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V Flagship headphone amp E SQUEEZE iFi Audio Pro iDSD COOL FOR CATS Portable brand’s first high-end desktop DAC BUDGET ESOTERICA Pro-Ject Debut III S ‘Audiophile’ version of budget LP spinner From the Vault 1957 and the dawn of stereo McIntosh MA9000 The biggest Mac yet!

Naim Audio NDX 2 Network-attachedNetNe w DAC THE hi-fi • PLUS 18 pages of music • VINYL RE-RELEASE Nico’s Chelsea Girl on 180g vinyl UK £5.25 US $13.00 Aus $13.50 SHOW • OPINION 12 pages of comment • VINTAGE Technics EPC-205CMK3 cartridge 10-11 Novembermber • SSHOW BLOG Hong Kong Expo • READERS’ CLASSIFIEDS Hi-Fi bargains galore See p19 Three-way, six-driver fl oorstanding loudspeaker Made by: Coherent Acoustic Systems, Pinetown, South Africa Supplied by: Vivid Audio Ltd, West Sussex, UK Telephone: 01403 713125 Web: www.vividaudio.com LOUDSPEAKER Price: £21,000 Vivid Audio Kaya 90

If you’ve admired Vivid Audio’s design philosophy but baulked at its styling, the new Kaya range is for you Review: Keith Howard & David Price Lab: Keith Howard

udiophiles can be a conservative and £8500 respectively), the two-driver/ bunch. Me, I sometimes feel two-way S15 standmount and three-driver/ that if I ever see another wood two-way C15 centre speaker. All have veneered box loudspeaker I’ll curvy – but restrained-curvy – moulded Aattack it with a chainsaw but others of you, composite cabinets comprising glassfi bre/ I know, prefer the old aesthetic, or at least vinyl ester resin skins either side of a a modern take on it, to curved, organic polymer foam core. In the 90 the cabinet cabinet forms – especially if painted in is moulded as three parts – left, right primary colours. For a company like Vivid and baffl e – which allows CNC-machined Audio, which appreciates and exploits the composite internal partitions and bracing benefi ts of curved cabinets in respect of to be inserted before the entire enclosure structural stiffness and clean diffraction is bonded together. behaviour, this is a problem. So when the fl amboyant looking, range- DESIGN LEGACY topping, banana-coloured Giya G1 Spirit In the tradition begun by designer featured on our January cover this year Laurence Dickie’s B&W Nautilus and you could almost hear the collective intake continued and refi ned in Vivid’s products, of breath from audiophiles who would all three frequency ranges in the 90 – never countenance such an aesthetic bass, midrange and treble – benefi t from abomination in their home. For every the use of exponentially tapered tube person who loves the novel, like me – absorbers that dissipate rear radiation especially when it makes eminent acoustic from the drive units to suppress internal sense – there are others, perhaps many cabinet refl ection and resonance. In others, who shy away. the 26mm D26 tweeter the absorber extends straight out behind the magnet A MATTER OF STYLE assembly, and in the new 100mm Nobody is going to describe Vivid’s new C100SE midrange driver (which has a Kaya range (kaya means ‘home’ in the Zulu 50mm voice coil and radial magnet) language) as conventional the absorber is curved or conservative in to fi t within the appearance, but the styling ‘There was a shallower enclosure. In is a little toned down, a the bass section, with little less in your face than collective intake its four 125mm drivers with the Giya models. More of breath from (50mm voice coils), the homely, indeed, if your absorber is designed home is not a minimalist audiophiles’ to be effective from style statement. Which will suffi ciently above the mollify potential buyers who felt with the port tuning frequency that it doesn’t Giyas that they were having a bad trip in a interfere with the refl ex loading of Barbara Hepworth retrospective. the drivers but still provides effective Top of the Kaya hierarchy is this, the absorption of internal resonance. £21,000-a-pair fl oorstanding 90. It’s a To avoid a step-change in off-axis six-driver/three-way design with four side- response the tweeter is recessed within mounted woofers toward the bottom of a shallow waveguide which matches the cabinet [see boxout, p37] and, near the its directivity to that of the midrange top, a forward-fi ring cone/dome midrange and, just above it, a dome tweeter. All six RIGHT: The cabinet curves remain – as do drivers have aluminium alloy diaphragms. symmetrical force-cancelling bass drivers Others in the fi ve-model range are the and refl ex ports – but the visual impact is less four-driver/three-way 45 and two-driver/ extreme than with earlier Vivids. There are three two-way 25 (both fl oorstanders, £15,000 standard colour options: this one is Oyster Matte

