Loudspeakers

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.

The 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.

Relaunched in mk2 guise, ELAC’s most compact two-way gets a boost from the latest generation of its iconic ‘JET’ tweeter. We fuel up the afterburners and listen at Mach 2

In the last few years audiophiles have witnessed a spate of companies celebrating 50th anniversaries, a reminder that the early 1970s were a hotbed of hi-fi development. ELAC, however, can claim a much longer heritage, having been founded in Kiel in Germany in 1926, originally as a specialist in sonar technology before expanding to consumer audio. No doubt it is working on a 100th anniversary product launch – having previously marked 90 years with the Miracord 90 turntable [HFN Jul ’17] – but in the meantime it has delivered an update to its Vela series of loudspeakers.

2024 edition of Magico’s s5 floorstander goes bigger... and better?

Magico says its new S5 loudspeaker ‘continues what began’ with the S3 2023 model [HFN May ’24], leveraging new design and test technologies at its Californian R&D facility. These include a Klippel Near-Field Scanner to fully quantify its on and off-axis responses, and a laser vibrometer to identify and minimise vibrations in its 1.21m-tall, 118.8kg cabinet.

The ‘ultimate version’ of B&W’s 700 series flagship gets the Signature treatment, including two bespoke colour options

It’s only about two years ago that Bowers & Wilkins introduced the S3 generation of its 700 series. A major overhaul of the venerable British brand’s popular midrange offering, its attention-grabbing improvements included a notably curvier front baffle with protruding drivers (housed in ‘pods’) and an elongated tube for the ‘Tweeter-on-Top’. This was all quite familiar for anyone who saw the earlier revamped 800 D4 series, so B&W isn’t being untruthful when it claims to deploy trickle-down technology.

Smallest of a four-strong range of innovative MFB (Motional Feedback) loudspeakers, Philips’ AH585 was in production from 1972-82. How does it fare today?

The Philips Motional Feedback (MFB) loudspeaker has been mentioned a number of times in these pages over recent years. The company achieved considerable success with both its first- and second-generation models, including the 22RH544, but in the UK at least, the third generation is less commonly encountered. The AH585 seen here is the smallest of three consumer speakers, the others being the similar but larger AH586 and the three-way AH587.

A decade since the S3 was launched, and then surpassed by the MkII, this three-way has been reborn with trickledown tech from Magico’s flagship M9 loudspeaker
The latest version of Magico’s S3 speaker, which was first reviewed in these pages a decade ago [HFN Nov ’14], isn’t what you’d call a mild refresh. Just as the company’s MkII version was a major reworking of the original, so this new arrival has been comprehensively redesigned, drawing both on the technology of the flagship M9 model and the measurement abilities of Magico’s enhanced development tools. It’s yours for a couple of pounds short of £57,000 a pair in the five powder-coat M-Cast finishes Magico offers, or £66,000 in a choice of six high-gloss M-Coat shades, including the striking blue colourway pictured here.