Introduction Polk Audio is a trusted name in home and car loudspeakers, offering high quality transducers at very fair prices for decades. Founded in 1972 by two audiophiles, Matthew Polk and George Klopfer, Polk Audio has grown to become one of the world’s most successful brands of high-quality home loudspeakers. Polk Audio prides itself in having employees that truly love music and care about good sound rather than people that just “sell boxes.” The LSi Series loudspeakers are Polk’s most recommended line of speakers for “serious listeners.” The LSi home theater speaker system evaluated here includes the LSi15s at $1,740 per pair, used as the main loudspeakers, a LSiC center channel speaker at $580, and a pair of LSiFX surround speakers costing $1,060 per pair. The LSi15s are tall and sleek works of art. They stand eight-and-five-eighths inches wide by 45.5 inches high by 13 inches deep. Tipping the scales at 66 pounds each, these are ...

Introduction While it’s a fairly new name to the North American market, Canton has been producing high-end speakers in Germany since 1972, reportedly capturing an impressive 25 percent of the German market with its wide variety of speaker offerings. This review features the Canton Ergo RC-A’s at $5,000 per pair used as front main loudspeakers, Ergo CM502 center channel speaker at $800, and the Ergo 302s at $1,400 per pair for rear surrounds. The Ergo line being reviewed is more traditional then Canton’s more contemporary Karat line and is a step up from the LE and Movie series loudspeakers. Both lines share many of theme drivers and other components and the build quality is the same. I was asked by Canton to review this system without a separate subwoofer, using the powered woofers in the RC-A towers to handle the low end. Canton is a fairly large speaker company, with considerable research and development resources. ...

Introduction Dynaudio is a Danish company known for over 25 years for producing high-quality speakers ranging from affordable bookshelf models to some of the finest, priciest transducers in the world. In addition to the speakers produced directly by Dynaudio, astute audio enthusiasts may have noticed that many famous high-end speaker makers also use Dynaudio drivers in order to build their own speakers. In recent years, Dynaudio has picked up significant momentum in the ultra-competitive affordable speaker market and their relatively new Audience line represents Dynaudio’s latest effort to bring their design expertise to an affordable price level. The Audience system reviewed here retails for less than $4,000 and is comprised of the model 62 ($1,350) mini-towers for the front left and right channels, the 42c ($450) and 42 ($800) for the center and surround channels and the Sub-20A ($1,209) for the low-frequency effects channel. These prices include the wood veneer finishes that are available in four flavors. Even though ...

Introduction There are a number of very successful and highly respected loudspeaker designers and manufacturers who can trace their origins to the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada. Although Paradigm no longer uses the NRC testing facilities, their design philosophies have their roots in the groundbreaking research performed at the NRC in the 1980s, dealing with listener preferences and their relationships with various loudspeaker measurements and traits. The highly successful Paradigm Electronics Inc. is now one of the largest speaker manufacturers in the Western Hemisphere, with some of the most advanced and extensive test facilities anywhere. In the summer of 2003, Paradigm introduced the third iteration of their popular and acclaimed Reference Studio series, appropriately dubbed v.3. The complete home theater loudspeaker system reviewed here utilizes the Studio 100s ($2,200 per pair) as the cornerstone main loudspeakers, a single Studio CC-570 ($800 each) center channel, and a pair of Studio ADP-470 ($950 per pair) as rear surround ...

Introduction In the never-ending search for the perfect loudspeaker system, there are a number of approaches that a manufacturer can take during the engineering and design process of a new product. At minimum, the majority of loudspeaker designers would agree that certain prerequisites, such as low distortion and a relatively flat, smooth frequency response, are fundamental criteria for creating a good sounding speaker. How each manufacturer attempts to achieve this end goal varies tremendously. Direct radiators, dipoles, bipoles, and point-source loudspeakers are but a few of the options available, each creating their own unique dispersion pattern and interaction within the listening environment. All are intended to decipher the musical and sound experience as accurately as possible. The question of which engineering technique is best suited to recreate the original performance in our own listening environments has been, and will continue to be, a hot topic of debate, greatly influenced by personal preference. Mirage has a definite idea of ...