36 | www.hifi news.co.uk | SEPTEMBER 2018 NEWTON’SNEWTON’S CCREDO

Isaac Newton had no inkling of what a loudspeaker is, of course, but his three laws of motion – particularly the second and third – nevertheless have direct application to loudspeaker design. The second law tells us that to accelerate a heavier mass (such as a heavier loudspeaker diaphragm) we have to push it proportionately harder than a lighter mass, and the third law – ‘every action has an equal and opposite reaction’ – says that whatever we push pushes back. As the motor of a moving coil drive unit forces its diaphragm forward, so the stator is forced equally hard backwards, an effect referred to as magnet reaction. It’s this which explains why the Kaya 90, in common with the Giya models, has a symmetrical arrangement of side-mounted woofers and ports. The motion of the cones is in opposition on either side of the cabinet, and so is the alternating fl ow of air out from and back into the refl ex ports. As a result, overall reaction force on the cabinet is cancelled. Adding a cross-brace between the driver magnets on either side seals the deal, cancelling the reaction forces at source and stifl ing vibration and resonance within the driver baskets and enclosure. unit at crossover. The grilles covering the 0025218633826], and the lead saxophone four bass drivers and midrange are held in was beautifully carried. Dripping with place by magnets and are easily removed if harmonic detail, it sounded breathy yet desired. Standard colours are the pictured fi nely textured and with a natural rawness. Oyster Matte, Pearl White or Piano Black. Even with the instrument at full tilt, Vivid’s Custom automotive fi nishes can be midrange driver never cried out, allowing specifi ed for a £2100 premium. me to enjoy the sax at its most expressive. Also, thanks to the rather ‘period’ stereo SMOOTH CUSTOMER mixing, I could take in all of the drum kit In common with bigger ‘Vivids’ on the other channel, with a lovely metallic the Kaya 90 has a seamless sound sheen to the ride cymbal work, and a that is tonally ‘well lit’ but also natural thwack to the snare drums. Things deliciously smooth and refi ned. sounded truly tangible and atmospheric, It has a large soundstage that yet never irked or grated. goes far wide and far back, When it comes to bass, Vivid’s designer, without pushing the sound Laurence Dickie, has obviously gone for down your throat. It has evenness and extension over bluster. So deep extended bass, and the result is a very controlled and well sparkling highs – and best damped bottom end that doesn’t present of all, fun to hear. itself in a particularly muscular or imposing Like every great, way. ’s ‘Inner City Life’ [Timeless; high-end loudspeaker, Metalheadz 828 614-2] confi rmed this the Kaya 90 has its as bass wasn’t as engulfi ng as you might own essential nature expect from a such a ‘big banger’. – clean, nuanced Yet, with dizzyingly fast looped hi-hats, and detailed, it powerful rim-shots and speeded-up snare proved lovely to rolls, it was impossible to stop my feet my ears but I can tapping with ‘Timeless’. The Kaya 90 imagine listeners seemed to revel in it all, skilfully conveying seeking a super- the interaction of machine-gun percussion showy ‘character and the deep bassline, overlaid by a thick loudspeaker’ might swathe of gliding analogue synthesisers. be less enamoured. Instead, the Kaya 90 LIGHT AND LITHE unpacks recordings This is a fast-sounding speaker, one that’s in an even-handed deft, fl eet of foot and able to pick up its and joyous manner. skirts and run – so to speak – when called Kicking off with upon so to do. But it doesn’t spray hard- some classic post-bop edged detail at you, for it doesn’t deliver jazz in the shape of Art this excitement by being tonally edgy or Pepper’s ‘You’d Be So harsh. Those light drive units offer excellent Nice To Come Home To’ [Art transient response and a lithe sound that’s Pepper Meets The Rhythm able to really capture the rhythmic intent Section; Original Jazz Classics of a song. I’ve rarely heard this mid-90s

