Soundsmith is a cooperative of designers who ply their skills under the mentoring eye of Peter Ledermann, an audio designer, inventor and former Director of Engineering at Bozak Corporation. Traditional in appearance, these two-way compacts sport a wide bandwidth 1″ soft dome tweeter and in the case of the larger Monarch a 6″ woofer (4.5″ woofer for the smaller Dragonfly). The sonics provided occasion to rejoice. Warm (but not bloated) and detailed with great dynamic punch and acceptable extension reminded me of the best compact British studio monitor tradition. Although I was sitting well off-axis, soundstaging along the long wall of the room was excellent with a strong central image featuring a Lindsey Buckingham solo recording and his incredible finger-picking technique. Unlike some screaming minis I’ve heard, the Firefly twins extolled balance. As is the case with many consumer direct companies there is a “have it your way” mindset regarding upgrades. In this instance, both Firefly models offer the option of ribbon tweeters for $700 a pair. No wonder Soundsmith promotes the motto, “We have seen the future…and we can fix it. check out Soundsmith’s product line at www.sound-smith.com.

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