Trenner & Friedl Sun Loudspeakers Reviewed in Stereophile!

Trenner & Friedl just received a rave review on their tiny Sun mini-monitors in Stereophile! I'm excited about this since I had a chance to play with the Suns a couple of years ago. (You can read up on my impressions here and here.) The reviewer was Ken Micallef, who gave a thorough and thoughtful review to our Unison Research Unico integrated amplifier last year. He evaluated the little Suns with the equally diminutive Heed Elixir integrated amplifier, which is also one of my favorite hi-fi products in the world. Together they were a satisfying, surprising and extremely musical combination.

Over the last year or so I've received a number of comments on this blog about the Suns. These comments seem to be divided into two camps--one group maintains that a tiny speaker you can pick up easily with one hand can't possibly offer such a big sound (they can), and the other group knows Trenner & Friedl products and want to hear more. The price for the Suns have been set at $3450/pair, which seems crazy when you see them. But alas, this is one of those hi-fi products where you have to shut up, sit down and listen and then decide whether or not they justify the price. The Suns pass that test effortlessly.

Congratulations to Bob Clarke of Profundo, the US distributor for Trenner & Friedl, as well as Dan Muzquiz of Blackbird Audio Gallery (who also got a mention for helping out with the review). Kudos also go to Peter Trenner and Andreas Friedl, who make such incredible products. It's nice to see my audio buddies get some love in Stereophile!

In Search of the Perfect Two-Way, Part 2

Have I ever told you how much I love two-way monitor speakers? I know I have, at least a few times. In fact, I've found two of my old equipment reviews where I started off by saying how much I love little two-ways. I've also found three old reviews where I start off by saying how much I love integrated amplifiers. So I guess when all is said and done and I retire from this audio thing, I'll probably choose an integrated amp and a pair of two-way bookshelf speakers and fade away into musical bliss.

For the record, I can probably find dozens of reviews from other writers that start off with a sentence declaring unconditional love for either integrateds or two-ways. Maybe they copied it from me, maybe I copied it from them...but if I had to lay money on it, I'd say I probably stole it from Art Dudley back in his days with Listener.

Anyway, when I say I love two-way monitors, I can back that shit up. I have little monitors all over the friggin' place. As you can see in the photo above, I gathered them all together for a group photo. I did this for a few reasons--one, I thought it would be goofy and fun to do so, and second, I'm preparing myself for my upcoming trip to Australia to consult with the fine folks at Brigadiers Audio Group on the final version of their new speaker line. We'll be tweaking and listening to two models--one is a larger 2.5-way floorstander, and the other is the two-way monitor I've had in my system since January.

This is the speaker I'm talking about, the BAG Compact, the biggest, heaviest and potentially most expensive speaker of the lot. As I've mentioned before, this is a very ambitious design that features the highest quality parts and drivers, and an intricate cabinet made from birch ply. That's why they weigh about 45 to 50 pounds each--they're like solid blocks of wood. Heavy wood.

I'm very, very excited about this speaker because it's one of those two-way speaker designs that I could retire with. It's all I need from a speaker--it throws up a giant soundstage, goes satisfying low in the bass and has oodles of air and space in the treble. The only drawback of this speaker is that it has a relatively low sensitivity, and I haven't had a big powerful amp to drive them with. I was able to briefly pair them with the PureAudio Reference monoblocks, which provide 65 watts per channel of beautiful Class A power--and the combo was magnificant. But outside of those ten days or so, the most I've been able to throw on the BAG Compacts is 45 watts per channel. I'm jonesin' for a nice 100-150 wpc amp right now, and then I may discover the true potential of these speakers.

That's why I'm bringing them back to Australia with me--so I can hear them mated to the amplification used in their design.

These little two-ways need no introduction. Okay, they're the Trenner & Friedl ART Monitors from Austria. These are my personal reference speakers and have been for the last four and a half years. These go into my main system whenever I don't have another pair of speakers that I'm evaluating or breaking in--unless, of course, I have a big giant speaker on hand and I want to listen to the bottom octave. Even so, these little speakers with a front baffle around the size of a classic LS3/5a go surprisingly deep--down to about 44 Hz with proper set up.

As a distributor, I make plenty of switches to my system on an almost weekly basis. With all those changes, it's easy to lose that sound with which you're comfortable--prompting a sudden and drastic tearing down and rebuilding of your system, trying to recover that magic. In most cases I can simply insert the ARTs into my system and instantly return to the sound I crave.

These, of course, are the little brother to the ART, the new SUN. As of right now, I believe that this is the only pair in the US. They made a huge splash at the Newport/Irvine/Santa Ana/wherever Show last month, and I'm listening to them now. I love them with all my heart. So small yet so musical. Just astonishing.

In my original blog entry about the SUN, some guy made an absurd comment about the SUN--how they couldn't be that small and that satisfying at the same time. He dragged out a bunch of hoary old tropes about the limitations of little two-ways and came up with a bunch of strange comments that didn't really apply. The biggest mistake he made was assuming these were single-driver speakers--they're not. These are two-ways, since the tweeter is where the dust cap is, mounted concentrically. As a result, the little SUN comes as close to a single-point source as any transducer I've heard.

