TEST chario® ACADEMY SONNET Image hifi magazine 3/2007 – May / June 2007 – No. 75 from Heinz Gelking
The chario® Academy Sonnet is the following model of “my” chario® Academy Millennium 1 For me it is absolutely clear, that it slowly look like, that I became the house- and factory writer of chario®, the loudspeaker manufacturer from Merate. I wrote every test of chario® speakers in the image hifi magazine. Millennium 1, Cygnus, Serendipity. Normally we avoid such heaping within the editorial staff. First, it should be more exciting for the reader, to see the products of a manufacturer from a different perspective. Second, it serves to extend the horizon of an editor. Third, it avoids the impression of a certain dependency of the writing editor of the manufacturer or the distributor. About this, I fight again this theme with my hands and feet. But my fight was not very long and successful. But honestly, also not with hand and feet, but with the proposition, somebody else could……But it regrets, what I always anticipate: I have not the power to effect myself. I have to bend me in front of arguments like this: But this is the following model of your chario® Academy Millennium 1. You can explain this in the best way, where the difference between the old and the new model is. That’s what the reader wants to read and know. Who should write about this? You are the right person! That’s right! I have had a long time a chario® Academy Millennium 1. First as my main speaker system and later, after I bought the Revel Performa F 32, I used my chario® Millennium 1 another two years. Later, I sold them. Now they are playing at another nice place, because they are to excellent, to depose them soundless in a corner of your apartment. Till the last day of using her, it was really a pleasure to listen to her. After this long time and my very enthusiastic test in 1999 it offers me some faints. It should be a nice, interesting business, to test the following model. A very good starting view and point is, to have a look at the chario® Academy Sonnet and are her stands. I like the new developed stands for the chario® Academy Sonnet, but they have – in defiance of their elegant swing backwards – a more pertinent amazing grace. Esthetical it likes similar to the old stands, but technical the new stands have an enormous advantage. The backwards spreaded steel feet stick on the ground a triangle of a wide of 55 cm. Here, Mario Murace can explain at the phone, this has only cosmetic reasons – no reasons for the sound, only reasons for the new design. This variant saves the wooden parquet, is more save and has more stability as the four point spikes of the old stands of chario® Academy Millennium 1. But the new stands need this stability, because the chario® Academy Sonnet makes something like a head-stand. The tweeter is placed below, the woofermidrange is placed above. The chario® Academy Sonnet looks like a cutted piece of the chario® Academy Serendipity ( image hifi magazine 5/2006 ) here it seems, that a big tower speaker is enthroned head-standed on an enormous subwoofer. To place the tweeter in the ear altitude, the stands have to be higher than normal ones and depending of the movement of the woofer-midrange, they should have a special save stand. This is not only a question for security for this aero nose heavy looking system; it is the question for the quality of sound. As less, the speaker cabinet moves vertical, so better and more perfect the membranes can reproduce the musical signal and can produce an exact sound in an exact direction. About this you can fix the chario® Academy Sonnet with two screws. 27 kg is the weight for this system ( speaker and stand ) Under normal circumstances moves really nothing!
1
TEST chario® ACADEMY SONNET
Why the comparison between chario® Academy Millennium 1 and chario® Academy Sonnet. The reason is, that Mario Murace, the sound engineer, is not only thinking in technologic categories. He has also a passion for psychoacoustics. These, from Mario Murace respected psychoacoustics see themselves as natural scientists; they get their knowledge through experiments. They found out, that humans are able to localise better a sound on the same altitude or above their own ears, worse if the sound comes from below. I asked him about the cause reason – maybe the construction of the human ear? But Mario Murace is not the person who is telling you only “hot steam or hot air”, he doesn’t know. The psychoacoustic suppose the cause reason in the human evolution. We have always more worlds above us than below us, and the threatening menorces are coming from every side and from above, but very seldom from below. Than he added this to the psychoacoustic argument with space acoustic. The power of the first reflection from the ground, dammed from most of the listeners with an in front of the speakers placed carpet, you could reduce theoretically in two kinds: you remove the ground ( not possible ) or you take the position of the chassis far away from it. And this was his decision for the new chario® Academy Line. Mario Murace use two drivers in the chario® Academy Sonnet, that he also uses very successful in the chario® Academy Serendipity. The watch glass flat 32mm Tweeter made of silk and aluminium coated. This tweeter makes me so enthusiastic at my first meeting with the chario® Academy Serendipity, because it sounds less “sweet” as the Scanspeak Revelator of the chario® Academy Millennium1, but here for more open, more honest and more dynamic. But sometimes, when I am listen to Heather Nova or Veronique Gens, I get the impression, that nobody else takes the Revelator to sound so amazing, like in Mario Muraces chario® Academy Millennium 1. But Mario Murace doesn’t loose something of his knowledge! Also the new tweeter of chario® Academy Sonnet sounds with an amazing grace and freshness. The diameter of the woofer-midrange is with 17cm bigger than the old one of the 13cm chassis of chario® Academy Millennium1. But the construction is more complicate: The core of the sandwich construction is made of Rohacell, a from Degussa produced hard foam, used first at woofers from B & W, the outside used coating is made of glassfiber-material. For chario® relations I think it is very courageous, not too coloured through this in black. A fine carpentered and extremely stabile speaker cabinet we can expect from chario®. The knock test with my finger bones! Something sounds very bright and so it shouldn’t sound. A crackling noise! Has Mario Murace in the technical explanation ( data sheet ) not thought about, why a developer of speakers should not think in the way of an instrument constructor and that speakers should be a resonating instrument? By the way, it was a magnificent broadside against “resonating” cabinets – on a direct hit. At the end it was again the impatience of the editor: Before you make a knock test, you should fix the screws at the terminal, if you don’t do it, you have a crackling noise! But after this, you can hear only a “very dry and deep” tock, tock. And how sounds the new chario® Academy Sonnet? Maybe more speaker manufacturers should take the influence of psychoacoustic knowledge in their develops. With the chario® Academy Millennium 1 we can speak about a fascinating sound, but with the chario® Academy Sonnet it is so much better! You can reproduce exactly a recording, made in a studio or in a concert hall, in your living room. The main point is, you can imagine, that interprets are playing their instruments in an upright, standing position. An example: a singer, like Matthias Goerne or a violinist, like Hilary Hahn, they perform in an upright, standing position, because it works and sounds better. And this illusion, that these interprets are not crawling on the carpet or performing in a sitting position for their own comfortability, can give you the new, miraculous chario® Academy Sonnet. With my Rewel Performa F 32 sings Goerne “ Die schöne Müllerin” ( Decca CD ) crawling on his knees, so as Schubert’s “Liederzyklus” would be a cheap soap opera.
