Digital Trends

Strata Mini Loudspeaker

March 24th, 2008 | by Ben Fowler

Listening 

For starters we wanted to hear the planar magnetic array in action, so we took a listen to Patricia Barber’s CD, Nightclub. The first track, Bye Bye Blackbird, has a dark tone with lots of space between the drums, bass, and piano. When Patricia enters with voice, we could clearly hear the off-kilter nuances she was using to create a ghostly, enchanting effect. Marc Johnson’s acoustic bass playing really popped out as well, with plenty of low, droning, tones. We could hear all the nuances of his hand on the strings. Patricia’s voice had just a bit of a dark veil over it - something in the low-midrange. It sounded pretty, but slightly artificial. We heard the same thing in the piano too. This tonal choice AV123 made warms things up nicely. But on certain notes adds a bit of shadowing.

Pleased with the vocal tones we were hearing so far, we pulled out Erykah Badu’s recording, Mama’s Gun. We also wanted to hear the powered subs in action. The track was Penitentiary Philosophy. Here there are both lead and background vocals. We were really impressed with the depth of field and separation between voices. Badu’s voice is nicely situated in the background as Stephen Marley sings his lamenting verse. As Badu’s voice comes to the front you can hear all the little intricacies in her voice. Amazing! Then as their voices come together the speakers are right there with the recording: perfect balance while maintaining the purity of each voice’s timbre. The bass was deep and powerful, and never got in the way of the midrange.

Next we wanted to listen to some good old fashioned classical music: Academy of St. Martin in the Fields performing Vaughn William’s Concerto for oboe and Strings. We noticed the depth of the cello and bass strings - rich and full, well-spoken. But again, we heard a little lift in the low-midrange frequencies. This gives the speakers a welcome richness, but on the downside, it artificially pumps the recording up, giving it a lilting, operatic tenor voice, even if you’re listening to an alto.

We wanted to listen to some more modern stuff, so we picked up Wilco’s Hotel Yankee Foxtrot. A fun recording filled with all sorts of bells and whistles, literally. The opening track, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, opens with lots of electronic whiz panning back and forth across the sound stage. Some alarm clock- like glockenspiel then ensues, giving way to acoustic guitars and electric bass. There’s an incredible transient response on the acoustic guitars. What that means is that you get a very crisp, clean attack on the initial strum of the string. You can almost hear the finger on the string before it plucks it. This is due in large part to the planar magnetic tweeter. You get a very live and airy presentation, imbued with a rich (and relatively natural) midrange. The electric bass is right on. The Strata’s sub is incredible. It doesn’t have super low-end response, so for home theater you’ll want to invest in a larger powered sub. But we were very impressed with the way the 8” sub integrated seamlessly with the rest of the speaker. It provided a pleasing and deep foundation, but never got in the way or became too overbearing.

Image Courtesy of AV123