[Review] Swedish erotica

Swedish erotica

Well my quest for replacement speakers led me to what turned out to be a very entertaining time at the new premises of Mårten Design speakers in Gothenburg this evening. The brothers Mårten, Leif and Jörgen, held an open house for fellow hifi geeks to come and listen to their speakers partnered with the German high-end brand of Burmester and various Swedish accessories.

The first of the two rooms contained MÃ¥rten Designs' stand mounted Duke speaker hooked up to Burmesters entry level Rondo CD and integrated amp. Entry level in this case is roughly two and a half grand a box, so expectations were actually quite high going into this. Sadly the totally appalling switch gear and CD tray on these machines turned me off straight away. These guys need to visit Audi to learn a thing or two about user interaction, ergonomics and tactile satisfaction. Not a good start.

The Duke speakers can be had for roughly two grand and certainly looked like it with a great smooth wood finish and solid and chunky terminals. The design has a slight slope on the front panel so the tweeter sits ever so slightly back from the main driver. The rear panel is quite a lot thinner than the front and thus the speaker creates a very small profile when looking at it from the listening position.

A Solid-Tech rack was used to support the equipment, it's very nice looking but the boxes move somewhat when touched, quite disturbing actually and certainly not child proof.

Cabling was provided by Jorma Designs and looked like hand made quality stuff considering it was their entry-level stuff.

The room was about 4m by 5m and used acoustic baffles (?) in the corners and behind the speakers to make up for the lack of soft furnishings.

The overall look of this system was simply stunning, the rack the kit and speakers combined to give what would in marketing speak be called a “lifestyle†appearance. WAF doesn't get any better than is. The link here is of the event and gives an excellent impression.
http://hififorum.nu.server60.jepponet.dk/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=34612

So the sound, well considering we have around eight grands worth of stuff here I was expecting something pretty special. I managed a good half an hour listening to some piano jazz by Charlie Heden and then a short blast of Sarah K vocals and guitar. Impressions were that the Dukes projected a scale and image far greater than their relative size. The room, although not big, represents a typical sized lounge and boy was it filled nicely with sound. Deep bass, open soundstage and crystal trebles in abundance. The piano was very forward in presentation and sometimes seemed a little too abrasive, this could well be partly due to the live recording on the Night and City CD used. The double bass had real depth but seemed to lack a certain punch or thwack as it is known here, this I suspect was due to the integrated amp rather than the speaker's lack of control. Sarah K's vocals were direct, spacious and lifelike whilst the plucking of the guitar was precise, if not maybe the last word in dynamic. The other area of dissatisfaction was the lack of 3 dimensional depth to the sound stage, but then again I've only ever really encountered that with much larger floorstanders.

Overall although very different to my current sound, I'd say a system set-up that would leave me happily enjoying the music more than the hifi behind it for some time. Only afterwards whilst talking to the guys did I discover that the Dukes can be upgraded to a full floorstander with a built in class D amp and active bass compartment in place for the current stands. Hmm reason enough to come back when there up and running.

The second and larger room held even greater treasures, MÃ¥rten Designs' current top of the range speakers the Coltranes (see current HiFi plus for a review) teamed up with the Top Line series Burmester components.

So that'll be a cool 9.5k for the 011 pre, a whooping 13 for the 911power, a mere 9 for the 01 CD and power conditioner for the spare change amount of 4k. Holey Shite, lets not even go into the delicious bybee filtered cables, again provided by Jorma Design. Yet again the same switch gear as before completely lets down any sense of in trepidation one may have had about touching it, so did the frankly rather disturbing swaying effect of Solid-Tech rack.

The speakers, like the Dukes were impeccable, a kind of Sonus Fabur front panel blended into piano black sides and finished beautifully.

OK the sound, and honestly this better be good was my solitary thought as I sat down to a nice bit of Eric Clapton Unplugged. For anybody that knows this album there's a great test for dynamics, top end and 3D depth in the intro of track 4, Tears in Heaven, and this system hit it like never before. Wow. Massive sound stage, just bloody huge, great dynamics and a top end to die for that I later found out comes from a rather expensive diamond tweeter that helps make up a substantial part of the 300,000 Swedish KR cost. (around 25K!!!).

So what does a nice Merc or BMW get you in HiFi terms, well something pretty special but not I'm afraid something that I'd ultimately be happy owning if I'd spent that much money on it. The “cheaper†system sounded slightly veiled, (man that's a reviewers term), but surprised me in its size and performance, the expensive system failed, (and by quite a long way), to live up to what I'd expected from it.

Now I must confess to never having heard either the speakers or equipment before so assumptions like the following my seem a little odd, but I feel that the speakers were capable of something quite special when partnered more appropriately, as could be said the electronics. Afterwards speaking to both Leif and Jörgen about this they mentioned that in house they use E.A.R components for valves and the Swedish company Bladelius for SS amps. Having heard and considerably liked the later I can only wait until my return visit.

I would like to extend a huge thanks to Leif and Jörgen for supllying me with coffee and cakes, speaking English to me and generally letting me loose on their pride and joy for a few hours.

As for my new speakers, well I bought a house today so I'm gonna wait till we move in and then look again.