Bookshelf Speaker Reviews

Performance
Value
Build Quality

Life is full of strange synchronicities. Around the time my friends in the country were posting pictures of their spring mushroom harvests on Facebook, I just happened to be setting up Morel’s SoundSpot Music Theatre 2 Ultra, a 5.1-channel satellite/subwoofer set based on the adorably spherical SP-2 sat and PSW10 sub. Would Morels in my system sound as good as morels taste on pizza? In omelets or pasta? With steak or veal? With asparagus? In wine or cream sauces? In gravy?

Veritas is the Roman goddess of truth. It’s also a distinguished speaker line from Energy. Since 1973, Energy has passed from its founders through various Canadian and American owners. In 2006, along with its stablemate Mirage, it became the property of Klipsch. Earlier this year, the Klipsch brands—Energy, Mirage, Jamo, and Klipsch itself—became the property of Audiovox. Although Audiovox also owns a couple of other ancient speaker brands (Acoustic Research and Jensen), in recent years, those brands have focused on car audio, personal audio products, small-scale video products, and accessories. That leaves the home theater niche wide open for Energy and the goddess of truth.

From Canada with Love

Canada has traditionally been a cornucopia of loudspeaker manufacturers. That isn’t exactly an accident. The Canadian government maintains a research facility in Ottawa with an anechoic (non-echoing) chamber that lures speaker designers like a garden lures honeybees. But Sinclair Audio’s roots are in Montreal, as is its Canadian distributor, Jam Industries, which began manufacturing, importing, and distributing musical instruments and other equipment in 1972 and expanded to include consumer electronics shortly thereafter. The company’s scope subsequently expanded to include lighting and audio equipment for concert, broadcast, and recording use. Sinclair is distributed in the U.S. by American Audio & Video. It’s sold via the same dealer network that handles Arcam, whose audio/video receivers and other products have attracted well-earned rave reviews in these pages.

Performance
Value
Build Quality

Andrew Jones for All

Isn’t it preposterous for the Pioneer Corporation to assert itself as a loudspeaker manufacturer? After all, the company is best known in the home theater sphere as a maker of audio/video receivers. Those with just slightly longer memories recall Pioneer’s world-class KURO plasmas as some of the best HDTVs ever made. There was a time when the Laserdisc format, which Pioneer championed, was the signal source of choice among videophiles. Pioneer was also one of the Japanese audio brands that established the stereo receiver as a staple of dorm rooms (including mine) during the 1970s. But who thinks of Pioneer in connection with speakers?

Performance
Value
Build Quality

Born and Reborn

Loudspeaker manufacturers are born and then, in some cases, reborn. Although rebirth doesn’t necessarily ensure continued creativity or even longevity, some speaker makers thrive in their new incarnations. That’s what happened to Boston Acoustics. It was born as an independent company in 1979, was reborn in 2006 as a speaker brand following acquisition by D&M Holdings (the same company that markets Denon and Marantz), and is now healthier than ever.

Toot Your Horn

Surround sound is an indispensable part of home theater. But some people still have difficulty making the leap from two-channel to 5.1-channel-plus. One question that comes up is: Doesn’t going from two speakers to five or more place a strain on the amplifier? After all, an amp driven into clipping suffers from harshness and compression, and that’s never pleasant to listen to.

Starting from Zero

Loudspeakers somehow have a more intimate relationship with their listeners than other audio components. They interact directly with the senses, causing changes in air pressure that the human body perceives—in this case, mainly through the ears and diaphragm. Listening to a system at reference level with a true subwoofer is a full-body experience that will induce physiological changes in the audience. So perhaps it’s fitting that whereas we buy HDTVs and A/V receivers from relatively few manufacturers, the speaker industry supports a couple dozen fairly well-known companies, even more lesser-knowns, and countless unknowns. Some people even build speakers in their basements as a hobby. NHT is one of the more pedigreed names. Unlike a lot of others, it has not only survived five changes in ownership, but it’s done so with one of its two founders in attendance.