All this might seem like an unwelcome level of complication, but consider this: moving the crossover outside the cabinet doesn’t just improve its mechanical isolation and the musical performance, what it does is allow the cable loom and speaker to grow with your system, by stages – and grow to a remarkable extent. I’ve experienced OBXs on the end of some seriously serious electronics and I’ve yet to hear them embarrassed. If that was true of the earlier models, it’s even more applicable to the RW4.
For the initial listening I ran a system consisting of the Kuzma Stabi M/4Point and Lyra Etna Lambda SL, TEAD The Groove /Vibe or VTL TL5.5 phono/line-stages and Jadis JA30s – 20 Watt mono-blocs running a pair of push-pull EL34s. Digital replay was from the CH Precision D1.5 with all cabling from Nordost – a combination of Heimdall 2 and Frey 2. All sensible stuff and in-line with exactly the sort of electronics you might expect to find paired with a speaker at this price – especially an easy load/high-ish efficiency speaker like this.
A game of two halves…
In many ways, this review needs to answer two questions. In the first instance, we need to know whether the RW4 is actually better than the RW3, how is it different and is the upgrade worth the price? Secondly, we need to decide just how good the RW4 is, how to get the best out of it and ultimately, just how far you can take it…
So let’s start at the beginning. With the OBX-RW3 (and it’s separate crossovers) on hand, direct comparisons are straightforward, but still require some care. Although in theory, this is a ‘simple’ crossover swap, a proper comparison still demands real care in terms of ensuring that siting the crossover and all aspects of cabling/connection, even down to the entry angle of the speaker cables, is consistent. It is surprisingly easy to hear changes in these details and thus, surprisingly easy to erode the difference in performance between two crossovers. In a home system that isn’t even a question: you work with the crossover you are using, optimise its performance and away you go. In the case of comparative reviews, keeping the performance of the two units being compared constant is a very real issue.
With those details nailed down, I started a series of close comparisons, across a range of material. Listening to the OBX-RW3 is like meeting an old friend. Its rich colours, sense of body and presence are as recognisable as they are familiar as they are enjoyable. This was always an easy speaker to listen with and always invested the music with a sense of substance and purpose. Which makes the switch to the OBX-RW4 crossovers all the more shocking…
The Lisa Batiashvili album Echoes Of Time (DGG SHM-CD UCCG-1524) and the astonishing Passacaglia from the Shostokovich Violin Concerto No.1 is the perfect example. Full of drama and a deeply expressed emotional intensity, the extreme technical demands it places on the soloist just adds depth and power in the performance. On the RW3 crossovers, the opening is big, bold and powerful, with a measured tread that is at once weighty and portentous. It sets a dark and sombre tone against which the developing layers of brass and woodwinds offer a bleak and chilly contrast, leading into the stark isolation of the solo instrument. It’s heavy and in many ways it would be easy to conclude that it’s suitably Soviet. But the piece was written in 1947, fully ten years after the momentous 5th Symphony and just as the composer was being denounced as a result of the Zhdanov Doctrine. It didn’t receive its debut performance (by David Oistrakh, Mravinsky and the Leningrad) until 1955, two years after Stalin’s death. So not exactly your archetypical Soviet work then.
Emerging from the darkness…
Swap in the RW4 crossovers and the music and the performance are instantly cast in a very different light. That opening is bolder and more dramatic, with wider dynamic range and more impact. The soundstage is more spacious and expansive, with both greater transparency and a more coherent sense of the acoustic space, The thuddy timps of the RW3 are transformed into powerful beats reflecting both the volume of the drums and texture of their skins. The beautifully subtle layering of brass and woodwinds is more affective, the different instruments easier to separate. But the real change is in the mood of the piece. The heightened drama brings a sense of brooding threat, but also something anticipatory and hopeful, green shoots that take root and sprout into the solo violin’s captivating entry. Batiashvili’s playing takes on a new articulation and clarity of line. The arc of the melody is more expressive and, as it develops, the emotional aspect in the performance becomes almost achingly intense. Swap back to the RW3 and the music suddenly sounds muddy, confused and clumsy, lacking the easy temporal, spatial and musical coherence that brings such effortless and involving clarity to the RW4. The upgraded crossover doesn’t just make for a better sounding speaker. Yes it’s more dynamic, better integrated, with significantly improved low-frequency transparency that brings a light and air to the rest of the range. It has a greater sense of presence and immediacy. But it also has a profound impact on the recorded performance as a whole. Listening to the RW4, you hear a far better soloist, playing with a far better orchestra, producing music with an emotional range and impact that far exceeds the RW3. This becomes a concert you really wish you’d attended – and of course, now you can!
