Hansen Audio’s The KING V.2 Loudspeaker System

And so, with the seemingly unlikely Cadenzas, I found another dimension to the performance of this speaker. I confess that more work is to be done here. I must listen to the system with vinyl and with a range of linestages, not to mention some of the latest designs in amplifiers and cables.

The resolution herein is of such an order that differences I would have found difficult to detect (and thus requiring longer and more arduous listening sessions) just aren’t anymore. The KING’s level of coloration is just that much lower than the elements in the system that precede it.

What I can tell you that I think could be done to make the speakers even better is this: I still think the dome tweeter sounds a bit discontinuous with the speakers below it in the enclosure. True, it allows you to hear “into” the uppermost frequencies with a clarity and definition beyond that of any domes I have heard, but it does not approach the diamond tweeter I heard in the Marten Coltranes, nor does it have some of the capabilities of the Heil configuration used in the Burmester B-100s. And, true, it sounds more coherent than un- with the other drivers, but as “a string” (to quote Hansen from the interview) it is not perfectly tuned. And I am wondering about the response in the 40 to 80Hz midbass zone, which does not sound quite as quick and lively as the speaker does elsewhere in its range. And this may be a function of my decision about room placement, because I opted for best soundstage and dynamic contrast response. We shall see.

As Joe E. Brown says in his famous last line in Some Like It Hot, “nobody’s perfect,” and nothing else is either—not even perfect sound forever. But, as I see it from here, The KINGs come closer than almost all of their competition, excluding, just maybe or maybe not, those big, big expensive setups that cost more than a house in the North Carolina mountains. (I have opted not, in this review, to crosscompare the other speakers upon which I have recently reported.) The KINGs certainly set a new standard for vanishingly low coloration from a moving-coil design of my experience and, as such, let us who love the music get closer to the truth.