These, of course, are the Axis VoiceBox S. I import and distribute these in the United States, so I won't go on and on about how good they are. But I am happy that this is my very own pair to have and to hold for as long as I want. Of all the speakers I own, the Axis are perhaps the best at delving deep into a recording and extracting as much musical information as possible, except for the bottom octave, of course, all without sounding analytical or harsh like many other pro recording monitors.

There's a good story behind the middle VoiceBox, the one with the wood veneer. This was a prototype of the current model that sat in the garage of TAS' Neil Gader for a couple of years. After he reviewed the finished version of the speaker for TAS a couple of months ago, he sent this lone speaker back with the review pair. Apparently one speaker had to be sent back to Australia for one reason or another, and, well, who knows. Stuff happens. So I'm thinking about marketing this lone speaker as a Signature Mono Edition of the VoiceBox. Catchy, huh?

Finally, I have these old Rega RS1s sitting around. We originally purchased them for a song from one of our dealers--we wanted to place a modest system in our old cigar lounge back in Texas. This pair had been damaged during shipping, but the dealer was able to get a new replacement set of drivers. The cabinets are scuffed up with a bashed corner or two, but they sound wonderful. These speakers retailed for $795/pair or so when they were new, and to tell you the truth they sound absolutely great for the money. The first time I heard Rega's smallest speaker was back in the '90s during a visit to my old dealer Gene Rubin. They retailed for $495/pair back then, and they became my stock recommendation at that price point for many years.

I've listened to these on a number of occasions, and despite the beat-up cabinets and the seemingly cheap drivers--at least compared to the other monitors I have in the house--I've always been surprised at how musical they are. But at this point, I'm not sure if I really need to have them, especially with all the speaker choices I have in the house. If you're interested, I'd probably sell them for cheap. Just let me know.

My trip to Australia is being planned for August 16-29, or roughly thereabouts. I'll try to keep everyone informed about my work with BAG, and my experiences as an "professional speaker consultant."

More on the Trenner & Friedl Suns

Remember those tiny Trenner & Friedl Sun speakers that I loved at the Newport Show? They're at my house right now. On the last day of the show I walked up to Bob Clarke of Profundo, the US distributor for Trenner & Friedl, and said, "So, Bob...what you gonna do with them li'l speakers?"

"I don't know yet," he replied.

"Well then send 'em home with me! I want to see just how good they are."

I didn't expect Bob to give in so easily, but later in the day I checked back into the Profundo/Blackbird Audio room and Bob pointed to a small cardboard box and said, basically, there you go. Take 'em. When I returned home from Southern California last week, however, I realized there was a glitch in my evil plan to bogart these amazing little speakers. I didn't have a single amp in the house to use in our reference system. I sold my last one while I was at the show, my personal reference since at least October, and I had to ship it out to the dealer ASAP.

I really wanted to put some incredible amplification on the Suns. At the show, Bob and Dan Muzquiz of Blackbird paired the Suns with the new Elixir integrated amplifier from Heed Audio, which will cost probably about $1200 once it starts shipping from Hungary. Along with a Heed CD player, this system let everyone at the show utterly gobsmacked. At home I thought about pairing the Suns with a nice tube amplifier with some power--while Bob doesn't have the final specs from Trenner & Friedl yet, he suspects that they have a less than average sensitivity--just like my personal Trenner & Friedl ART monitors. I also thought about pairing them with the PureAudio gear, a full $20,000 worth of amplification. After all, the ARTs paired really well with the PureAudio gear over the last couple of years--one of the best speaker/amplifier matches I've performed among our brands.

But I have nothing, nada. No music for at least a couple of weeks, until my next shipment comes from Europe. So I started thinking about the system my parents have. If you've read any of my old Vinyl Anachronist columns for Perfect Sound Forever, you'll know that I've always maintained a modest but well-chosen system for my parents over the years. I started back in the mid-90s with a Rotel integrated, a Music Hall CD player and a pair of those incredible little $200/pair Optimus Pro-4 speakers from Radio Shack, the ones with the Linaeum tweeters, the ones I actually got for 50% off.

Over the years, the ephemeral Music Hall was replaced with a succession of cheap Sony DVD players, the Optimus Pros were switched out for a pair of Epos ELS-3s when the vinyl veneers started peeling off in big sheets. Finally, just a few months ago, the Rotel started acting up in one channel so I helped them choose one of those inexpensive yet fairly competent little T-class integrated amps from Dayton Audio--another fabulous $100 bargain in the world of hi-fi. For the last couple of years Colleen and I have wired this system with some of the more affordable cables from Cardas Audio.

