Loudspeakers

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Review: Adam Smith, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Jan 19, 2025  |  First Published: Jan 01, 2025
hfnvintageThe Magnum appeared in numerous guises throughout Goodmans’ long history but this early ’90s version is arguably less well known. How does this ‘two-way’ fare today?

One frustrating aspect of being a vintage audio enthusiast is encountering those companies who love to re-use model names and numbers. If you’re a B&O fan talking about a ‘Beogram 3000’, for example, are you referring to one of the two 1960s variants, the 1970s model or the 1980s version? It’s even becoming an issue all over again with updated recreations of famous designs, like the Mission 770 loudspeaker [HFN Jun ’22] and Quad’s 33/303 pre/power system [HFN Jan ’25].

Review: Andrew Everard, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Jan 18, 2025  |  First Published: Jan 01, 2025
hfnoutstanding

The Danish brand’s flagship floorstander mixes upgraded in-house drivers with a sculpted ‘Directivity Control’ baffle

With more than 45 years of speaker-making under its belt, Dynaudio has a remarkably diverse range of product lines. There are no fewer than ten series, in fact, each featuring a stack of the company’s in-house technologies. And so it is with the Confidence 60, the £36,500 flagship of a range comprising one standmount and three floorstanders, and where ‘Everything is new, from the cabinet to the drive units’.

Review: Jamie Biesemans, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Jan 17, 2025  |  First Published: Jan 01, 2025
hfnoutstandingIf you thought that MoFi Electronics’ SourcePoint 10 [HFN Apr ’23] was a sizeable speaker, then you haven’t seen anything yet.

Sporting a trio of 200mm drivers, the new SourcePoint 888 is the company’s third outing in the loudspeaker space and something of a beast – reasonably tall at 107cm, positively stocky at 32cm wide and 41cm deep, and hefty too at 43kg.

Review: Andrew Everard, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Jan 11, 2025  |  First Published: Dec 01, 2024
hfnoutstandingThe baby of Vivid’s five-strong Kaya range weighs just 6kg but employs the same custom tweeter and core technologies that define the flagship, floorstanding Giya G1

Were it not for the enclosure design, it might be tempting to think of the Kaya S12, the smallest speaker from South Africa’s Vivid Audio, as just another standmount. But as those eye-catching looks suggest, there’s something special going on here, and the price – £6000 a pair in a choice of striking finishes, with more available to order – certainly sets expectations high.

Review: Andrew Everard, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Jan 11, 2025  |  First Published: Dec 01, 2024
hfnoutstandingFocal’s inaugural DSP-guided active loudspeaker is a true flagship, both in style, sound and under-the-skin engineering. But is this a one-off or just the start of a new range?

The latest member of Focal’s Utopia loudspeaker family is clearly cut from a different cloth – and that’s before you lay eyes on its felt cabinet wrap. Sure, at £29,995 the Diva Utopia boasts a similarly ‘high-end’ asking price to the likes of the £34,999 Scala Utopia Evo [HFN Aug ’17] and its overall styling isn’t far off its siblings either. But this is Focal’s first active loudspeaker, the result of a collaboration with Naim Audio, its stablemate brand since 2012. In fact, to call it a speaker doesn’t really do the Diva Utopia justice. It’s more like a full system inside a loudspeaker enclosure.

Review: Andrew Everard, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Dec 10, 2024  |  First Published: Jan 01, 2025
hfnoutstandingThe only standmount in Canton’s eight-strong Reference series includes the same driver and crossover tech found in its flagship Reference 1 floorstander. A chip off the block?

Although it’s relatively easy to build a large ‘cost no object’ loudspeaker worthy of a brand’s flagship, things get a little trickier when the requirement is for a compact model. Quite apart from the budget constraints – customers believe there should be a direct relationship between size and price – there’s the small matter of ‘you can’t argue with physics’ when it comes to delivering a big, room-filling sound from a smallscale enclosure.

Review: Mark Craven, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Dec 02, 2024
hfnoutstandingThe final piece in PS Audio's quartet of innovative planar magnetic loudspeakers has arrived and it's quite the cutest of the range, but is it a wolf in sheep's clothing?

Even if the title isn't familiar, you'll know The March Of Progress by Rudolph Zallinger. Published in a 1965 volume of Life Nature Library and depicting 25 million years of human evolution as a series of side-on illustrations, from the ape-like Pliopithecus to modern man, it popped into my mind when I unboxed PS Audio's Aspen FR5.

Review: Ken Kessler, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Nov 21, 2024
hfnoutstandingTo celebrate a half century of the Wilson Audio family brand, it returns to its founding and arguably most iconic loudspeaker - The WATT, with bass support from the Puppy!

