweeter/midrange panels placed inward from the bass/lower-midrange panels and roughly six inches behind them. During the session, Diller and I made several small (yet cumulatively significant) adjustments to the various driver output levels, which helped the speaker to achieve increasingly more neutral tonal balance throughout the room. A subsequent pink noise test revealed that our efforts were largely successful, though Diller and I felt that, given more time for fine adjustments and selective application of room treatments, we perhaps could have improved further still on the speakers’ already superb sound.

My first finding was that the 30.7s are well and truly full-range loudspeakers with all the top and low-end extension one could possibly want. Many audio mavens think big dipolar speakers are incapable of producing authoritative bass reaching down into the 20 Hz range, but the 30.7s quickly dispel that notion by displaying an admirable mix of low-frequency extension, power, transient speed, and impact. These qualities were much in evidence both on recordings highlighting acoustic and electric bass instruments—for example, the subtle low frequency pipe organ modulations captured in the Tilson Thomas/San Francisco Symphony recording of the Copland Organ Symphony [SFS Media, 16/44.1] or the sharp, percussive ‘bark’ of Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller, and Victor Wooten’s electric bass guitars as heard on the ‘Lopsy Lu – Silly Putty’ medley from S.M.V’s Thunder[Heads Up, 16/44.1]. Particularly on the latter track, the 30.7’s bass clarity, snap, and punch rivalled (or surpassed) that of far more costly dynamic driver-type loudspeakers.

Next, I was struck by the terrific openness, transparency, and focus of the 30.7s, from the lower midrange right on up to the highest treble frequencies. Stated simply, this speaker is a master of textural nuance, transient acuity, and dynamic expression. Through the Maggies, then, I found myself getting delightfully caught up (and then lost) in the delicate, expressive inflections of Lyn Stanley’s voice on ‘My Funny Valentine’ from the singer’s The Moonlight Sessions, Volume One[A.T. Music, 16/44.1]. Similarly, I was inexorably drawn into the variegated timbres and modes of attack as heard from trumpeter John Adler and pianist Tracy Cowden’s respective instruments on the title track of Adler’s Confronting Inertia[Origin Classical, 16/44.1]—a track that showcases many different trumpet and piano moods ranging from whisper-quiet musical comments to bold, powerful, and dynamically dramatic statements. Two qualities that impressed me throughout were the 30.7’s effortless sense of ultra-fine resolution and superabundant transient speed from top to bottom. It’s in these areas where the 30.7 proved itself not only to be the best Magnepan ever, but one of the finest loudspeakers available at any price.

Third, I was won over by the 30.7’s remarkable to convey sonic images and soundstages that are remarkably realistic in size and scale. This is a performance parameter where the 30.7’s handily outperform all but the largest, most capable, and typically most expensive dynamic driver-type loudspeakers. Part of this results from the 30.7s uncommonly good power response throughout the listening space—something I was able to verify by walking around the listening space while observing the remarkable smoothness and evenness of the Maggies’ overall sound across multiple locations. Part is also attributable to the speaker’s sheer size; these are large, dipolar, linear array speakers whose drivers produce sound everywhere from a few inches to more than six feet above floor level. The result is a speaker that can produce realistically (but not exaggeratedly) tall, broad, and deep soundstages with a just-right degree of imaging specificity and focus.

To appreciate what I mean, listen to the 30.7’s rendition of ‘Aphrodite’ from Robert Paterson’s The Book of Goddesses [America Modern Recordings, 16/44.1], which shows the Maya ensemble’s distinctive combination of flute, harp, and percussion instruments performing in a richly reverberant recording space. Through the Maggies, the instruments sound realistic (in timbre, dynamics, and overall scale) and so too does the space; it’s a true three-dimensional treat. Another great example would be the Jamey Haddad, Lenny White, and Mark Sherman percussion trio’s performance of the vibrant and intensely syncopated track ‘Stank’ from Explorations in Space and Time[Chesky, 16/44.1]. In this case, the listener hears the interplay of three master percussionists performing on a wide array of instruments as recorded in the interior of a church. The 30.7 renders each of the instruments’ voices with impressive purity and realism, but it’s the interaction of those voices with the acoustics of the church that invites the listener to suspend disbelief and be transported to the time and place where the recording was made.

In practical terms, 30.7 ownership does entail a few caveats. First, the four-panel speaker is comparatively wide and will not fit in every room. Note, however, that it is possible to place the bass/lower-midrange panels directly against the sidewalls of the room with no adverse effects, meaning this speaker system could conceivably be used in rooms as narrow as about 13.5 feet in width. Second, the speaker requires careful set-up and adjustment in most rooms in order to sound its best. This isn’t a simple ‘set it and forget it’ design; instead, it takes time and patience to tease out its highest levels of performance. Third, this is a speaker that sounds best from a single, central listening position; move from that and the speaker’s uncanny three-dimensionality and imaging focus will fall off considerably. But sit in the middle seat and you will find your self in the centre of the sonic ‘promised land’.

Magnepan’s 30.7 is in my view a landmark design—one that does all things well and some things (textural and transient nuances, three-dimensionality, and realistic image scale) extraordinarily well. While $30,000 is a lot to pay for any pair of loudspeakers, the fact is that the 30.7s deliver sound quality competitive with (and in some respects superior to) loudspeakers ranging from two to nearly ten times their price. This means the 30.7 is at once an expensive product that also offers exceptional value for money! If you have the chance, I urge you to hear Magnepan’s 30.7, if only to experience what a world-class $30,000 loudspeaker system can really do.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Type: Four-way, four-panel, quasi-ribbon/pure-ribbon dipolar planar loudspeaker (each speaker includes a large bass/lower-midrange panel and a smaller midrange/tweeter panel)
Driver complement (per speaker): two quasi-ribbon bass drivers, one quasi-ribbon ‘transitional line source’ lower-midrange driver, one quasi-ribbon midrange driver with ultra-low-mass diaphragm, and one pure-ribbon high frequency driver.
Frequency response: 20Hz–40kHz
Impedance: 4 Ohms
Dimensions (H×W×D): 200.7 ×73.7×5.2 cm, bass/lower-midrange panel; 200.7 x 36.8 x 5.2 cm, midrange/tweeter panel

Finishes:

Frame: Wood: Natural or black solid oak, dark cherry
Aluminium: Silver, Black, Red, or Blue.
Fabric: Off-white, black, and dark grey
Price: $30,000/pair in the US; UK and EU prices were not yet established as of this writing

Manufacturer: Magnepan Incorporated

Tel: +1 (651) 426-1645

URL: magnepan.com

UK Distributor: Decent Audio Sound Distribution

Tel: +44(0)5602 054669

URL: decentaudio.co.uk

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TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Manufacturer: Magnepan Incorporated

UK Distributor: Decent Audio Sound Distribution

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