I’ve already touched on the bottom-end voicing of the R25A, which certainly helps when it comes to positioning. The short ‘plinth’ also plays its part, raising the bass units away from the floor as well as providing nicely spaced and accessible spikes. I replaced the perfectly acceptable items supplied with a set of Track Audio spikes. It’s force of habit as much as anything, but the stainless steel hardware with its precision threads and locking nuts is easier to use, making set up that much more precise – and they sound better too: a small but worthwhile upgrade.
The power of two…
What does all that tell us? Don’t underestimate the potential of a really refined two-way design. The two-way format offers a number of very real potential performance benefits. If a canny designer exploits them fully, while balancing the inherent bandwidth limitations, the results can be spectacular, both in terms of speaker and system performance.
Finally, given a following wind and a basic but well-sorted, no nonsense set of electronics and speakers, it’s remarkable just how far a bit of care and attention can take you: further than you ever thought possible. It’s nothing I didn’t already know, but boy, has this system snapped that knowledge into focus and underlined it in bold. It’s a well-entrenched truism that putting together a system of ‘Best Buys’ is a sure path to failure. But that’s as much a comment on the system that selects those ‘Best Buys’ as the system that results from their combination. These are all, individually, best buy products and carefully combined they deliver astonishing results. But it’s the care that goes into binding them together that’s as important as the products themselves.
The flipside of that coin? If you don’t pay attention to the fundamentals of set up and system topology, you could well end up spending an awful lot of money on upgrades that aren’t. The performance and musical integrity of this Konus Audio/Living Voice system is hard to credit on many different levels. It looks all wrong in the flesh. It looks all wrong on paper – while the balance of expenditure seems all wrong too, once you factor the rack and cables into the budget. But hardest to believe is just how musically engaging and astonishingly satisfying it is. From the perspective of conventional wisdom, current thinking and popular advice, this set up is just WRONG. Yet listen to it and it is gloriously, unashamedly and unequivocally RIGHT. It’s a living, breathing example of what happens when you do get it right. It’s a timely reminder that the term “budget esoterica” has been misappropriated and is busily being misapplied. It’s a Michelin guide to what so many systems get wrong. It’s also the result of a happy accident. But accidental or not, this one (and its implications) will play and play.
Products and Pricing
Konus Audio Vinyle 3000 – €6,000 + tax
Konus Audio Integrale 2000 – €3,900 + tax, ea.
Living Voice Auditorium R25A:
Standard Finishes – Cherry, Maple, Walnut, Rosenut – £6,050
