The little speaker that (really) can…
By Roy Gregory
Thankfully, we’ve outgrown that difficult developmental phase when the entire industry seemed intent on getting more and more bandwidth out of smaller and smaller speakers, a self-defeating, downward spiral of heavier and heavier stands, cabinets and amplification leading only to musical disappointment as results ultimately failed to match investment. Musically speaking, there is no substitute for size – be that bigger speakers, greater sensitivity, more, genuine bandwidth or bigger spaces. You can argue about how to get there, but the destination is obvious enough…
Trouble is that we don’t necessarily have the funds, space, opportunity or domestic freedom to entertain a big system and big speakers. The reality is that, for any number of reasons (and situations), the requirement for convincing, compact speakers remains – as does the challenge that they present a designer, especially in the face of public perception. Why settle for a small stand-mount on an ugly metal pedestal when you can have a slim, floor-stander with more bandwidth in the same footprint? On the face of it, the floor-stander is a shoo-in: a prettier appearance that delivers greater internal volume, volume that can be invested in bandwidth or sensitivity, all for the same price: what’s not to like? Only things aren’t quite that simple in the real world.
The problem with slim, floor-standing cabinets is that they magnify the single biggest source of problems in modestly priced speakers. History is littered with examples of compact speaker designs in which a simple approach to basic driver design and even simpler crossovers have yielded astonishingly musical results. Yet few of those designs have sat straight on the floor. The problem facing modestly priced floor-standers is all too often caused by budget limitations when it comes to cabinet design, resulting in flimsy boxes that are all too happy to sing along with the music, out of phase and out of time. The greater the cabinet dimensions, the more potentially intrusive that cabinet becomes. The longer panels used in a floor-standing speaker are more prone to resonance and to resonate at lower, more intrusive and more musically damaging frequencies. The traditional responses – more, more sophisticated or more heavily braced material – are ruled out by the financial constraints, giving the budget floor-stander an almost insuperable, mechanical challenge.
Compare that to an equivalently priced stand-mount and we find a completely different situation. The smaller box is inherently more rigid and, using less material, can indulge in a more complex or robust construction to help counteract damaging cabinet effects. That leaves exactly the same (or, potentially, a greater) budget to spend on the electrical elements – drivers, crossover and cabling. So perhaps it should come as no surprise that, despite the dictates of fashion, if you are a quality orientated listener faced with limited space or funds, a two-way, stand-mounted speaker is generally going to be the best, most musically satisfying solution. Unfortunately, because of those same fashionable dictates, the range of available options is way more limited than it used to be. There’s no escaping the fact that, despite the demonstrable benefits, these days the stand-mount two-way is an increasingly hard sell. On the other hand, the contraction in the market has been distinctly Darwinian and, we now have some genuinely remarkable speakers at surprisingly approachable prices. The Vienna Acoustics Haydn SE Signature is just such a speaker.
Small but perfectly formed?
Vienna Acoustics’ smallest speaker has always been an excellent performer, but in its latest iteration, the Haydn Signature has become a serious star-turn. Outwardly, the reasons for that are less than obvious, partly due to VA’s understated styling. These are speakers that talk the talk rather than walking the walk. That’s because the real magic lies beneath the beautifully finished exterior: magic that’s all about balance.
