Existence Loudspeakers & Reality
Just when you think you've seen them all, another new company emerges with loudspeakers rarely seen on commercial playfields. This time I'm talking about the Finnish Existence Loudspeakers run by the designer/owner Marko Reinikainen from his house in the middle of best Finnish countryside but only a two hour drive from the capital Helsinki.
It all begun as it so commonly does: Marko had been a hifi enthusiast for more than two decades. He's got his share of top of the line B&Ws, Martin Logans etc. as well as fancy electronics. Prior his own endeavours he enjoyed of a kit speaker called HIFI C1, a mighty cardioid/dipole speaker, the design of which he still appreciates wholeheartedly (the one on the right in the pic) .
Then, one day a few years back, he heard Lumo Audio Model 3, a true widebandwidth loudspeaker built around Parc Audio's wooden cone 131 widebandwidth driver. He was so impressed by the initial results that took them home for a closer investigation, and eventually bought the speakers. He then heard another similar speaker, this time with Tangband W4 bambu cone unit in a TL cabinet, and completely lost his soul to the concept.
It was at this point that Marko, biased towards physically big loudspeakers, got the idea of experimenting with a speaker housed with not one but several widebandwidth drivers but still keeping the construction and design as simple as possibe. That was the beginning of Existence Loudspeakers, an its first commercial model, Reality.
The Existence Reality is a plus 170cm bipolar line array design with 10 x Tangband W4 drivers shooting forward, and two in the rear. No crossover whatsoever. Fitting and adjusting the sound is affected by cabinet measures as well as using different filling materials.
Why line array, Marko? "I wanted the kind of soundstage that panel loudspeakers, for example electrostatics, produce combined with a minimalistics and even puristic realization. I was fascinated by the idea that I could do without a crossover. I calculated the vertical midpoint for the ear level. At first I made the front panel curved so that the distance from each driver to the ear would have been the same. But that turned out to be impractical and business-wise unfeasible. Also, I would have had to do a compromise with the outlooks. Instead I chose the bipolar concept, and there it was: slender and tall loudspeaker! Based on my plan, Mr. Sihvonen from Lumo Audio made then the actual simulation. "
Why Tangband W4? "At first I wanted to make use of Parc Audio's 131 but couldn't get hold of a sufficient number of them for my project. So I went for the W4, which I knew from the TL cabinet. Technically they fit well to a sealed line array cabinet, and sound good with different material. Sonically I like their extremely beautiful tone in the midrange; human voice and acoustic instruments are reproduced in a tangible manner."
How are the drivers connected? "Some of the units are connected in parallel, some in series, in order to control the impedance. I was prepared to use some sort of crossover circuitry but while burning in the speakers I came to the conclusion that none is required. The two drivers on the back side are in phase with the ones in front. This quarantees high enough sensitivity for example for small power tube amps, which I like. On the other hand, I just tried Apoll Acoustics' 500W Class D mono blocks, and was very, very happy with the outcome. So much music!"
Internal wiring is realized with silver plated copper cables. Quality terminals come from Supra. According to Marko, both choises are negotiable with the customer. As is the cabinet finishing. The pair of Reality I was listening to was made of massive oak and waxed thrice, and given that it was a still a prototype pair, the finish was quite good. Optionally one can have a painted finish or other massive woods.
And the sound ...?
I heard the Existence Reality briefly at the Helsinki HifiExpo 2012 but circumstances being what they are in a smallish hotel room, I decided to have a closer look and audition in a more favourable surrounding. And more favourable the conditions indeed were in a house with wooden walls and practically with no background noise - unless the wind on tree tops is not calculated in.
The Reality was hooked to Unison Research P30k power amp with KT88 tubes by JJ. The amp was controlled by Meridian 565 Z3 processor/preamp. The sources were either Logitech Squeezebox Touch media player (hard disc files in FLAC lossless format) or Rega Apollo cd player. The 30 watts of the P30k turned out to be fully adequate for running the 95dB sensitive Reality.
The company's marketing department announces that "Design philosophy of Existence Loudspeakers is to produce most mesmerising sound experience with all kind of music without forgetting home theatre users." What do you understand by "mesmerising" in this context, Marko? What are the properties that make the sound mesmerising? What are the sonic strengths of you loudspeakers?
