It's been a rather busy year for my system. This time last year I was running all Naim electronics (CD5i, 82/hicap/200) sat on a Mana stand into Linn Kaber speakers. Yesterday marked the leaving of my final bit of "flat" kit, with my Kabers moving onto what will hopefully be a good new home. Since then the CDP has split into a Meridian transport with a NOS DAC, the amps has condensed into a Belcanto Evo 2i and that left me with just the speakers to consider. The above changes revealed just how unnatural the tonal presentation of my old Naim kit was. Fun definitely, accurate, maybe not. The kabers were the last part of that. In addition, they really weren't very synergistic with my amp. So the search was on. I don't like most ported speakers, they all seem to have timing problems. Sealed boxes are far from easy to come by. Lastly, I was looking for my dynamics. The Kabers are pretty fast, but some of their dynamics is not real, seems to be by accentuating certain frequencies, don't ask me how they did that. Wasn't obvious with the Naim kit, but was more recently. Not helping was a listen to a pair of Impulse H2 horns last year, which blew me away with their dynamics, that unimpressed me with how tonally dry they were. So it seemed that I was looking for a pair of horns that weren't quite as extreme as the H2s. The good news is that TomToms has just the solution, in the way of a pair of Impulse Lalis. These are the updated version of the H6s, which are the little brothers to the H6, and don't have the same level of compromise (or dynamics I must add). Here's a link: [URL]http://www.acoustica.org.uk/impulse/impulse.html[/URL] After a week of use, I'm now happy to drop a line on here to say that they really do rock. Dynamics really are stunningly realistic, definitely better than any non-horn speaker I've heard. Bass is a less controlled than the Kabers, but in a way that is more natural (bonus). Absolute depth is slightly better than the Kaber, ie. no great shakes when compared to monsters like WMs Osprey or slugs like the B&W 802s I heard recently. What they've certainly added is more depth to the sound. Instead of being quite close to the stage, feels like I'm twice the distance back, and treble is less pronounced and grating. All in all, a good winner. Big smiles from London. For comparisons, I did have a quick listen to the Lali's vs a pair of cheaper s/h LVs. Despite a massive cost difference (the LVs were 3 times the price), I found the Lali's more fun to listen to, phew!
