Issue 112 / May-June 1998
T H E S O U N D
Acarian's Elegant Alón Circes
THAT FIRST WATT COUNTS!
Acarian's Elegant Alón Circes
THAT FIRST WATT COUNTS!
The $12,000 Circes are Carl Marchisotto's impressive response to requests for a speaker positioned between the Alón V Mk III at $5,500 and the imposing Phalanx at $22,000. Listeners and dealers who admired the Phalanx hoped to hear a similar sound from a smaller, more manageable package roughly competitive with such upscale models as the Thiel CS7, Von Schweikert VR-6, Vandersteen Five, Genesis V, and other entries in the pretty-high-priced sweepstakes. And so, hard on the heels of the new Alón V Mk III and the unique Lotus SE comes the Circe, which shares their cosmetic appearance and general design while incorporating some expensive and telling refinements that set this speaker well apart from its junior confr&egave;res in the Acarian line.
Having lived with the Circes for just over a month, I am not ready to
give a full account of their capabilities, especially using a variety
of recordings and electronics and comparing competitive brands. But
this new speaker is so different and so strikingly appealing in its
production of musical sound as to warrant a first-look report, to be
followed with further thoughts.
The Circes, like the Alón V Mk IIIs, fully wrap in a black grill cloth the bass unit and the phased-arrav open baffle containing midrange and tweeter. But they also sport a beautifully finished cherry wood base and top cap. These handsome 52-inch twin towers will complement the decor of the most elegantly furnished room - and that's not just ad copy. Like the Phalanxes, the Circes also have external crossovers, one per speaker, a neat black plastic box measuring about 12 by 9 by 6 inches. The three independent crossover boards in each box are hard-wired directly to lugs that attach to each speaker's six solid copper binding posts. About 12 inches of Black Orpheus cable is supplied, and each crossover is meant to sit on the floor about that distance behind its speaker. Tri-wiring is strongly recommended throughout, from amp to crossover (which has its own solid copper posts) and, necessarily, from crossover to speaker. Jumpers are provided for single-wiring the amp to the crossover, but these should be put away in a drawer. (As with all Alón speakers that provide for tri-wiring, I have found it sonically preferable to tri-wire with inexpensive cable than to single-wire with expensive cable.)
The three drivers in the Circe are also used in the Phalanx (which has a total of eight drivers, including one not used in the Circe). These are a 10-inch infinite-baffle woofer, a 5.5-inch midrange, and a one-inch aluminum-dome tweeter. As in the Phalanx, these are all refined versions fitted with Alnico magnets, as opposed to the ferrite magnets that have been virtually universal in loudspeakers since the early 1960s, when African cobalt became prohibitively expensive. Alnico is one of several similar alloys of aluminum, nickel and cobalt which are thought by many to be the ideal magnetic material for audio applications. Alnico is said to permit finer control of the voice coil, richer harmonics and fuller, subtler dynamic response than ferrite, a ceramic compound. All loudspeaker magnets, even in cheap radios, used to be Alnico, and possibly that is why, despite their other limitations and at the modest volume levels they operated at, loudspeakers before the 1960s sounded sweet and warm, never aggressive or biting. The Circe's midrange and tweeter are full dipoles, radiating freely to both front and rear. The woofer cabinet is steel-braced.
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ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT VTL PR-1 (Super Deiuxe) preamp and MB-250 power amps; VPI TNT Jr. turntable and JMW arm; Clearaudio Accurate cartridge; Pentagon PS-3 phono stage: Pioneer DVL-700 DVD/CD/LD transport; VTL 20-bit T-DAC; Monarchy DIP antijitter filter Acarian Black Orpheus and Discovery Plus Four cables, and Roomtunes Just-a-Rack and tuning accessories.
