Bookshelf Speaker Reviews

Associated gear included the Rotel RSX-1550 A/V receiver and Panasonic DMP-BD35 Bluray player. All movie selections included lossless soundtracks on Blu-ray Disc. All music was on CD—sometimes that’s the way it goes.

Smooth Ride
As demo material, Star Trek—the recent film version with Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Leonard Nimoy—is as good as it gets. Did the Dolby TrueHD soundtrack match the theatrical presentation? Inevitably, it was scaled down, the bass presentation wasn’t as gut thumping, and I missed the audience’s laughter and ooh-ahhing. Still, the Aviano 7 sub’s bass came through when Captain Pike sits in his seat of power and orders his navigator to “punch it.” The sub punched, lightly—and I recalled that, once they’re equalized, subs often need to have their level recalibrated to compensate for the loss of bass bloat. I nudged the control upward, and the system got punchier. The Aviano 5 center didn’t hype dialogue, but it clearly conveyed the whispered, low-voiced conversation between Spock and Uhura in the elevator. Even without the use of a low-volume-compensation mode in my AVR, the effects were smooth and listenable. After some quick initial settings in the movie’s first five minutes, I didn’t agonize over the volume level.

Angels & Demons, in DTS-HD Master Audio, sweetens Dan Brown’s faux-mystical scenario with ever-present choral vocals (which modulate according to the mood of the scene) and an occasional violin solo by Joshua Bell. These balanced the soundtrack’s more bombastic elements, which include explosions, fires, shooting, and the squeal of fauxphotons whizzing through a particle accelerator. This movie has lots of low-level dialogue, and I didn’t miss much of it.

Bruce Almighty, also in DTS-HD Master Audio, supports the story of a divinely empowered Jim Carrey with a variety of whiz-bang effects. It also includes a straight-faced street riot, which the speakers made suitably large and scary. Yet again, the Aviano system supported a high level of listening comfort, with minimal set-and-forget volume adjustments. The end credits include some sweet orchestral material, with celesta and various reed instruments peeking through the strings. There’s also a short blast of Gospel music. These were like bonbons at the end of a good meal. I was satisfied that the Avianos are an extraordinarily movie-worthy set of speakers.

How I Fell in Love with Madi
Although the Aviano 1 was good enough to sustain two-channel listening, the Dolby Pro Logic II Music mode dominated my music sessions. It benefitted from the excellent match of the Aviano 5 center and the Aviano 1 in the four corners of the soundfield.

Madeleine Peyroux’s Bare Bones is the first album on which she cowrote a majority of the tracks. Producer Larry Klein couches Peyroux’s delicate but supple voice—strongly reminiscent of Billie Holiday—in arrangements that wouldn’t offend a Norah Jones fan. Occasional hints of Steely Dan arrive via lead guitarist Dean Parks and the two songs that are cowritten by Walter Becker. The Aviano 5 did an excellent job of carrying Peyroux’s voice and did full justice to her subtle inflections. Still, as a whole, the Aviano system provided a slightly soft-focused presentation of a production style that’s already somewhat airless. On a song with a false ending, the bass drum leads the band’s re-entry, and the tight thump demonstrated the sub’s prowess. (My first exposure to Peyroux came when I was vacationing in Spain and saw her in a local TV broadcast that omitted end credits or any clue as to who she was. When I got home, I Googled a line I remembered from a song, and I now play her three most recent albums in heavy rotation.)

If you want to hear world-class cello in a vivid and intimate setting—bouncing off the stone walls of a small church—pick up the BBC Legends CD of Mstislav Rostropovich. In this naturalistically recorded 1964 appearance at Benjamin Britten’s Aldeburgh Festival, he performed Brahms’ first cello sonata and other works by Grieg and Shostakovich with pianists Sviatoslav Richter and Britten himself. I stopped worrying about what I’d previously pegged as a polite top end. This live sound was raw, immediate, and fully developed in the mid and high frequencies. The extraordinary cello-on-stone ambience kept its grip on me during lowlevel passages. Even the applause was somehow special. It wasn’t just a wash of sound, but a rich series of tiny percussive events.

Birds of Fire is the second studio album by the Mahavishnu Orchestra as well as the band’s high-water mark. When I played it, the sub emerged as the most valuable player. It delivered Billy Cobham’s punching, popping percussion style in precise bass pitches. A guy who hits the skins as fast as Cobham did in his Mahavishnu days would be hard to take with lumpy, room-mode-bloated bass. I was grateful that I had the chance to hear him more as he ought to be heard. DPLII picked up on the phasey component of John McLaughlin’s guitar sound and often moved him toward the back of the soundfield. This led to some interesting interplay between violinist Jerry Goodman in front-left and McLaughlin in surround-right. It may have been unintentional, but it was fun. The album remains a prodigious display of rapid-fire playing and mystical atmosphere.

The Mordaunt-Short Aviano is a beautifully engineered product, and the literature mentions several aspects of its build quality. However, it’s not necessarily its parts or aesthetics that make it special. Another manufacturer could have taken the same materials and come up with a much lower-performing product. These speakers distinguish themselves from the pack in that someone with a good ear must have developed them. This was clear to me during every minute I spent with them, and it translated directly into the kind of pleasure I can only get from fatigue-free listening. The notch-filter-enhanced sub contributed to this effect by allowing me to forget about my room’s most egregious acoustic imperfections. The fish-and-chip-eaters behind these products know how to treat a discerning pair of ears.