This system has always sounded relatively great, considering the cost of the components, but I've never been able to get what I would call truly satisfying sound in their house. First of all, they don't really have a good room for it--first they placed this system on an old yet beautiful walnut bookcase, the very same one I now use as a two-way mini-monitor display in my living room, in their bedroom. Over the last year they've redecorated their home, and the bookcase went to me and the stereo migrated to their living room and now resides in a new entertainment hutch/rack/TV stand/thingie. Still, the sound is somewhat small and closed in because my parents like to shove the little Epos as close to the rear wall as possible. Whenever I visit, I pull them out a little. Whenever I return, they've been pushed back.

Yesterday, on my father's 84th birthday, I came over and swapped out the Epos for the Suns. Again, the Suns have an internal enclosure about one-third the size of the Epos. Even my Mom had to chuckle at the diminutive little Suns. Once I hooked them up, however, the sound was transformed. This was anything but subtle. For the first time in my life, I have heard genuine high-end sound at my folks' house.

My father, who probably is an audiophile in some alternative universe--he possesses excellent hearing and often makes the same exact comments about specific pieces of audio gear as I do--instantly heard a profound increase in soundstage depth. For the first time, the wall behind the system dissolved and I heard the original recording venue recreated spatially. I also heard something else equally impressive--solid, tight and well-controlled bass. Both my father and I are sharing a love for Harry Belafonte's music these days, and he played a rather typical '80s live recording, all bright and twinkly and ultra-etched, and yet there was a solid, accurate reproduction of the electric bass on every track. My mom felt compelled to go outside and monitor the volume levels from the front curb--she was worried the neighbors were going to complain.

In nearly every respect, I felt like I was listening to a genuine high-end system comprised of a $100 T-class integrated, a Sony DVD player that probably cost $29 new, and one of the most surprising tiny speakers I've ever heard. Of course the Suns were revealing the weaknesses in the amp and source--there was a dryness throughout the upper midrange during louder passages that's fairly typical of cheap digital and cheap D-class amplification. At the same time, the Sun really took advantage of the Dayton's 100wpc to deliver deep, convincing bass and an unbelievably airy and delicate treble. The imaging and the soundstaging was some of the best I've heard from any speaker of any size.

So I want to keep using these Suns in different applications. We've shown that they can transform a mediocre system into something that approximates totally decent sound. Next, Colleen has a relative who just purchased a super-cute but super-small house in an older neighborhood. The only problem is her living room is about half the size it should be, and my first thought after I crossed her threshold for the first time was "Where would the stereo go?" So I'd like to see if the Suns work in another modest system set in a really small room. (The ARTs are, in my opinion, the best speakers I've used in a small room.)

That would be another good reason to buy these. Finally, let's hook the Suns up to something amazing just to see what they can do. Tiny speakers that sound great have always had a fairly difficult time in the marketplace--think about all the negative comments you heard when the Acoustic Energy AE-1s first appeared, or the Celestion SL-700 SE. The Suns are even smaller, yet they're offering a level of sound quality that I've never experienced with an enclosure this small.

The perfect speakers for tiny apartments? Ivy League dorm rooms? A desktop computer system? Or just something that's small and unobtrusive and still offers high-end sound? I hope I get to find out the answers before I have to send them back.

Tiny Speakers, Great Sound from Trenner & Friedl

It's sort of a cliche in high-end audio to talk about small speakers that sound much bigger than you expect--if you can't say that about your own speakers, you probably shouldn't bring them to market. But the new Sun speakers from Trenner & Friedl take this type of thinking to a whole new level. The Suns are so tiny that you can pick them up easily with one hand. Yet when you listen to them, you'll shake your head in disbelief. Mated with a fantastic new Elixir integrated amp from Heed Audio, which will retail for just around $1200 (including a fabulous-sounding headphone amp), the Suns created a large, convincing soundstage with unbelievably impressive bass response.

The Suns are not going to be as inexpensive as the Elixir, but you have to know a little bit about Trenner & Friedl designs before you can comment on the perceived value of such an amazing little product. The cabinet work is truly astounding, as are the drivers and the innards. No corners have been cut--the precision and sheer audacity of the four dinky ports on the rear of the speaker, for example, hints at the extraordinarily high level of engineering and craftsmanship.

The Suns are ideal for small rooms (my Trenner & Friedl Arts are perhaps the best speakers I've ever used in such an application), or for people who want great sound in their apartments or their offices. (Warning: they can go loud with relative ease!) These might just be the ultimate speakers for a desktop computer system. Here at the Newport Show, attendee after attendee couldn't believe the breathtaking sound coming from the diminutive coaxial drivers.

Don't judge these speakers until you've heard what they can do. I don't want anyone telling me about the laws of physics when it comes to a transducer of this size--these sound full and musical and utterly impressive. Or, as Harry Pearson used to say, "If you haven't heard it, you don't have an opinion." I want to give Andreas Friedl and Peter Trenner a huge hug for accomplishing this feat. Please visit Bob Clarke of Profundo and Dan Muzquiz of Blackbird Audio on the third floor and hear for yourself.