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It is not hard to sum up the general sonic impression the Circes make, because they present the typical Alón traits: enormous, wide and deep soundstage with solid yet well-defined bass underpinning, full-bodied and focused images, ample air and spaciousness with a frequent sensation of "surround sound," tonally neutral balances, harmonic accuracy, and a seamless frequency spectrum and fast transients more apropos of single-panel electrostatics than multi-driver dynamics. The Circe adds its own magic in the "non-harsh" way it generates each musical tone, however soft, loud, short, percussive, or varying that tone may be.
Being extremely sensitive dipoles, the Circes are very much affected by room placement. As Marchisotto and I discovered while installing them in my 16- by 12-foot room with cathedral ceilings and alcoves, a half-inch forward or back or side to side really matters in generating the most focused and evenly spread imaging and the broadest, deepest soundstage. Like all dipoles (almost all speakers of any sort, actually), the Circes must be placed several feet in front of a wall and several feet away from side walls. At 130 pounds each, they are not easy to move, especially with spiked feet (like mine) on pile carpet. But a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. And the effort pays off handsomely in the spaciousness of the sound.
A setup hint: a stereo system that does not make mono will not make stereo either, just unfocused two-channel noise. I hear this noise all too often in dealers' showrooms, audiophiles' homes, etc. So the first step is to play a mono recording and make certain you hear, from your listening chair, a firmly focused, centered mono image that sounds as if it is emerging from a single cone between the speakers. Then tweak the stereo imaging, but never lose that mono image or you are dead audio meat. More on this in the future.
The Circes are the "quietest" speakers I've ever heard, the most revealing of air and silence around and between the notes and of the characteristic textural quality of each instrument's initial tonal attack as well as its harmonics. Playing an old Supraphon LP of Smetana's stirring Piano Trio in G minor [SUAST 50863], I was immediately aware that I was hearing for the first time in this recording how the bow of the violin meets the string to initiate each note, and the same for the cello. This can mean three things: first, the three drivers start and stop moving very quickly in response to a signal, without overhang or smear. And they do this in concert, the woofer appearing, improbably but unmistakably, just as fast as the tweeter. Second, the crossover networks must be of very refined quality, adding little distortion and phase incoherence. And third, the cabinet structure cannot impart any serious resonance or noise to the driver output. How else to account for the short, sharp, stupendously jolting shocks of the bass drum and tympani at the start of "Baba Yaga" in Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition [Classic Records LP LSC 2201]? The Circes' bass is ample enough to flap my trouser cuffs but never loose, floppy or chesty. Instead it seems exactly as tight as these taut drumheads. The Circes' bass, one might figuratively say, has a "midrange coloration" that is, little or none. Check out also the seemingly endless decay of the big bass drum stroke that ends "Sound Off " in the Mercury CD of Sousa marches conducted by Fennell [434300-2]. And the precisely pitched 19 Hz organ pedals in track 10 of Argo CD 414420-2, Mendelssohn played by Peter Hurford.
Such vivid musical experiences suggest that the Alnico magnets and other features of the Circe are producing the initial wavefront - call it a music wave - in an unusually gentle, natural way. The notes expand or blossom freely and openly into the room in a fashion previously experienced only in electrostatics like the Martin-Logan CLS that have little of the Circes' massive authority in large-orchestra sound. Perhaps we have become inured to cone speakers' blurring and hardening this initial attack. The Circes, like the other top Alón models, accurately reproduce what is sent to them by the electronics, and if the music signal is harsh, irritating or grainy, the Circes will of course give you that - but they will never go to pieces or add any hardness of their own in response. They seem not to be fazed by distortions upstream. When you get your front end and amplification sorted out, you will enjoy a remarkably irritant-free musical sound. This is the very special quality I noted in these speakers as soon as I first heard them.
In testing new equipment, I like to play old LPs I recall as being sonically problematic, and see what develops. One of these is a Strauss French horn concerto played by Myron Bloom and the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell [Epic LP BC 1241]. Quite amazing how immediate and fresh it sounds over the Circes, Myron Blooming away with a precisely defined, richly-textured Germanic horn tone just behind the speakers, the orchestra solidly imaged behind and around him in a Severance Hall that seldom sounds as lusciously reverberant and bass-supportive as it does here. Each tongued note of the horn has that realistic initial blat that brasses make when heard live. Nor did I ever imagine that this recording could play so loud so cleanly. How I admire components that make my ancient record collection sound up-to-date and refresh my enthusiasm for those beloved old recordings!
