That ability to connect on a musical level is not confined to classical or acoustic music. Rock, pop or jazz produce a toe-tapping rhythmic articulation to make PRAT aficionados swoon – if only their physical extremities weren’t infested with psycho-somatic St Vitus dance. A world away from the march-time, oom-pah rhythms imposed by classic Lin/Naim rigs of yesteryear, music through the Greenwich displays a flexibility and variation, an ability to change pace and lean into or away from the strict tempo that adds enormously to the sense of purpose, expression and human agency. Play an album like Dave Alvin’s Blackjack David (Hightone/MFSL UDSACD 2007) and the range of subtle rhythmic variation, from the straight-ahead country rock of ‘Abilene’ to the reflective dismay of ‘California Snow’, the dirty blues of ‘The Way You Say Goodbye’ to the roots variations of the title track, adds depth and range to the music and the emotional context of the album. It captures the sad beauty of Billie’s vocals on Lady In Satin (Columbia CK 65144), the sure footed bass lines and easy give and take of Paul Chambers bass and Art Taylor’s drumming on ‘Good Bait’, it negotiates the sudden up-switch from Red Garland’s meandering intro to Coltrane’s frenetic cascade of notes on ‘Russian Lullaby’ without hesitation, deviation or repetition (Soultrane, Prestige 7142). There’s a temporal security and confidence to the sound of these speakers that translates directly to the music and the performance. Just as their spatial presentation is proportionally correct, their grasp of the time domain is natural and unforced, capturing pattern and placement, layers and harmonies with an uncanny clarity. They go about their business with a simplicity
In many ways, the Greenwich demonstrates exactly what you gain by eliminating the crossover – and what so many speakers lose by relying on one. But at the same time there is no escaping the fact that this is a 16L box whose drivers offer limited excursion and swept area. You can’t fit a quart into a pint pot and you can’t get a quart out of a pint pot either. Despite its heroic efforts when it comes to low-frequency extension, efforts that can be supported and augmented with carefully amplifier matching, there is no escaping the fact that the Greenwich’s bottom end doesn’t go that deep, robbing music of weight, scale, dimensionality and bass fundamentals. It’s a conundrum that sums up the trade-offs made by speaker designers every day. It’s a reality that suggests just how high a price we pay for bandwidth – and why really successful, full-range systems are rare, expensive and so often demanding, especially when it comes to system matching and set up.
Living the dream?
The Greenwich is one of the most successful, crossover-less designs I’ve lived with (and I’ve tried a few). It’s certainly the most affordable one that achieves a useable musical balance. Particularly in combination with the JA30, I’m surprised just how successful it is in tackling a broad spectrum of music. Whilst you might expect it to work best with small, intimate, girl and guitar type recordings, it’s organisational clarity and natural sense of musical and spatial proportion means that it really shines on complex ensemble pieces. The Coltrane quartet recordings or the Podger discs are examples, but larger works are happily embraced too. If the speaker can’t match the sheer scale and power of larger orchestras or rock bands, their leading edge and dynamic coherence still stands them in good stead. There’s a joyous freedom to its musical presentation and, in a smaller space and with a well matched system, this speaker could be seriously satisfying: way more so than many a two-way stand-mount and most of the more affordable floorstanders. If you are prepared to forego the deepest bass, they’ll work in medium sized spaces too, especially on acoustic music.