Whether it be cars or guitars, anniversaries benefit small manufacturers because they present authentic marketing opportunities. One of these is a reason to release a special model while another is to declare one's provenance. You can't fake longevity, so the real value is that anniversaries cannot be 'made up' as they arrive only with the passage of time. And while it's hard to believe, 2024 marks the first half-century of Utah-based Wilson Audio Specialties, and the designated birthday cake is The WATT/Puppy you see here.

Review: Jamie Biesemans, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Oct 31, 2024
hfnoutstandingThe slimmest of Canton’s new, five-strong Reference floorstanders blends style with established technologies

Calling your speakers ‘Reference’ is quite a bold statement, but then again making grand claims is not exactly unknown in the hi-fi industry! Canton’s Reference speakers – the top-tier of Germany’s largest loudspeaker manufacturer – is the product of a fierce R&D exercise and comes seven years after the previous flagship range, Reference K, was introduced. It’s a comprehensive series to boot, comprising six models of which only one is a standmount (the Reference 9) and all others are floorstanders.

Review: Tim Jarman, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Oct 28, 2024
hfnvintageLargest of a trio of bookshelf speakers featuring diecast alloy cabinets and horn-loaded tweeters, Technics’ SB-F3 was a true high-tech compact. How does it fare today?

The smallest speaker in Technics' three-strong F series has already featured in our Vintage Review section . It was a popular product and sold in decent numbers for something that could have easily been mistaken for a mere novelty. Less well remembered were the larger members of the same family, the SB-F2 and SB-F3. Neither of these was exactly 'large', but the SB-F3 was certainly too big to be considered a miniature model like the SB-F1. It was, instead, in the class of conventional compact loudspeakers intended for shelf or stand placement, a sector where the number of competing models was far greater.

Review: Mark Craven, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Oct 25, 2024
hfnoutstandingLeveraging tech developed for Sonus faber’s flagship Suprema, its second-gen Sonetto V is all the more fragrant

Sonus faber has shown signs of branching out since its acquisition by North American company Fine Sounds - also the owner of McIntosh Group - in 2016. First, in 2019, came its Palladio architectural speakers destined to partner McIntosh custom install hardware, followed in 2022 by the Omnia all-in-one desktop speaker and the Duetto active stereo wireless models in 2023. It then kicked off 2024 with the £695,000 Suprema 2.2-channel system.

Review: Ken Kessler, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Oct 25, 2024
hfnoutstandingBigger brother to the standmount two-way Revela 1, the three-way ’2 lifts Quad’s engineering into a floorstander

Quad’s Revela 1 is a classic two-way standmount offered at £1799 per pair minus supports, or £2498 if bought as a set. The floorstanding Revela 2 tested here sells for another £1k at £3499, complete with fitted, spiked plinth. The basic technology defines both speakers, but for the Revela 2 it has been doubled up and more. The test, then, is to discover how much extra that £1000 delivers...

Review: Mark Craven, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Oct 23, 2024
hfnoutstandingFirst debuted in 2017, B&W's 705 standmount has been through three major iterations with both 2020's Series 2 and the current Series 3 being offered in 'Signature' guise

Loudspeaker brand B&W launched its first Signature model in 1991, in the shape of the (founder) John Bowers Silver Signature, and has intermittently released further Signature editions in the 30-plus years since. Well, I say intermittently - while only four more Signature speakers came in the next two decades, the 700 S3 Signature range, which also includes the 702 S3 Signature floorstander , comes hot on

Hi-Fi News Staff  |  Oct 09, 2024
Re-Imagined Watt/Puppy Speaker Returns For Brand'S Half Century

To mark its 50th anniversary, Wilson Audio has resurrected its iconic WATT/Puppy for a ninth iteration - and the first since the dual-enclosure loudspeaker was discontinued in 2011. Called, simply, The WATT/Puppy, it sells for £41,998 in standard WilsonGloss colourways, with custom and premium finish options, plus choice of grille colour, available.

Review: Jamie Biesemans, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Oct 02, 2024
hfnoutstandingThe Largest Of Q Acoustics' 5000 Series Speakers Combines Inspiration From The Concept 50 With Ideas Of Its Own

Armour Home's Q Acoustics has been busy in recent years, refreshing nearly its entire portfolio of passive and active loudspeakers, and expanding existing lines. The Concept 50 and 30 models were launched in 2022 to fill out its top-flight range, which includes the Karl-Heinz Fink-designed Concept 500 flagship , and a more affordable 5000 series appeared just before High End Munich in 2023. This didn't arrive fully complete either - the largest 5050 floorstander we're looking at here only finally debuted in the Spring of 2024.

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