Famous Klipsch Fives powered loudspeaker

 Klipsch’s new powered loudspeaker will knock your listening room for six, says a deeply impressed David Price

Part of Klipsch’s Heritage Wireless series, The Fives sets out to give a tiny taste of what it’s like to own a grown-up Klipsch without having to drop  on the La Scala AL5.

 Whether you’re an old-school wired-for-sound audiophile touting a 3.5mm-to-RCA phono lead, a smartphone-wielding Bluetooth dude, or a digital fanatic with a Tos link cable, you can make music play through this speaker. Plus The Fives connects to your TV via HDMI-ARC (Audio Return Channel), so you can switch between the audio sources hooked up to your screen (like games consoles, etc.) – in effect making it a superior sound bar. 

NEW LISTENING EXPERIENCE KAYA S12

 NEW Vivid Audio Kaya S12 speakers on demonstration at SIX Audio Piano Black or Pearl White finish as standard, other finishes are available on request at additional cost.

KAYA S12 is even more an accessible way to bring the transformative Vivid Audio approach to the music you love the most.

Monitor Audio Bronze 100 BEST VALUE BOOKSHELF LOUDSPEAKER

 The panel said: “Monitor Audio has built an enviable reputation for superb small loudspeakers, winning the EISA Award for its bookshelf model last year and building on this performance for its latest, sixth generation series in 2020.

 

They’re admirable performers across a wide range of musical styles, with a killer combination of bass weight and sweet treble from the brand’s in-house-designed Ceramic-Coated Aluminium Magnesium (C-CAM) drivers and a reflex port ‘rifled’ for smoother airflow.”

System Audio Legend 5 Silverback WIRELESS LOUDSPEAKER

 The panel said: “They’reactive, with dedicated amplification for each drive unit, and become wireless when you add the full-function Stereo Hub or third-party transmitter.

SVS Prime Pinnacle BEST LOUDSPEAKER Subwoofer and Elevation Speaker

 The panel said: “Sitting at the top of the SVS Prime range, this classically styled floor standing model is of simple design and construction, yet delivers a clear, crowd-pleasing performance not least due to its trio of 16.5cm bass drivers and rear-facing ports.

 The woofers are drawn from the company’s Ultra Tower flagship model and ensures music driven by bass and percussion is always thrilling, just as the midland and treble are crisp and sweet.”

Focal Chora 826 Floor Standing Speaker

 The panel said: “At the heart of the Chora 826 is a new ‘Slatefibre’ driver, for speed and bass extension, and the speaker has a sound that’ll make you want to keep on  listening, with both bass weight, treble clarity and sparkle. It’s also easy to set up and position, will work with modest amplification and sounds good in almost any room.”

ATC SCM19 Bookshelf Speakers

If one bookshelf loudspeaker would ever be picked to represent the values and advantages of the category, that model should be the ATC SCM19 v2.

Classic two-way design, the SCM19 is rare in this group as it’s a closed box or infinitebaffle type. This means the cabinet has no bass port, which reduces sensitivity and/or bass extension. Yet fans of this design argue that it confers time domain benefits, especially a tighter and tauter bass. ATC is famous for making its own drive units, and here has fitted its 25mm SH25-76 tweeter, which is a tough soft dome design with a dual suspension system to suppress resonance. 

A powerful neodymium magnet is specified, and there’s a 5.5mm rigid alloy wave guide. This crosses over to a long-throw 150mm mid/bass unit with a heavy magnet system and tacky (as in sticky) doped fabric cone. The crossover features metalised polypropylene capacitors, large air-cored inductors and ceramic wire-round resistors. Sound quality The SCM19 is one of the best rock loudspeakers here, but has strength in depth so can make pretty much any type of program material fun.

JBL 4312G 3-way Studio Bookshelf Loudspeakers

Stretching the stand-mount definition to its outer limits, the massive 4312G is a direct descendant of the seventies 4310 and 4311 monitors, harking back to when big speakers like Linn’s Isobarik and Yamaha’s NS-1000M sat on low stands.

 A large internal cabinet volume and bass reflex loading makes for high efficiency – in this case 90dB. Its large 300 mm paper coned bass driver shifts large amounts of air with more ease than a smaller driver, and the three-way design sports a 125 mm polymer coated, pulp coned mid-range driver and 25 mm magnesium/aluminium dome tweeter.

Neat Acoustics Ministra Bass is surprisingly well extended.

Featuring the same ribbon tweeter and bass / mid-range drive units as the Ekstra , the Ministra is an extremely compact iso-baric model. 

The idea is to keep the air pressure behind the front driver consistent, fooling it into behaving as though it is working in a larger enclosure, with all the benefits in bass extension and dynamics that implies.