"My goal was to have a sound that is easy to listen to and that would not be too selective with respect to different music genres. All loudspeakers are compromizes, of course, but I wanted to offer an alternative that would have the beauty of the tone and the soundstage of big magnetostats or electrostats, but would retain the advantages of dynamic loudspeakers without compromizing anything by having to use different drivers for different bandwidths and hence a crossover to combine them. I wanted my speakers to have authority of their own. I'm personally allergic to loudness in the bass, hissing treble and nasal midrange, so these were properties I wanted to avoid. In addition, the possibility to use a variety of amplifiers was one background factor. The aim was that the two elements in rear create, through delayed reflections, depth and space, which in gact they do. They also affect the forward radiation. I offer adjustment for the amount of backward radiation as an option but mostly, I don't think it's needed. The sonic strengths of the Reality lie in its soundstage and general presence; when the recording is good, these speakers are easy to forget. Just close your eyes and let the music flow. That's most important for me. The holistic experience afterwards."
What's "easy sound"? "Easy sound means absence of listening fatigue. The sound is easy when you suddenly notice that you've been listening to music two more hours than you planned, and nothing has distracted you on the way."
My impressions
My first impression of the sound was that all is there as expected but the sound/music is served in an unconventional way. Something was different but what? There's no obvious answer. First I thought the impression was caused by lack of background noise or purity of the sound in general. But the more I think of it the more I relate the speciality of the Reality to the fact that a dozen of widebandwidth drivers configured in a line array simply produce music and sound differently. Differently than an OB panel speaker with only one widebandwidth driver in the middle, for example. Differently in which way?'
Firstly, the size of the sound is interesting: the stage is bordered by the width and height of the loudspeaker, and the sound never really escapes this area. And that's a virtue. My personal experience is that there's always a risk associated with loudspeakers of this shape, and that is that the size of the sound grows unnecessary big with some music material. But that risk was diminished or eliminated in the Reality's case.
Secondly, the airy and open sound of the Reality possesses immateriality but it's not exactly immateriality of the electrostatics or other panel speakers. The dynamic drivers simply do it differently. The sound does not sail around the speaker enclosure as with some panel speakers but is offered from more stable directions.
I'd not go, perhaps, as far as claiming the midrange of the Reality as "honey-like" but very appealing - soft and forgiving rather than analytical - it was in many ways, in particular with vocal and acoustic music as well as with certain pop music. And the midrange wasn't overshadowed by the sounds below it.
As often with widebanders, the treble was reproduced seamlessly as a natural prolongation of the midrange. The other side of the coin is that the upper treble does not have the ultimate sophistication of the best domes. But which is better? Both are, depending on the attitude and preferences of the listener. I was quite happy with the way, in which the Reality expressed the treble area but that may be because I'm rarely impressed by the HF brilliance of many - not all - modern domes. On the other hand, I know that the highest frequencies can contain plenty of essential information regarding eg. the phase of the sound.
The most enigmatic aspect of the Reality's sound was its bass performance. I was puzzled because I couldn't easily relate it to anything that I have heard before. On one hand, the bass had a good resolution and definition, and did produce quite low notes also. But not in the way some other speakers, eg. Dunlavy Athena, do it by keeping the upper bass/lower midrange flat and clean, and only outputting the lowest sounds when demanded by the source material.
In the Reality's case, the bass was more smoothly integrated with the rest of the frequency spectrum but still, just like in the Athenas, the focus of the sound is on the midrange, not on the bass. The puzzle is that the Reality does not sound midrangy but the midrange emphasis is created as a residual of the chosen tonal balance. The effect with actual music was twofold. On certain fat recordings, the bass notes were just correctly articulated; on more meagre ones, the bass appeared kind of shy leaving the music a little pale.
The Existence SUB1 subwoofer added energy to the lowest two actaves but that didn't change the main picture much. This all points to the conclusion that although the Reality, in terms of its measurements (28Hz to 19kHz), is almost a full-range loudspeaker, subjectively it's the midrange where it excels. The fact that the listening room exhales low frequency sounds effectively certainly had something to do with this but hardly explains it away completely.
In a bigger picture, there were very few music/recordings that the Reality would not had supported; on the contrary, I'd say that the Reality is quite a competent and musical all arounder. Like with every loudspeaker the final suitability is a function of the triangle between the listener's expectations and predilections, the loudspeaker's qualities and the specialities of the recordings and the room. What amazed me was to hear the price asked for a pair: 4200-4900 euro (depending on the finish). Quite good value for the money.
That much of the Reality. What about Unreal? The Unreal I and Unreal II are small standmount speakers with one front-mounted driver or with two front-firing drivers and one in the back. The idea is to retain the same qualities of the soundstage - the speaker has to disappear, so to speak - as with the main speakers eg. in home theatre applications. The three driver Back is Existence Loudpeaker's in-wall rear channel speaker.
Furthermore, there's coming another line array with 6 + 1 drivers called Existence Semisphere, and its little brother Mid. And it'is not excluded that this winter will see a loudspeaker model "that rules them all". The name will be Empire. So there's definitely life beyond the Reality, and will be interesting to follow what sort of product line Marko and his team will eventually be able to generate.