In contrast, the crisper, dynamics, more forward presentation and immediacy of the Mercury play straight to the Haydn’s strengths. This is music played with real purpose and energy, all about direct communication rather than the reflected acoustic. That makes it less dependent on the really low frequencies that you only get from genuinely full-range speakers – frequencies that few instruments ever plumb. Which helps explain those impressive bowed bass arpeggios. The RCA disc is still presented with impressive weight, scale and its characteristically broad stage. But the sheer attack and energy in the Mercury is better served by the Haydn, which turns in a frankly astonishing performance on this dynamic and powerful recording.
Solo piano will quickly confirm the Haydn’s low-frequency linearity, while the precision with which notes are placed and spaced, the silences between them, underlines the temporal coherence and the lack of the disruptive ‘padding’ that so many small speakers rely on to make them sound bigger and more impressive. The tails of notes decay beautifully while attack and impetus through a phrase are followed effortlessly, whether it’s Duke Ellington hitting the keys, or Angela Hewitt. It might be the way these VA speakers deliver scale and weight that lets the music breathe, but it’s the articulate timing and rhythmic coherence that makes them so engaging and listenable.
The temporal integrity and organisation extend to the aural collage of Vampire Weekend’s Father Of The Bride (Sony/Columbia 190759 47362) with its complex, layered production, overdubs and verbal interjections, all built around its outrageously catchy melodies and Ezra Koenig’s acerbic vocals. It’s a recording that can often sound disjointed and disconnected, but the Haydns hold it together and make sense of the complex construction, bringing a natural flow and rhythmic coherence to proceedings. Neil Young’s Massey Hall 1971 (Reprise PS03) might be a simpler, starker recording, but the space around Young, the dimensionality of his guitar, the height differential of voice and instrument, but above all, the natural diction and inflexion to the long, spoken (and fragmented) introduction to ‘The Needle And The damage Done’, not only adds emotional gravity to the song, it captures the hall acoustic and the intimate atmosphere of the live event. The Haydn’s unforced, unexaggerated extension and the spatial/temporal coherence that results, bring a presence and intelligibility to performances that convince in a way that few speakers achieve – especially speakers at this comparatively modest price.
As I’ve already suggested, the Haydn’s accomplishments are the result of a near perfect balancing act: everything’s here and everything’s in proportion. That’s what explains the completeness of the Haydn’s musical presentation, a completeness that is at once greater than the sum or extent of its parts and more naturally acceptable to the listener. A big part of that musical totality is the seamless integration of the drivers and the near invisibility of the crossover. Unintrusive filters have always been a feature of Vienna Acoustics designs, but it seems to have risen to a new level recently. The Concert Grand series and Liszt Reference both represent a big step forward over previous versions. Part of that is down to the clever, Composite Cone technology those models introduce, but it’s also down to advances in crossover components and execution. The absence of a Composite Cone driver in the Haydn, demonstrates just how big those advance in the area of network design have been.
