Tower Speaker Reviews

PRICE $4,000 as reviewed

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Built-in triamplification
Wireless link to sources
Musically versatile sound
Minus
16-bit transmission ceiling

THE VERDICT
The Dynaudio Xeo 6 active wireless speakers are a great-sounding way to unclutter a two-channel music system.

In the history of civil unrest, there has never been anything quite like the audio rebellion. People are using half-inch-thick A/V receiver manuals as tinder and then throwing their receivers onto the flames. Doghouse-sized stereo amps and preamps are being spray-painted in the dead of night with slogans like “Where’s the wireless?” Wrist-thick speaker cables lay coiled on curbs, next to garbage cans, where passing dogs do what comes naturally. Just the other day, I turned on the TV and saw a guy in a Dynaudio T-shirt giving a speech to an angry mob. “Burn your cables!” he shouted. “Sell your amp! Ditch everything that currently clogs up your system!”

PRICE $1,470 as reviewed

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Superb sonics, neutral tonal balance
Decently finished, simple look
Unapproachable value
Minus
Some off-axis center-channel tonal shift
Audible thump on sub’s auto turn-off

THE VERDICT
Elac’s Debut series reintroduces a near-forgotten brand with a design by a well-known name—Andrew Jones—and a value/performance factor to be reckoned with.

As longtime S&V readers have doubtless come to understand, I believe that cheap, as Gordon Gekko definitely did not say, is good. Any $10,000 pair of loudspeakers makes me vaguely uneasy, while a $50,000 pair leaves me ready to join the Che Guevara Brigade and start lining up oligarchs. So the arrival of a new family of cheap—err, high-value—serious loudspeakers from Elac U.S., designed by tech’lebrity engineer Andrew Jones, caused a certain amount of excitement hereabouts. (For more on Elac and Jones, see “Man on a Mission”.)

The home-theater market's love affair with big displays and skinny speakers hasn't peaked just yet—screen girths are still expanding and speakers are on the verge of anorexia. The folks at EMP (Engineered Music Products) were hip to that fact when they cooked up the seriously svelte HTP-551T speaker package.

My first experience with Energy speakers came in 1994, when I reviewed the Canadian company's then flagship speaker, the Veritas v2.8. It rotated in and out of my system for years, occasionally bettered in specifics by speakers selling for its original price ($6000/pair) or more, but never trumped overall, to my ears. The pair I own is still a valued two-channel reference, but unfortunately Energy never made a center channel speaker to match it.

Energy's updated Veritas line lives up to its legacy

It was a question I hadn't considered until I stepped into the listening room on that gloomy Monday morning to greet my Canadian guests. Then it hit me like a slap shot to the forehead. Could I be the unbiased, emotionally unruffled reviewer that I know I am on this day, or was my bitterness simply too strong to give these visitors their fair shake? For you see, it was less than 24 hours earlier that one of the most important games in North American hockey history—the gold-medal final between the United States and Canada—had ended in utter disappointment for the Stars and Stripes. And now, these Canadian speakers were staring me right in the face—their phase plugs pointing at me in ridicule, their ports directing a sly, triumphant wink my way, and their cabinets standing a little taller and straighter after 50 years of Olympic-hockey frustration. My doubts quickly passed, though, as my foreign guests began expertly filling the room with the soothing sounds of the Mississippi delta and Virginia mountains, bringing an undeniable calm over me—even a hint of resignation. As much as I love hockey, it's their game, after all. If Canada starts beating us in football or baseball, I'll know the sports gods have really turned their backs on the good old U.S. of A.

A combination that hits all the right notes (and sounds).

There's a compelling magic that has kept my butt on the sofa— it's the enthralling And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself. It was for no small reason that this HBO film earned an Emmy for sound editing. The width and depth of the soundscape, the detailed sound bits, the way the dialogue comes through, and the score's ability to underscore the power and poignancy of scene after scene are remarkable. Each of these turns a made-for-TV movie into a film that transcends the limitations of the home venue for which it was created. And the system I've been using—an Epos M Series 5.1 speaker setup powered by the Butler Audio TDB 5150 vacuum-tube power amplifier—reveals such wonderful nuances in Pancho Villa that I have been completely glued to the couch.

Polk vs. Klipsch vs. RBH

Gestalt
Time after time, I find myself asking, "Now what did I go and say that for?" Recently, while sitting in our weekly staff editorial meeting, I once again opened myself up to an idea that would inevitably lead to more work for me. After requesting speaker systems to have on hand for review, I realized that they all shared one common similarity: They were all around $3,500 or less. I don't know of a retailer on this planet where you can audition Polk, Klipsch, and RBH speakers at the same time, yet I'm sure it will cross some reader's mind who's looking to spend that extra change under the mattress.