The liquid, bloomy tone-production of the seductive Circes always has that effect on ambient reverberation - it emerges remarkably clearly in recordings I hadn't thought contained so much hall sound. Another example is DCC Everest's outstanding reissue LP of Villa-Lobos' jungle-colored Uirapuru conducted by Stokowski [LPZ 1003]. In previous playings, the orchestra has sat quite close to the front in a somewhat studio-like environment, but over the Circes (no other changes made) the Manhattan Center expands to its normal size, enveloping the ensemble in an entrancing web of echo and moving the stage a few feet back. Uirapuru is now a roomier jungle environment.
The Alón IV and V have gained reputations as amp-slayers, demanding the most agile high-current amplification to sound their liveliest and most realistic. I'll never forget the tremendous impression the Alón V Mk IIs, for example, made at the Winter 1996 CES when driven by VTL's mighty 1250-watt Wotan amps - like having the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra playing Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture right in the room [ Mercury CD 434360-2]. Unexpectedly, however, the Circes, with the same 87 dB sensitivity, appear to be less demanding of amps and are reported to sound quite wonderful at moderate levels with single-ended amps of as little as five watts! I have heard - not this effect as yet, but speculation about the crucial importance of "the first watt" of music signal produced by the power amp. Much critical information about musical texture, pitch, and attack dynamics is contained in that first watt or two above silence. An amp and a speaker that reproduce it well (like the single-ended jobs), jumping off quickly and accurately in response to the music waves and over a truly silent background, will sound especially realistic until the music begins to require the high, steady-state volume levels that push-pull amps deliver. The Circe appears to be one of these select few. I might also point out - to veer in a totally different direction - that the Circes make superb home theater speakers because they reproduce everything from whispered dialogue to the mightiest explosions with remarkable linearity, spatial sophistication, and fine detail.
This is a lot of reputation for so new a product. I'll have more to say about these intriguing speakers (you bet I will!) in the future. In the meantime, with the Alón Circes in my system, I expect to continue discovering new delights in my records and CDs while fighting the occasional urge to oink.
ARTHUR S. PFEFFER
Manufacturer: Acarian Systems Ltd., 181 Smithtown Boulevard, Suite 104, Nesconset, New York 11767, phone 516 265-9577. Designer: Carl Marchisotto Serial numbers: 0114, 0115 Source: Manufacturer loan Price: $12,000 per pair
Thanks to Art Pfeffer and The Absolute Sound for this wonderful review of the Alón Circe Loudspeaker.
We feel there are two areas in which the Circe makes progress in the art of loudspeaker design. The first [is] ... lack of harshness. We found that by attacking magnetic distortions at the source (the magnet system), a great benefit could be realized in terms of harshness reduction, correct reproduction of harmonics, and the elimination of listener fatigue. As ASP points out, the attack transients are rendered with sharp focus, but without the usual aggressiveness. These exotic magnet systems are used full range only in our other two top models - Phalanx and Adriana. The second attribute is spatial reproduction. While many loudspeakers can attain a convincing sense of width, depth and height, we feel that Circe expands on this.... [W]e find two things that are unusual in its reproduction of space. First, there is enough space for all the instruments and voices, no matter how complex the material. You do not get the feeling that one ensemble can play only at the expense of another. Second, separate ensembles or voices will clearly reveal their individual acoustic spaces within the overall soundstage. We feel that these qualities bring Circe's performance much closer to the sound of live instruments and voices.
On another note, Art, it's been about a month since we've had an urge for truffles and swill, so we guess you're right. Those Mercury recordings do help...
Marilyn and Carl Marchisotto