2
TEST chario® ACADEMY SONNET
But with the chario® Academy Sonnet, he is standing in an upright position, also the, by Eric Schneider, well played piano sounds great and placed in the right position – so it should sound! To make music is communication! I know this recording very well, and I always use it for my tests, but so free and clear no other speaker reproduced me a violin! The speaker as a 3-D-projector, which makes himself forgotten! This is exactly the point and the speaker himself is communicative. Most of the speakers reproduce an interpret “somehow” in the space and who is pained under “speaker sound” instead of music, should think about the choice of his speakers and about their placement. But when, like over the chario® Academy Sonnet – the sound result looses the connection to the speaker, than the perfect illusion works! Instead of Hilary Hahn could also play my old violin teacher, if she would have a Stradivarius or where a virtuous violin player likes Hilary Hahn. What I want to explain: The sound of a violin in a few meters distance I know very well – but so authentic like over the chario® Academy Sonnet, I have never listened and live it! But it is also my Job to see the not so enthusiastic sides of a speaker. With an orchestra, here you want more for a perfect space illusion for subwoofer competence. Here the rules of physic strike back. A speaker in this size with such drivers reaches his deepest frequencies at 55 Hz ( minus 3 dB ). The chario® Academy Sonnet is and remains a compact speaker system. To reproduce the power of deep frequencies of a symphony orchestra, you need more membrane surface – readily like at the chario® Academy Serendipity, with her two 32cm isobaric woofers. This chario® Academy Sonnet offers us in deep frequencies comes fascinating clear, open, precise and with intensive colours. It seems that Mario Murace changed a little bit his “fine tuning philosophy”. The sound works perfect instead of the bigger woofer-midrange. For it, it is easier to reproduce the sound of a deep cello-string or the sound of a fagot also without any erotic “ small stuffing” with the fine sensuality feeling colourful and dynamic nuances. Of course, also I sometimes wondering and are very angry about the automatism, with the new product or model everything will be better. But here it is simply and definitely the truth! The chario® Academy Millennium 1 cheats a little bit, sounds huge round, but not absolute honestly. And she was a nightmare to find the right choice of an amplifier for her. The chario® Academy Sonnet has in all the HiFi-criteria’s her nose in front! She sounds more free and alive, more dynamic and with intensive colours as her predecessor in. Certainly both generations are be sure, that at the end only a harmonic impression counts. Also the chario® Academy Sonnet is a dream of acoustic homogeneousness and prettiness! For the announced new chario® models between chario® Academy Sonnet and chario® Academy Serendipity I have to think about a pseudonym. If in the future writes a new editor with the name “ Heiner Klingel” about the new chario® Academy Sovereign or chario® Academy Surpreme, than its me, under my magic-hood.
Editor : Heinz Gelking Photo : Rolf Winter
3
TEST chario速 ACADEMY SONNET
Components of the testing Turntable: Tonarm: Ton-Pick-Up: Phono-Pre-Amp.: CD-Player: Tuner: Main-Amplifier: Loudspeakers: Wires: Accessories:
Transrotor Orfeo Doppio SME 3500, Audioquest PT-9, VPI JMW 10.5 Volpe Transrotor Merlo Reference SAC Entrata Disco CDP 202 Magnum Dynalab MD 100 with ST-2 Krell FBI Sugden a 21 Revel Performa F32 and chario速 Academy Sonnet TMR, Phonosophie ( Ingo Hansen ) Solid Tech Rack, Harmonix Tuning Products Room-Audio-Animator
Image x-tract What is nice: The voice-reproduction
What is missing: The correction of the german instruction manual
What is amazing: The amazing sound of chario速 Academy Sonnet connected wit a class Aamplifier. It never works with the chario速 Academy Millennium 1
What is to do: To remove the tinplate-bridges
4