Sjöfn Hifi has a nifty little speaker they call (the clue). And no, the parenthetical brackets are not optional.
They’re not big. They’re not imposing. They’re not expensive — at least by comparison.
What they are, though, is different.
Not like Nuprin (little, yellow, different!), but more like, “whoa — holy cow!” or “aren’t the big speakers playing now?”
Got my loaner/demo pair in the past week, got ’em set up, got ’em playing. After about an hour, they warmed up and I had them rockin’ the room. And I mean it. Looking at these pics, you’re not going to get the full scope. You’re just not. It’s impossible. Don’t try!
What’s different about these? Well, among other things, they’re front ported. Which means that they can be played closer to the wall. An in this case, a lot closer. Like, right up on that sumbitch. It’s right there! Bam.
Without speakers or stands sitting 5′ out from my front wall … my room just got so much bigger.
I have some 6″ Monster Bass Traps from GIK Acoustics up on the front wall. I set (the clue) speakers the whopping, and recommended, 3″ off of those panels. The Luxman L-505u amp is pumping the power. The cables are from WyWires, but I’ll be swapping in my Black Cat Morpheus cables when I get a chance.
And the sound? Wow! I can’t believe that these little suckers are $1,000 a pair. This sort of sound is not what you normally get for $1,000/pair. Um, no. Not so much, really.
Like the Audio Note AN speakers, the little Sjöfn guys use the walls and the room to bolster, support, and reinforce the sound field. Cheating? For sure! But, jeez — I mean, look at the size of those guys. They’re tiny! But my oh my, they sound anything but.
Look — don’t freak out. They’re not perfect. My loaner Tekton Lore S, at $1,400, are more detailed and have punchier, deeper bass and are something like 9dB more sensitive. But they’re also way bigger, and take up all that space in the middle of the room.
With the (the clue), the sound is very open and clean. And really deep! In my well-damped room, they are hysterically good. I’m having a ball with them, imagining all the placement issues that these speakers can handle. Cabinets. Actual bookshelves! On walls. In small rooms. Dorm rooms!
I remember being very surprised at RMAF this past year. Well, that wasn’t a fluke. Ha! I love it when the little guys do good! More on this speaker soon.
At the end of the day, it would be interesting to see what your conclusions are between the Sjöfn, Groves, and the Vaughn Pinots. I am purposely leaving out the Pulsars.
Different approaches, different price points, and you have the gear to try different combinations to give your readers a chance to see what works best, at least for you in your room.
The cool thing is you have so much gear coming in (personally, I think you are secretly Mitt blowing off some steam), you don’t have to rely on audio memory much at all.
That comparison is hard as the Vaughns, particularly, don’t like the same kind of amplification that the other two do. No real way to do an apples-to-apples shoot out without being unfair to one. That said, I’ll see what I can do.
As for me and my buddy Mitt, well, I wish. Sure would make the whole thing easier — at least from a financial perspective.
Looking forward to your review and reading it alongside your review fo the Fritz Grove Do you still have them in the house?
I do! I’ll be doing some comparos, but the long and short of it is that the Grove is a much bigger-sounding and more refined-sounding speaker. It’s also 2x the cash. But if you have the amp to push it, the Grove should really light you up. With a little luck, I’ll be getting the newly tweaked Rev5 from Fritz in another couple of weeks, too.
Nice to hear good things about their speakers–I’ve used the speaker cable in my second system and have been impressed.