TESTED: Loiminchay Chagall Loudspeaker

An Act of Passion

The Chagall is available with a ceramic tweeter, at lower cost, but the diamond tweeter increases the upper limits of the response from 28kHz to a measured response in my room that was well above 35kHz. Obviously, no one can hear frequencies this high and the ability to sense them in ways that are relevant to musical listening is extremely debatable. What you can hear is an extremely smooth, resonance-and-peak-free treble, with no roughness or hardness at audible frequencies, but excellent detail, low-and-high-level dynamics, life, and air.

The other drivers include a 6.8” ceramic driver and 8.6” ceramic woofer. This woofer is small for a speaker in this price category, but it seems to be an excellent driver for its size and is mounted on a one-inch-thick concrete plinth, which Loiminchay says is “wrapped with high-quality leather for a remarkably nonresonant driver platform with response down to a Stygian 28Hz.”

Once again, these drivers are unconventional in design and, while I have no way to validate Loiminchay’s claims, are chosen to have a major impact on sound quality. Their ceramic membranes are exceptionally hard and rigid, “enhancing speed and delivering an accurate impulse response.” They have a stiffness/weight ratio which is only surpassed by diamond materials, and they have very high “internal sound velocity,” important in pushing up the breakup frequency and extending the driver’s linear range.

The drivers also have a concave shape designed to yield a wide and uniform energy distribution, which the driver manufacturer feels is far more important than high on-axis sound pressure levels. The small “ears” on the tweeter and midrange drivers—costly to make—are intended to damp driver resonances. The front plate is heavy acoustically inert zinc, rather than plastic or aluminum.

The speaker is designed to be bi-wired and has silver internal wiring. Overall response is stated to be 28Hz–35kHz with a nominal impedance of 8 ohms and sensitivity of 89dB. (My guess is that it is less sensitive than this, but a high-current amp with power levels of 100 watts or more should be adequate to produce loudness levels that will drive sane audiophiles out of any reasonably sized listening room.) The crossover uses Mundorf capacitors from Germany, Clarity capacitors from North Wales in the U.K., and custom-specified vdH silver conductors. The crossover frequencies are 700Hz for the woofer, and 2.5kHz for the midrange, which should ensure that none of the drivers is strained by trying to overextend its frequency range.

Two other key features are separate rear controls that allow the user to adjust midrange and bass response. These controls change the drivers’ output from -2dB to +2dB (in 1dB steps) for a tonal balance that best suits the room and listening position. I would strongly recommend you pay attention to their setting if you audition the Chagalls, and get the dealer to demonstrate what they can do. The ability to compensate for room/speaker interaction is critical. Having the dealer demonstrate them will be even more important if you buy the speakers. Loiminchay provides some of the best, real-world speaker placement instructions I’ve seen. The speaker instruction manual, however, is barebones to the point of being useless. It does not even mention these controls.

The Sound of Passion

Now we come to the sound, and I should begin with a mild confession. I did not know whether to take this speaker seriously before I actually listened to it. An exotic pen manufacturer makes speakers? A manufacturer ego trip? This is a price tag commensurate with that of Wilson, Magico, and Hansen. I thought I might have an opportunity to go back to the halcyon days of reviewing when it was possible to honestly and objectively trash a product because so many components were so eccentric and set such uncertain standards.

There is a lot of excellent competition at lower prices, and superb competition at the price of the Chagalls. The fact is, however, that the Chagalls are good enough to be taken very seriously. They provide a unique mix of sound qualities at a time when the normal bias in speaker design tends towards the lean and detailed. If you want the natural warmth of music—to feel its soul rather than analyze its parts—all of my previous comments about passion may well become more relevant.