By Robert Harley
The most transparent and lifelike sound I heard at this—or perhaps any—show was produced by the insanely exotic Symposium Acoustics Panorama loudspeakers driven by Emotive Audio electronics and augmented by Symposium’s vibration-control products.

The giant ribbon speakers look like props from a 1950’s science-fiction movie, but the sound they produced was utterly transparent, effortless, and spookily real-sounding. The system seemed to disappear in way that you have to hear to believe.

Despite the exotic technology, the loudspeakers are priced at $60k.

By Jacob Heilbrunn
Symposium’s Peter Bizlewicz was demoing his planar Panorama loudspeaker. I can’t claim credit for finding this speaker.

Jonathan Valin excitedly instructed me that I had to hear it. He was right.

Its fit ‘n finish need a little work, but it sounded superlative. Few planars, which are notorious for their inefficiency, can produce that vivid and pellucid a sound.

Bizlewicz’s did. The hand-tweaked crossover is a thing of beauty, with oil capacitors and inductors strategically placed.

I’d prefer an active crossover, but Bizlewicz claims the sound is more coherent with a single amplifier driving a passive crossover. It’s hard to quarrel with him after listening to his speaker.

By Jonthan Valin
From the midbass up, this fabulously transparent stereo system made the most lifelike sound at RMAF on classical and folk music.

I thought I’d heard the most transparent speaker on earth in the MAGICO Mini II. Now…well, I’m not sure. I’d have to compare the Minis and the Panoramas side-by-side, which I hope to do.

I can say this with certainty, this odd-looking duck—the product of decades of R&D—using large, proprietary ribbon-like planar-magnetic drivers, as well as a true ribbon tweeter, and large transmission-line bass towers made everything else at RMAF sound vaguely (and sometimes grossly) colored.

Save for the low bass, which was quite wonderful in its own right but a little soft (this may have been due to a broken wire leading  to a driver), the Panaroma just disappeared as a sound source, leaving behind one of the most realistic reproductions of voice, violin, piano, and guitar I’ve ever heard.

The sound was phenomenally pure, but do remember that I only auditioned the Panorama on select cuts of mostly small-scale music. How it fares on large-scale music awaits testing. Symposium’s chief designer Symposium’s Peter Bizlewicz has certainly made something special (and so have Emotive Audio’s Carl and Fred Volz).

How special? We shall see. Read more from Rocky Mountain Audiofest 2007.

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