Displaying items by tag: amt - StereoLife Magazine

Wharfedale is one of those manufacturers that knows how to spread its ideas across several price levels without turning the more affordable ranges into stripped-down, characterless versions of its flagship designs. The Aura series is a particularly good example. It borrows heavily from technologies developed for the top-of-the-line Elysian range, but packages them in speakers aimed at a much broader audience. In terms of overall size, the Aura models remain relatively close to the popular Evo family, yet their drivers, cabinets, crossovers and bass-reflex systems have all been developed with Wharfedale's more ambitious designs in mind. This is not just a single pair of speakers, either, but a complete lineup capable of forming the basis of anything from a traditional stereo system to a full multichannel home theater. The range consists of two stand-mount models, the Aura 1 and Aura 2, two floorstanders, the Aura 3 and Aura 4, and two center-channel speakers, the Aura CS and Aura C. In other words, buyers can start with a relatively compact setup for a living room or office, move all the way up to a substantial three-way floorstander, or build a tonally consistent system for both music and movies.

Audiovector has introduced the R5 Arreté, a new floorstanding loudspeaker in the R Series, designed to sit between the slimmer R 3 Arreté and the larger R6 Arreté. The Danish brand describes it as a sweet spot between size, performance and musicality, but behind that familiar high-end phrase there is a fairly concrete idea. The R5 Arreté is the first model in the R Series to use technologies developed directly for the reference R10 Arreté. In other words, this is not simply another addition to the catalogue, but an attempt to bring flagship engineering into a loudspeaker that has a much better chance of fitting into a real listening room. It is still a very serious, hand-built Danish loudspeaker, but not a monument that demands half the living room.

Polish manufacturer of unusual loudspeakers, Qualio, has introduced the Quanteen, its first bookshelf speaker and one of the more interesting attempts to bring the open-baffle concept into a format that is easier to integrate into a smaller listening room. The brand, previously associated mainly with unconventional open-baffle loudspeakers, has prepared a model for listeners looking for a spatial, natural and unforced presentation without having to place large floorstanding speakers in the room. The Quanteen is therefore a monitor only in name and size, because its architecture clearly departs from the usual two-way speaker enclosed in a conventional box. It is a compact semi-open design in which the midrange and treble section operates as a dipole, radiating sound both forward and backward. According to the manufacturer, this solution is responsible for the three-dimensional, holographic soundstage, the reduction of colorations introduced by traditional cabinets and the greater sense of freedom usually associated with larger open-baffle loudspeakers.