The Absolute Sound (TAS) has just published its brand new and biggest ever Buyer’s Guide to Loudspeakers. The 2016 edition covers all types of speakers, from floorstanders, stand-mounts and desktops to planars and horns, across a range of price brackets.
The magazine’s review team has mulled over the world’s top models and picked out a select few to provide audiophiles with an easy-to-navigate PDF guide, available as a free download.
The guide includes 28 full reviews from TAS plus plenty of new content, such as:
- ‘top picks’: the best loudspeakers in four categories
- ‘on the horizon’: the hottest upcoming speakers
- ‘six secrets of speaker placement’: insider advice from Robert Harley
- ‘sneak preview’: the latest speakers about to be reviewed in TAS.
Among the full reviews is Gamut’s RS3i stand-mount, which comes “enthusiastically recommended”, offering “all the advantages of a small stand-mounted speaker – those of illuminating imaging and wide-open soundstaging – combined with stunning dynamic presence. Capable of sounding much bigger than it looks, it is a honey of a speaker and should be on anyone’s short list for a small-to-medium-sized room application.”
Raidho’s D1, meanwhile, is singled out as a ‘top pick’. “If Raidho’s C1 is a genuinely great loudspeaker (and it most certainly is), the company’s D1 is an even greater one, thanks to its ultra-expensive diamond-diaphragm mid/woofer, which audibly improves overall tone color while also smoothing (thanks to the diamond driver’s much-higher-in-frequency breakup modes) the transition to Raidho’s incomparable, single-ended, quasi-ribbon tweeter.”
Moving onto floorstanders, Magnepan scores three ‘top picks’. The first goes to the “shockingly realistic” MG .7, which also features in a full review. The second belongs to the MG 1.7i , singled out as the “best affordable loudspeaker”, while the MG 20.7 earns the third: “These Maggies’ magical ability to transport listeners to a different space and time and to there realistically recreate (with lifelike scope and size) the sound of acoustic instruments and the venue they were recorded in is extraordinary.”
Visit www.theabsolutesound.com/buyers_guides/32/ to download your free copy.
To audition a pair of Gamuts, Raidhos or Maggies, contact the relevant UK distributor for details of your nearest dealer.
- For Gamut: Sound Fowndations
- For Raidho and Magnepan: Decent Audio