Spendor A1 compact bookshelf loudspeaker

 This is one of two speakers we’re looking at in short order that make use of design thinking that dates back decades.

Taking its name in the seventies with its highly innovative BC1 and a BBC-licensed version of the LS3/5a compact monitor, Spendor has always been voiced to be subtle yet revealing, rather than machine-gun the sound out at you. This might be the company’s entry level stand-mount, but its appeal hasn’t been diluted one little bit. The A1 is tiny, modestly presented and has no gimmicks. At its heart is a 150mm EP77 ‘engineering polymer’ mid/bass unit and a 22mm fabric dome tweeter. 

SVS Ultra Bookshelf wide sound-stage

Superb clarity, classy looks, a wide sound-stage and an unbelievable low end. The SVS Ultra is the Best Bookshelf speaker.

It might be one of the least expensive in the group, but it promises a lot for the money Sporting a gloss black cabinet that’s been crafted into an unusual and interesting wedge shape, the Ultra has a single 25 mm aluminium dome tweeter and 165mm composite glass fibre mid  bass driver bolted flush to its front baffle. Meanwhile, its Sound Match two-way crossover employs premium grade capacitors, air-core inductors and heavy-trace printed circuit boards. The cabinet’s use of non-parallel panels is said to reduce standing waves.

Acoustic Energy AE500

 

 Acoustic Energy is bound to ping up on the radar. Its iconic AE1 from the late eighties pretty much made the case for the existence of the breed. The AE500 has little in common with this icon in technical terms, aside from its clear philosophical approach.

Despite being the joint least expensive product here along with the SVS Ultra Bookshelf – this is one of the  with good-quality components. 

The refl ex-loaded cabinet is conventionally shaped, but uses the company’s Resonance Suppression Composite material in effect, constrained layer damping. Its panels are 18mm thick and there’s a choice of piano gloss white or black, and American walnut wood veneer, plus a magnetic grille is supplied. Its rear-fi ring slotted refl ex port lets it work up close to rear walls. It’s of average sensitivity in this group not as power hungry as the ATC or Spendor.

Focal Chora 816 Floor Standing Speaker

The Chora 816 model is a 2.5-way bass-reflex floor-standing loudspeaker from France measures 303mm high by 388mm wide by 102.3mm deep. 

It also comes with its own floor stands, each with four spiked feet, that bolt to the bottom of the handsome dark wood veneered cabinets.. Its woofer and mid-range/bass speaker driver, both equipped with the Slate-fiber cone, work in perfect harmony for a voluptuous sound reproduction and a perfect bass impact. The sound finds its full dimension in your listening room, with a dynamic mid-range and remarkable power handling.

The surround linking the dome to its stand uses a memory foam material called Poron. This surround is directly derived from the Utopia’s famous Beryllium tweeter and reduces distortion by a 3rd between 2,000Hz and3,000Hz, the ear’s high-sensitivity range. The specialization and really low directional of the inverted dome allow silky trebles to be heard from any point in your listening room.

Elac BS243.4 Carina Premium Bookshelf Speakers

Carina Series  Premium Bookshelf Speakers Elac BS243.4

The new Carina Elac BS243.4  series matches fresh visual elegance with remarkable sound to bring you what promises to be a replacement classic in ELACs lineup.Building upon its performance, Carina continues ELAC’s tradition of utilizing the JET tweeter, chosen for its amazing clarity, dynamics and attack. To match this capability, a replacement in-house developed proprietary compound curvature aluminum coned woofer is seamlessly blended via a classy multi-element xover to supply an organic life like sound experience. Fresh looks, fresh sound; the new Carina is destined to further enhance ELACs class leading reputation.

Bookshelf Speaker Q Acoustics 3030i

Q Acoustics 3030i shelf speaker is the latest addition to the Award-winning Q Acoustics 3000i range.

3030i shelf speaker often  loudspeaker that won’t be easily spotted for the fine proposition it's , 

amongst a herd of rivals that s though to form a small two-way loudspeaker stand out, visually or sonically – but that’s the point with Q Acoustics 3030i. Rather than stand out as an acoustic hooligan, it’s a model of poise and correctness.

The planning approach employed by Q Acoustics is entirely conventional, mounting a bass/midrange unit and tweeter during a compact cabinet measuring 200mm wide, 320mm high and 313mm deep, the grille and rear terminals adding 16mm. With spade or bare wire connection depth is unaltered, but 4mm banana plugs protrude rearwards as always. With a rear port alittle amount of room needs to be left behind in any case, but not much – a couple of inches or centimetres will do.