Acapella is best known about their
unique horn loaded large speakers with plasma tweeters. Outside
Germany it may not be so well known that the manufacturer
has got also a line of products consisting conventional designs with
excellent performance. Harlekin is Acapella's latest addition to their
range of "affordable" speakers.
It obviously took a while from Alfred
Rudolph and Herman
Winters to develop this speaker. Harlekin debuted at the 2001 Frankfurt High End
Exhibition. It took a year before the production model ended up to our review bench.
Harlekin meets very tough competition
in it's price class against a range of excellent recent designs on
this price range.
Design
Acapella Harlekin
is a two-way, sealed design. There's a
separate cabinet for the mid/bass range and for the tweeter. The
tweeter housing has a frontplate with a very small area. The
structure of the bass/mid range cabinet is exceptionally rigid.
260 mm Mid/Bass drivers are manufactured by
SEAS. The tweeter, a 26 mm soft dome is manufactured by Dynaudio.
The crossover has been placed into
it's own housing inside the mid/woofer cabinet. Very
little technical details are available about the crossover, but we found
out that the design is very simplistic with a crossover point at about 3000
Hz. Only a single wired version is currently available.
The High Harlekin is a special version with silver foil inductors and
internal wires, all of this with a substantial extra price. We used the "regular" version
for this review with copper
wiring.
Harlekin's Treble, rear view
Setting Up
During my listening sessions I found
the best position for the speakers at a 4 meters distance from the listener in an
equidistant triangle, ca 1,5 meters from the rear wall.
Like all Acapellas I'm familiar with,
the Harlekins are extremely sensitive with all accompanied
components on the chain -- cables and electronics. For instance, with a low-end interconnects and
a generic power cords of the electronics, the speaker had a tendency to emphasize
upper bass range. When cables were replaced to more appropriate type, this deviation
almost, but not entirely, settled.
If you find these speakers let you down, you
probably have to seek cure for rest of the system.
Musical Experience
In terms of large orchestra
playback, brass and
timpani on March
Triumphal on Edward Elgar's opera Charactacus, exposed
masterful orchestration in it's full scope and glory. Soundstage was very wide at the same time it was well
in focus., Harlekins performed visceral impact of this work
with flying marks, which is, by the way, quite an achievement.
Resolution was in the same league as
with the best designs I have heard with the tight, multilayered
sonic texture of this work.
Regarding transparency and
naturalness of the sound, Harlekin's were capable to produce
discrete and delicate sound of period instruments and vocals,
particularily on the Bach/ Morimur (ECM) in a way which was
next to a live performance.
I liked a lot how millions of distinct tones of the cymbals and
percussions on the Niels Henning Oerstedt-Pedersen's ingenious album Friends
Forever were reproduced, yet I might have heard
even more details with the ring
radiator and plasma
tweeter designs.
On the opening track, For Kenny, piano
hammer attack revealed accuracy being very close to what it ought to
be.
On Diana Krall's Love Scenes
vocals there was no sign for sibilance, neither dullness. Miss Krall
become very well present in the listening room.
George Duke's After Hours is a
test for speakers' bass and dynamic response. Harlekin produced
clean, slightly warmish, controlled and resolute bass -- with a minor
reservation:
During the tuning of the system for this review I found Harlekin's
upper bass region more forward than ideal. We found that the
culprit were the intrconnects, obviously not upto level this speaker
would require.
Changing the cords into better, more
neutral type, changed most of this symptom. Though, at times, I had a gut
feeling having double bass playing slightly differently I preferred
would have heard it.
Slightly hot upper bass may lead to a
strength many might appreciate: Harlekin has got a distinct, warm appearance on the midrange with rich
harmonics. Overall the sound reminds me the big, horn loaded Acepellas.
Perhaps this may be called as a sonic signature of Herman Winter's
products in positive sense.
When compared Harlekin against one
of it's fierce competitor, the venerable Audio Physic Virgo 3, I found Harlekin
being capable to present large orchestra more convincingly in terms of the
orchestra's physical size.
Another sonic charecteristic of the
Harlekin was, that it painted sonic landscape with wider,
more expressive brushstrokes than the Virgo 3, which I found
in it's part, more accurate in small details of the sonic texture. Besides being capable to reproduce
more minor details, Virgo 3 created perhaps
more air around the instruments.
Sound
Overall sound: the chorus had a very
rich tonal character - Great; vocals were full bodied and very natural. Piano had
slightly warm, romantic klang instead of being hard and steely. Guitars and strings were both very natural,
but warmish. Brass was ok, but not as excuberant as the ring radiators and Ion
tweeters were capable to reproduce. The large orchestras were
resolute with a slight warmish signature.
Balance: Silky and smooth higher end, rich and balanced midrange.
Upper lows are slightly hot bringing richness and forwardness for vocals, which many
will like.
Lower register is warmish, but still controlled and
articulate. Roll of starts at ca 45 Hz
Transparency was very good -
instruments presence was imminent, however I hesitate to give an
"reference" grade in this as some of the current designs are capable
to create even more air around the instruments with even less veil
between the speakers and the listener.
Resolution - was very good,
but there are designs I have heard even more low level details.
Treble as I found it, was
silky and smooth without a sign of sibilance. Again, I might have heard
even more resolute treble with ring radiators or the plasma tweeters,
latter in an Acapella system with significantly higher price.
Midrange - very rich, full
bodied. Female vocals sounded natural, but slightly hot. They were
brought to more forward than I might have used to. There was no hint
of nasality nor
sibilance. Male vocals were full bodied and powerful as one should
expect.
Bass was warmish, still
articulate and controlled. Upper bass region at 200-350 Hz had a
tendency to come up to the front of the stage than was ideal.
I found this as a minor shade in the speaker's very neutral tonal
balance.
The lowest bass in Harlekins dies out as low as 35-40 Hz, so there's
no need for subwoofer.
Transient response sounded fast with a hint of warmness in piano
attack. Overall, no complaints in this area.
Dynamics is one of the
particular strenghts of this speaker, would summarize this with one
word: Excellent
Soundstaging was large: wide deep,
very well in focus. however the result is very sensitive with the listening
position. Provided placing is correct, the system provides a very holographic, focused image.
Visceral impact was excellent in absolute terms, regardless of speakers physical size.
Summary
Acapella Harlekins produced rich,
warm and detailed sound with very good soundstaging
capability.
Just like the other Acapellas I have reviewed,
it was a pure pleasure to listem them with any kind of music. They
are truly all-round performers doing well from intimate solo music to
large orchestras from jazz to rock and everything between.
A safe bet for music lovers - recommended.
Associated
Equipment
- Listening room 40 m2,
light acoustic treatment
- Reference speakers: Audio Physic
Virgo 3
- Integrated Amplifier: Audio Aero
Prima
- CD player: Audio Aero Prima with
192 kHz/24 bit upsampling
- Interconnects and speaker wires:
Transparent Music Link/Wave Plus
Technical Details
- 2 way sealed system,
- 26 mm soft dome tweeter
- 260 mm custom made midrange/woofer
- H X W x D: 1300 x 300 x 400
mm
- Weight: 75 kg
Manufacturer: Acapella
Audio Arts, Germany
Distributor in Finland: Hifi
Guru OY, Hyvinkää
Price: Harlekin €7150/pair,
incl 22% Sales Tax/VAT
