Tag Archives: bookshelf speaker

How New $198K Speaker Produces Jump Factor

HOLBROOK, New York, June, 2023 At Pacific Audio Fest 2023 Nola Speakers will feature the West Coast debut of its Baby Grand Reference Gold Series 3 loudspeaker. The full-range floor standing speaker offers a number of upgrades from the previous model to deliver an extraordinary quality of musical realism, including a new isolation system that provides greatly improved dynamics, low-level resolution and other benefits.

The Nola Baby Grand Reference Gold 3 loudspeaker will be showcased at Pacific Audio Fest, June 23 – 25, 2023 at the Doubletree By Hilton Hotel Seattle Airport, Seattle, Washington, in Olympic Room 3, Wing 7.

The speaker employs Nola’s hallmark open-baffle dipole design for the midrange drivers and tweeters, which eliminates box enclosure colorations and contributes to the speaker’s spacious soundstage. The Nola Baby Grand Reference Gold 3 features four proprietary true ribbon tweeters along with four newly-designed midrange drivers, and dual 220 mm woofers. The new isolation system is a key element in the speaker’s remarkable performance. The isolation base’s construction features a spiked platform with an improved version of Nola’s ball-bearing isolation technology incorporated into the base.

While the concept may seem simple, the results are profound.

Nola president Carl Marchisotto noted, The idea was inspired by attending a recent live music concert. You can instantly tell live from reproduced music, and I wondered why. I was struck by the fact that with live music, the harmonics decay properly with respect to the fundamental. They’re not lost, or cut off abruptly. I set out to make sure this important aural cue was preserved, by designing the new isolation base, and achieving further improvements in performance with our new low-distortion drivers and upgraded crossovers. Marchisotto continued, For the first time, we will demonstrate our ball bearing isolation system applied to the whole system, including the source, amplification and other components as well as the loudspeakers.

The true ribbon tweeters, which are built with final assembly completed in-house with proprietary components, have a frequency response to 100 kHz, for smooth, effortless high-frequency reproduction.

The midrange drivers incorporate Alnico ring magnets for a more lifelike attack and transient response, and now feature the same gold-plated phase plugs used in the woofers. The 220 mm woofers employ magnesium cones and massive Alnico ring magnets, and are housed in individual rear-ported chambers for deeper, more articulate bass with exceptional dynamic response. The 3-1/2-way crossover network is hand-wired with premium components and no PC boards used, to maintain sonic purity.

These speakers have what designers and reviewers used to call the jump factor, where they can surprise you with their dynamic impact and clarity, Marchisotto said. You don’t realize that certain distortions in a loudspeaker are eliminated until you don’t hear them, in a speaker that brings you closer to musical reality. We invite everyone at Pacific Audio Fest to come by and enjoy a very special listening experience.

The Nola Baby Grand Reference Gold 3 is available in mirror-imaged pairs in a choice of True Piano Black Gloss or True Piano Santos Rosewood finishes, with other finishes and colors available by special order. The Baby Grand Reference Gold 3 is now shipping at a suggested retail price of $150,000USD/ $198,190CAD per pair. For the Silo, Frank Doris.

About Nola Speakers

In 2004 Carl and Marilyn Marchisotto founded Accent Speaker Technology Ltd. and created the Nola product line with the goal of bringing the experience of listening to live music to a wider number of people. President and Chief Engineer Marchisotto has been designing audio equipment since 1973 at Dahlquist, Acarian Systems/Alon and Accent/Nola, which now offers a complete loudspeaker lineup from high-performance bookshelf models to the flagship USD$500,000/ CAD$660,650 pair Nola Grand Reference Gold VII System, designed and built to deliver ultimate musical performance in every aspect. Nola employs a number of key technologies including baffle-less dipole drivers, Alnico magnets, Unison Crossover technology that optimally blends the performance of multiple speaker drivers, and many other refinements.

Edifier Setting Bar High For Affordable Bookshelf Speaker Quality

Here in Canada, you may not have heard of Edifier but take note- their state-of-the art manufacturing facilities in China produce 8 million units every year for home, consumer electronics and PC multimedia applications. Edifier specializes in premium sound systems that showcase technological innovation and design elegance while keeping prices amazingly low.

Normally if you are spending just $100 on a set of speakers you expect to be left desiring better quality. Let’s take a closer look at our review pair that arrived safely in a well packaged box. The Edifier R1280T are an affordable, entry-level set of bookshelf speakers that deliver clear and balanced sound at low or high volumes. For only $124.99CDN including free shipping to Canada these speakers set a new standard for affordable quality.

Edifier R1280T bookshelf speakerThe speakers have a  102mm (4-inch) bass driver and a calibrated, flared bass reflex port augmented by a 13mm silk dome tweeter for a total output of 42W RMS (21W each speaker). An optional front cover can be removed to expose the speaker components allowing for a sleek look or a more exposed techie aesthetic. Use them with a television, computer, or other device, they sound great on any surface because of the design team’s passion for sound and for quality.

Edifier’s uncompromised design elegance is recognized internationally by prestigious design awards. Some of their designs are winners of the Red Dot Design Award, the iF Product Design Award and the CES Design & Engineering Showcase Honours.

Anechoic Chamber Edifier Speakers
“Inspirational design derived from architecture, furniture, automobiles, home electronics — even nature itself — provide for ideas that transform themselves into unique sensory and emotional products with functional simplicity, coupled with technological excellence. It’s a journey to provide an exceptional audio and visual experience with design elegance, innovation, features and measured risks, for whatever the application, to form a lasting end-user impression and experience.”
— Anthony Wilkinson, Managing Director, Edifier International Limited

Edifier R1280T Speaker Back R1280T powered bookshelf speakers lets you connect to multiple audio devices using the dual RCA inputs. By looking at the back panel you can easily tell one of these is a passive speaker and one is an active speaker. The active speaker has two inputs located on the back. These inputs are perfect for RCA to RCA or RCA to AUX connections. Connect them to a PC, laptop, tablet, phone or record player. The speakers are connected to each other via regular speaker wire (included along with a generous variety of cables to ensure you enjoy your music from most devices right out of the box- if you require digital connections or bluetooth Edifier make a larger model).

 

Some overseas manufacturers of electronics have been questioned about their environmental impacts and strategies but refreshingly, Edifier are committed to best operating practices.

  • Use suppliers of raw materials who practice environmentally friendly manufacturing.
  • Use LED and T5 lighting in all office floors and manufacturing facility.
  • Install solar panels for water heating.
  • Use Biological Liquid Processing to reduce and filter fume emissions.
  • Use Membrane Bioreactors to recycle waste water

For environmentally conscious, budget minded individuals looking for a solid entry level speaker with the convenience of remote control and easy hook-up you can’t go wrong choosing the R1280T. Highly recommended.

We spent several days and evenings having fun with these speakers in a small bedroom Laserdisc and projector bookshelf setup. The sound quality was quite nice, dialogue was easy to understand and stereo soundtracks came to life, even with a noisy air conditioner running and the fan noise from the projector.

The speakers will most likely benefit from a break in period as new drivers tend to have a slight compression effect that is alleviated as the speaker suspension is stretched from playing source material. These speakers fit nicely onto the shelf and were easy to position and operate, we were pleasantly surprised by the handy mini remote control that arrived with batteries included. For darker watching conditions we left the front grilles in place but would be happy to remove them and show off the nicely designed faux woodgrain cabinet sides in brighter conditions. Highly recommended…

For the Silo, Jarrod Barker.