Audio Video News

We professional journalist types are too careful to call La Sphere the strangest-looking speaker ever created, so let's just say it's in our top five-and we can't think of what the other four might be.

The $140,000-per-pair speaker from French manufacturer Cabasse made its retail debut on Friday at Systems Design Group in Redondo Beach, CA, at a special listening party for local audiophiles. Surprisingly, the engineering's as solid as the design is ethereal. La Sphere incorporates four drivers: a tweeter inside a midrange inside a midwoofer, all sharing the same vertical plane, and all placed at the front of an acoustic "lens" that covers a gigantic 22-inch woofer.

According to John Caldwell of U.S. importer StJohn Group, the driver-in-a-driver-in-a-driver-in-a-driver arrangement ensures that, "The speaker isn't fussy-the sound remains coherent no matter where you are in the room." And he's right. No matter where I moved on the long couch in front of the speakers, the timbre barely changed a bit.

A digital crossover divides the sound up for each of the four drivers-and also necessitates the use of four amplifiers per speaker. For an extra $25K, the company will supply eight compact ICEPower amplifiers, which wear the Cabasse brand but are built by Bel Canto. Each set of speakers is calibrated on-site by Cabasse personnel; vice president of international sales Christophe Cabasse told me he does many of the calibrations himself.

Fortunately for connoisseurs of fine audio products and things that look like props pinched from one of the original Star Trek sets, La Sphere will be set up long-term for your listening pleasure at Systems Design Group and at Woodbridge Stereo in Woodbridge, NJ.-Brent Butterworth