Displaying items by tag: speaker - StereoLife Magazine

Bryston is a Canadian company based in Peterborough, Ontario. It dedicated the last 35 years to the design and production of modern electronic equipment intended for both individual customers and professional studios. The common denominator of all the projects is high quality and legendary reliability. Bryston ensures that its engineers are not constrained in their work by costs of particular components. The company enables them to create devices which are almost perfect and to maximize their reliability. That is why every component is tested and installed separately, each wire is cut and bent manually, each connection is soldered by hand. Every product is tested before delivery, it must work at least 100 hours in the factory. If any errors are captured, the device returns to the assembly station and is checked and tested again. No wonder Bryston gives a 20-year warranty for analogue equipment and 5-year for digital devices.

Cabasse is recognized as one of the best known loudspeaker manufacturers, and one which gives us very interesting products, especially in the high end segment. Founded in 1950 by Georges Cabasse, the firm inherited not only its creator's name, but also his genius as his special gift, a memory for sounds led him to design one of the most original and striking loudspeakers on the market. On the company's website we also found that Cabasse's roots go back to 1740 and a luthier who crafted the first violin signed Cabasse. Interesting, isn't it? And what about the present day? To learn more about that we conducted an interview with Delphine Dall.

Gradient is a company which may not have the widest offer and isn't trying to fight for the title of the largest speaker manufacturer in the world, but offers some of the most interesting models on the market. Moreover, there are no exceptions to this rule - each set from Finnish factory is something special, unique, and sometimes even a little odd. In the entire history of the brand there wasn't a single moment when someone decided to design just an ordinary speaker with ported MDF enclosure, several dynamic drivers, all without any frills. Gradient is always a guarantee of original, interesting vision. In the current offer we have Evidence floorstanding speakers, entirely covered with a grille, Revolution dipole sets with a triangular mid-high module and Helsinki 1.5, which are totally crazy. At a glance you know that these are not standard speakers. However, a person who thinks that Finnish designers create these sets under the influence of strong drugs, and their sole purpose is to draw attention at the exhibitions, is completely wrong. All these inventions have a strong theoretical and practical background, and the fact that the company has existed since 1984 confirms the effectiveness of their actions.

Among the speakers we can distinguish some types made for specific applications, such as center channels, wireless active speakers or subwoofers. Each has its place in a stereo or home theater, but their makers rarely focus on a particular type of speaker. Manufacturers try to satisfy every customer and offer everything, including these very specific products. There are several specialized factories among which subwoofer specialists tend to be the strongest group. REL was founded in 1990 by Richard Edmund Lord.

Audiovector is one of the most recognizable Scandinavian loudspeaker manufacturers with a true legacy and dozens of awards. They participate in all major events, and now intensively develop active wireless speakers. The company has over 22,000 fans on Facebook and keeps up with various technological innovations. If you truly want to discover the philosophy of the company, you have to meet its founder - Ole Klifoth. This friendly man has been running the company for 37 years with the help from his son, Mads. In addition to the audio equipment, he's also interested in Scandinavian and American literature, and in his spare time he listens to jazz, rock and blues in a wooden house, deep in the woods.

In the era of D/A converters, streamers and amplifiers, which work almost on the basis of the perpetual motion, the loudspeakers are the last bastion of conservatives. Of course the manufacturers of speakers experiment with new materials. They work on improving improve the performance of magnets, coils and crossovers. If someone is more inventive than the rest, they install ribbon drivers, transmission lines or passive radiators, but still - the market of loudspeakers remains very classic. Most audiophile sets are based on the ideas born a few decades ago. There is nothing wrong with that, unless the engineer is able to do everything right, according to the best practices. Xavian is a Czech factory founded 17 years ago by Roberto Barletta. It is one of those companies who adhere to the great traditions of building speakers. Barletta's name doesn't sound very Czech, because he is a purebred Italian who emigrated north because of his wife. However the change of residence didn't took away the long-standing passion of building speakers.

In the times of rampant digitization and the pursuit of better sound recording formats, it's important to remind ourselves of solutions that effectively resist being relegated to the past. Sometimes we get the impression that all the modern solutions create an ever greater need to escape to a world in which one can appreciate things such as turntables, vintage hi-fi and of course - tube amplifiers. There are few music lovers who have tried tubes and emerged from this experience without any emotion. This technology offers a unique sound, but on the other hand it is difficult to deny that there is something magical in these devices. Most of them are eye-catching and look beautiful, and if we add the Italian sense of style to this puzzle, we get exactly what Unison Research has been offering for years.

Audiophiles rarely agree with one another. They even divide their community into various groups that are sometimes incomprehensible even to their members. The same kind of sound can be a true discovery for some people and a complete failure to others. Examples of such situations can be multiplied indefinitely. Therefore we found it quite strange and unique that everyone seemed to speak one voice about one of last year's exhibition at Audio Show in Warsaw. Especially remarkable that show's visitors emphasized the sonic excellence of loudspeakers made by so little known manufacturer from Poland. The name of the main company is Audiothlon but it has two brands under its wings. Historically the first one was Enerr, making power cables, conditioners and accessories. The second brand is Equilibrium making speaker and interconnect cables, and whole loudspeakers. While the cables are fairly well known and have been reviewed a couple of times, speakers evolved rather quickly. We couldn't wait to see them in the final form. The Ether Ceramique is the pinnacle among the speakers designed to fit normal and smaller listening rooms.

France is known not only for automobiles, excellent cuisine, high fashion and jammed streets of Paris. It is also one of the most important countries on the audiophile map of the world. It's the birthplace of brands such as Triangle, Lavardin, Lecontoure, Atoll, Devialet, Cabasse, Micromega, YBA, Fadel Art or Jadis. However, one of the most meaningful companies in the area of the speakers and accessories is Focal. And we are not talking only about the French, but worldwide market. Now this company, which a few years ago was known as JMLab, has several production centres. Collectively they occupy an area comparable to small refinery.

Hi-end world may seem mysterious and bizarre, but when you understand some mechanisms and taste the close contact with the music, it is not hard to get involved in this hobby. Even cables and power conditioners are of major importance for the owners of hi-end audio systems. However the speakers are the most important element. To climb higher naturally we look for the ones which are more professional and refined. It's hard not to notice that the majority of speakers available on the market look roughly the same. Many manufacturers offer big, three-way speakers with four classic drivers, high gloss finish and leather, metal or glass accents. Woofers can be placed on the front, on the sides or on the bottom of the enclosure. Treble can come from a dome, ribbon or other stuff and so on, but the problem is that most speakers apply ventilated enclosures, which is too boring and obvious for many audiophiles. Instead, you can choose the electrostatics and magnetostatics, but it requires a lot of courage to make sacrifices in interior design. It may turn out that the best place for them is right in the center of the listening room. Additionally there is a need to purchase an amplifier with a very high output power.