[Review] podium .5 speaker

podium .5 speaker

Heard these at the manchester home entertainment show this weekend,and nothing has changed my mind.With the ensemble gear,at worst they were very impressive,at best utterly astonishing!

 

Everytime I've heard them, they are, at best, astonishingly bad. Each to their own but I've recently heard ex radiogram 6 x 9's sounding substantially better.


Beware of any loudspeaker that sounds so different.

 

I have never known a loudspeaker with such polorised views? I will have to make time to have a proper listen to them.

Audio Addict, do you have a pair of these loudspeakers? What is the rest of the kit you have with them?

 

podium .5

they won't make a silk purse out of a sows ear.Partner them with refined ,transparent gear,and they won't disappoint.I think because they have nobox colorations they obviously appear different at first.I think they are the lyra titan of the cartridge world.I hope that makes sense.

 

I agree, they take some time to adjust to their sound and positioning. get them right and they are a clear window on any classical or acoustic event. I have podium ones.

 

Sorry but no. They may have no box, but they also have no realistic weight, no tonal colour and totally inaccuate image size. At least that's how they sound at shows. Compare them with truly refined and transparent speakers and they appear to come up woefully short IMHO. I was frankly shocked at how bad they were - and that's from a person who has owned more than my fair share of good panel loudspeakers over the years. It is not a case of Podium being right and everyone else wrong I'm afraid so I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

 

toytally innacurate image size? and just how on earth can you tell that.

were you sat next to the speakers when they recorded the gig..?lol.

 

Do they have ten foot mandolins? I know they might have people with six foot wide mouths but instruments too?

Of course you could claim they were playing close miked recordings, but I doubt that somehow - I don't own any at home that feature six foot wide mouths and pianos the size of football pitches. How about you?

 

Actually Mike I thought it was a good question. I'd have worded it differently but I was curious as well.

 

seems fair enough,.

 

No I'd agree Dev.

Maybe my reply reads wrongly but I think the scale issue clearly affected everything I heard on them so I took it to not be source related.

It's really interesting that they polarise opinions so much. My previous experience suggests that's a bad thing - that really great and tonally accurate loudspeakers tend to be universally accepted, at least under controlled conditions. They clearly have a highly audible effect on the incoming signal - some seem to like it at least in the short term. I suspect it will be much like Zu loudspeakers. A few pairs will get sold, then over a six month period they will all end up on AG as owners cotton on to the unique colouration and find they can no longer live with it.

 

Hello - first post here.Thought I might as well jump in at the deep end. Could'nt agree more with original post (audio addict).I also heard them at the Mcr show - thought they were stunning - (the only room i bothered to revisit). Quite simply - they played acoustic instruments and voice as though they were in the room.This was not an impression of ,or approximation of the sound but the sound of real instruments.This is obviously an overused concept and of course there were subtle imperfections which gave the game away - but i can honestly say they redefined what i thought possible from reproduced music.( note - i heard them only briefly on their choice of acoustic music) BTW- my partners dad is a classical musician and i regularly hear string quartets live in his living room. I also used to work in the hifi business and understand the bs masquerading as accurate sound.- I also worked briefly in a commercial recording studio - believe me - that was an eye opener.- All of this is just my opinion of course.

 

Well for your first post you covered all the corners. Revist room, Quartets in the living room, hifi industry and recording studio. Oh you missed out electronics engineer.

This is toung in cheek so don't take offence (cant be bothered to use the little smily things)

Wlcome to ZG.

Have you bought a pair of Podiums?

 

I thought the 1's were seriously handicapped, with a very coloured high-end (no wonder with the weight of the panel) and very strange tonal balance. They were driven by a highly modified Audio Note integrated at Henk & Marja's place.

They did not sound like any other speaker I ever heard, which was something 'special', but I really missed any real presence, dynamic contrasts and something approaching pin-point imaging.

With some further development, who knows what can be made of it?

 

Hi hifi addict - thanks for the welcome. No offence taken, the only reason i mentioned the personal stuff is to give some context - i honestly dont believe it makes my opinion more valid than anyone elses. I hav'nt bought a pair yet and really would want to listen to them with a wider range of music - besides 3.5K is a bit steep for a bottom feeder such as myself. I managed to aquire some decent (- if a little old now) kit through my time in retail but cant really justify that level of expenditure. Still - trickle down technology and all that ....
P.S - I do actually have a degree in physics/electronics but it was only a 2:2 and many years ago - i struggle to add and subtract these days tbh.

 

One of the most dire speakers I have heard in the last 24 months

 

I think the .5 has a much better balance,and my positive comments refer to this model in particular.

 

Have you Podium fans seen the Manger MSW drivers? They work by the same 'bending wave' principal, but IMO they are much more developed as a practical implementation. They sound damn good, and look even better.

http://www.manger-msw.com/en/inhalt.html

 

They simply cannot replay electronic/rock music with even the faintest whiff of useful dynamics or excitement. Even if you only ever listened to classical music, this is a massive drawback that surely tells you something about the essential capabilities of a speaker that costs £3500. It's simply laughable for anything at that price to be so focused at the expense of any kind of all round capability.

 

for me, "worst sound in show" at two trade shows.

However, I want emphasize I've had no home audition.