SEPTEMBER 2018 | www.hifi news.co.uk | 37 LAB REPORT VIVID AUDIO KAYA 90

One of the functions of our lab reports is to check the veracity LEFT: As with other Vivid models of manufacturers’ product specifi cations. That assumes, of course, that there are specifi cations to check – which was not the three-way/fourth-order crossover so with the Kaya 90. At the time of writing (mid-July) neither is accessed via a single pair of 4mm the Vivid Audio website nor the Kaya Series brochure carries a terminals – so no bi-wiring or bi-amping single specifi cation for the new range (despite the former saying the latter includes ‘Full specifi cations’) – not even dimensions, which I had to approximate for the 90 using a tape measure. the musical event. Individual solo Pink noise sensitivity, averaged for the review pair, was 90.4dB instruments such as fl utes or oboes – a good result but at the cost of punishingly low impedance. were etched in space with obvious The minimum modulus of 2.4ohm suggests a 3ohm nominal precision, allowing me to effortlessly specifi cation, and impedance phase angles are high enough to pinpoint them in the auditorium. drive the EPDR (equivalent peak dissipation resistance) to a very low minimum of 1.1ohm at 297Hz. So the Kaya 90 presents a signifi cantly tougher load to its MEMORABLE MOMENTS amplifi er than the top-of-the-range Giya G1 Spirit [HFN Jan ’18]. This marvellous recording also Forward frequency responses, measured at 1m on the tweeter showcased the Kaya 90’s hear- axis [see Graph 1, below] show an essentially fl at trend, with the barest hint of a presence band dip. Only the peaked up extreme through midband in all its glory and treble spoils the picture and increases the response errors to where everything that’s good in ±2.8dB and ±2.6dB respectively (500Hz-20kHz). Pair matching this loudspeaker comes together over the same range is ±1.2dB. Incidentally, you can ignore the to make for memorable moments. roll-off below 500Hz which is an artefact of the measurement [dashed traces in Graph 1]. Applying diffraction correction The wiriness of the violins, the rasp to our nearfi eld bass measurement is diffi cult because of the of the trombones and the reedy curvaceous cabinet, but we estimate an extension of 39Hz (–6dB shimmer of the fl utes were all a joy re. 200Hz). The resonance at about 6.5kHz visible in the CSD to behold. Hearing right back to the waterfall [Graph 2] was only present in one of the review pair. KH rear walls of the hall, there was a marvellous sense of space – thanks in no small part to the excellence of this speaker’s extended and open treble performance. Throwing a recording of dramatically different quality into the mix, and The Jam’s ‘Down In The Tube Station At Midnight’ [All Mod Cons; Polydor SNAP1] showed the same strengths. It was a gripping listen, this elegant fl oorstander delivering an extremely insightful ABOVE: Forward response is essentially very fl at in sound that scythed through all the trend, the extreme treble lift inaudible to many mush on this grungy late ’70s new wave classic. Most loudspeakers seems to have a knack of giving lead vocalist Paul Weller a cold, but there track sound so was no nasality here. At the same enjoyable. Although the Goldie time, it carried the backing vocals – dB 0.0 album is a modest production, the usually buried well behind the multi - 6 1.0 Kaya 90 still managed to unearth a tracked guitars – with unexpected - 12 2.0 capacious soundstage. Indeed the yet effortless clarity. - 18 3.0 way it recreates stereo images is - 24 typically something to behold. HI-FI NEWS VERDICT - 30 4.0 On the end of a serious power 5.0 msec Striking looking – if not to 200 1000 10000 amplifi er – a Constellation Taurus Frequency in Hz >> everyone’s tastes – beautifully in this instance [HFN Dec ’17] – this ABOVE: Cabinet modes are minor and the low-level engineered and possessed of a loudspeaker owned the room. ~6.5kHz resonance only appeared in one speaker wonderfully open and engaging Objects appeared in the stereo sound, it’s hard not to like the HI-FI NEWS SPECIFICATIONS mix clearly focused and correctly new Kaya 90. It is recognisably HI-FI NEWS SPECIFICATIONS located. This is not atypical of Vivid a Vivid loudspeaker, yet moves Sensitivity (SPL/1m/2.83V – Mean/IEC/Music) 90.8dB/90.4dB/90.2dB loudspeakers, and it shines out when things on with aesthetics that you feed the Kaya 90s a recording Impedance modulus: minimum 2.4ohm @ 264Hz blend into a wider variety of & maximum (20Hz–20kHz) 27.5ohm @ 21Hz the quality of the opening of rooms. Its light, breezy character o Mahler’s Symphony No 4 [Budapest Impedance phase: minimum –60 @ 48Hz is also a breath of fresh, musical & maximum (20Hz–20kHz) 48o @ 343Hz Festival Orchestra/Iván Fischer; air in a high-end scene where Pair matching/Resp. error (500Hz–20kHz) ±1.2dB/ ±2.8dB/±2.6dB Channel Classics CCS SA 26109]. strong tastes can dominate. Here they amazed with a truly LF/HF extension (–6dB ref 200Hz/10kHz) 39Hz / >40kHz/>40kHz ‘3D’ rendering of the orchestra, Sound Quality: 89% THD 100Hz/1kHz/10kHz (for 90dB SPL/1m) 0.2% / 0.2% / 0.1% with excellent stage depth and a 0 ------100 Dimensions (HWD) / Weight (each) 1210x350x520mm / 25kg real sensation of being immersed in

SEPTEMBER 2018 | www.hifi news.co.uk | 39