Of course, that’s all very well for acoustic recordings, but the Diptyque is just as impressive when it comes to communicating the layering and trickery of studio recordings and modern music. Instrumental or vocal placement, manufactured depth or pan-potting take on an explicit clarity that add to their purpose and impact.
“A flower?”
Whether it’s the vocal interjections, platform noises and announcements and swirling keyboards of ‘Supper’s Ready’ (the Genesis 1970-75 SACD/DVD box-set) or the natural instrumental spread and spacing on Christina Pluhar’s Music For A While (with L’Arpeggiata, Erato 0190295250843) the Reference IIs really deliver both the effect and the intent (natural or contrived) – a startling interjection or atmospheric backdrop, the presence, chemistry and energy of a perfectly drilled ensemble. It’s no accident that my return to the music of my misspent youth should coincide with the presence (and yes, the pun is intentional) of the Diptyque speakers, their scale and spatial discrimination a perfect match for the layered grandiosity and complexity of pomp rock – especially in its more thoughtful, inventive and subtle incarnations.
Two qualities that often seem inseparable are ‘scale’ and ‘impact’. With box speakers that reflects a natural link between bandwidth and dynamics, where you need a commensurately large enclosure to do both convincingly. You can get bandwidth out of a small box – but not along with dynamics. The converse is true too: small boxes can do dynamics – but not if you expect bandwidth as well.
The situation with di-poles is somewhat different. As I’ve already intimated, the Diptyques do expansive scale, depth and dimensionality with an almost contemptuous ease, a function of the way they drive (and involve) the listening room’s air and acoustic character. Dynamics, speed and impact are a different matter. The challenge presented by the distance between the voice-coil and the magnets in a planar magnetic array has historically robbed most planar-magnetic speakers of the sudden dynamics and sheer impact possible with dynamic drivers. More recently, that has changed. Neodymium magnets (as used in most of the Clarisys speakers) have increased the magnets’ power and ‘reach’, while the cross push-pull topology of the Reference IIs bass panel is another approach, specifically designed to overcome this challenge. Even so, extracting maximum dynamic range and response from modern di-poles still demands careful attention paid to system and set-up.
Fortunately, the Reference II’s electrical characteristics are benign. As mentioned above, it offers a genuine 4Ω load, with a minimum impedance is 4.2 Ω and a maximum at 6.16Ω. The impedance plot might best be described as gently undulating, rather than the familiar, jagged outline, resembling the profile of some particularly vicious, alpine Tour de France stage. That in turn, opens up the range of amplifier options. You don’t need an amplifier or amplifiers with super load tolerance and the ability to laugh in the face of short circuits. But, while you can drive the Diptyques with amps offering moderate output, there’s no escaping the fact that these speakers really do enjoy (and respond to) serious power – to the extent that I’d certainly experiment with prioritising that power over absolute quality.
