Mid-Priced Loudspeakers From Emerald Physics, Kunhap, Rethm, and Westlake Audio

Emerald Physics, from Park City, Utah, had its new CS2 Controlled Directivity Speaker playing in several rooms. At just $3000, this 54-inch high open baffle panel is a two-way with a big difference. The mid/treble driver is a 1-inch compression driver mounted inside a 12-inch acoustic waveguide crossing over to a pair of 15-inch midrange/woofers at 1kHz.

An outboard DSP controller adjusts amplitude response, crossover, and time alignment (bi amping is required). Since a review is already in the works from REG, I’ll just offer a preview: Across the board the CS2 is a superb speaker that images like crazy and has wide dynamic range, extended frequency response (well into the deep bass), and natural tonal balance.

 

Priced at $5500, the Reference 3A Episode is a less expensive version of the speaker that so impressed HP a couple of issues ago. Austerely but handsomely styled in a polished birch cabinet with a sloping baffle, this two way boasts extreme transparency, with extraordinary resolution and detail, and casts a soundstage of impressive width and depth. As regards tonal balance, I found it a bit “presence y� (“presence galore,� reads one of my notes), a little overly brilliant, and somewhat lean in the hips, though this may have been a function of the room.

 

Kunhap Audio Technology, a Chinese company, is a name new to me, but with Reference Recordings’s Symphonic Dances playing through its S 860 floorstanding three way ($7000), I heard lovely strings (perhaps a tad toppy), a robust, open midrange, and a warm and balanced bottom end. Imaging and dynamic range were likewise excellent. With each driver in its own enclosure, the tweeter below the midrange, the 42-inch high array resembles a kind of squared off Robby the Robot.

 

Another unusual enclosure comes via Rethm, a Los Angeles company that manufactures in India. Its Saadhana ($7800) consists of a single custom modified Lowther DX 55 6-inch full range driver housed in a horn loaded enclosure of novel and attractive design. Though the principle advantage of a single driver is claimed to be imaging, in Las Vegas I heard merely a very wide soundstage, with something of hole in the middle, that never truly cohered (nor did I find the imaging to be otherwise particularly precise). Very midrange y, warm enough no doubt but lacking in both mid  and deep bass. Highs were also somewhat lacking, which I point out almost with some relief. All the same, the Saadhana has an enthusiastic cult following, so anyone interested in single driver speakers should check it out.

 

Westlake Audio, with feet in both the professional and consumer markets, introduced its BBSSM 6 ($8500), a large box with a difference: four drivers configured for horizontal placement. It is here pictured with Westlake’s SpeakerMuff, a foam frame intended to absorb or otherwise help eliminate diffraction effects. The sound invited none of the usual clichés of detailing and resolution; instead, completely free from any hint of audiophile razzle dazzle, it had an old fashioned honesty that I found both admirable and satisfying (Sinatra sounded like Sinatra, for example).

Next: ProAc, Angstrom, Final Sound, and King Sound

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