t is hard not to open this test using a different sentence that the one I usually start with when it comes to products of this particular brand: "The speakers made by Mr. Andrejczuk, the owner and chief designer of Avatar Audio, are based on paper cone transducers from the 1950s, 60s and 70s." I admit, for me it's a very comfortable “opening” of each such test, that makes writing it easier. Abused, however, it might begin to bore you, the Readers. So this time I would like to start differently: Cezary Andrejczuk is a music lover with particular focus on Baroque music and he is also a photographer, whose works were published, among others, by the National Geographic. He combines both of these interests as they both belong to a beauty category. He believes that the baroque was the climax of music development, and that the Biebrza area is the most beautiful place in the world.

NUMER CZTERY / NUMBER FOUR

Better, right? But even if we combine these two introductions we will not be prepared for what the Avatar Audio loudspeakers looks and sound like. This time the model Number Four (or number 4 or No. 4 - the manufacturer uses all these forms) is the smallest in its range, but you can't really call it small. Like the rest of the Holophony series, it features two large conical drivers from 1970s with AlNiCo magnets and paper membranes. This is a two-way, stand-mounted loudspeaker. They measure 380 x 330 x 330 mm (H x W x D) and each weighs 13 kg.

On the manufacturer's website you will find pictures of version with standard finish, but for the test we received the flock version, meaning covered with velour-like fabric. It looks great and although it was intended to minimize reflections, it is a big change in aesthetics compared to popular wooden-veneer paradigm. Due to such looks, these speakers instantly fit into my idea for the "master of the house" study, or the "lady of the house boudoir", combined with a turntable and everything I associate with "analogue" sound. The loudspeakers look so nice and intriguing that my wife, who usually dislikes the majority of, as she calls them, coffins that land in our room, said that she could live with them, although she would change the color to a “creamy” one. That's a huge complement coming from her.

The drivers of this type are characterized by short-throw membranes. This means that they are more susceptible to vibration and all information has to be reproduced within a small range of diaphragm movement. Mr Cezariusz solved this problem by proper separation of loudspeakers from the ground (in the “Listening” section you will find a micro-test of the Receptor No. 1 feet) and vibration suppression achieved via specially designed and built cabinets. It's a complex design that took Avatar's boss several years to develop. Since there have been many proprietary solutions used in this product, I asked the designer present them in several points. After the test is published you will find them also on manufacturer's website.

CEZARIUSZ ANDREJCZUK
Owner, designer

Holophony Number Four, the smallest model in Avatar Audio's lineup, is built according to the same rules as all our loudspeakers. Below you will find the 20 rules I always follow.

DRIVERS

1. Very low power (maximum 20W), so that the membranes can be very light and gently suspended, and thus be able to reproduce the smallest details with the highest precision and speed.
2. Diaphragms made of paper in all speakers (including tweeters) and Alnico magnets to provide natural tone. The above conditions are not met by drivers produced today, so I had to reach for those manufactured no later than in the early 1970s.

CROSSOVER

3. Extremely simple 1st order crossover, so as not to lose the dynamics, resolution and coherence.
4. Capacitors manufactured no later than in the 1980s (in Holophony No. 1 we use capacitors from the 1940s), according to the principle: the older the capacitors, the better the sound (I wish I knew why :) )
5. Components selected and matched with the highest precision: coils parameter may vary only up to 0.002 mH, capacitors up to 0.01 μF. Such high quality elements are not available, so we make them ourselves: the capacitors made of several units, and the coils are winded with utmost precision.
6. All connections are made without soldering, because every drop of tin costs a few percent of the transmitted information.
7. Each element is insulated with a layer of anti-vibration material.
8. We use highest grade wires, same as in our DreamLink cables.

DRIVERS ARRENGEMENT

9. All drivers are placed on the front panel facing the listener to provide the fullest, most direct (not distorted by reflections) contact with the transmitted information.
10. The drivers coils are aligned, which means the tweeter has to be recessed in relation to midrange driver (the bass woofer pushed forward in a three-way design) to acoustically minimize phase shifts.
11. The bass-reflex port must be at the back of the enclosure, as far away from the speakers as possible to minimize the sound waves interference. Although the Holophony feature bass-reflex, they are acoustically more similar to closed designs than to open ones. The bass-reflex channel is very narrow, quite long, and performs an auxiliary function (enlarges the sound stage, but at the expense of its precision). It can be closed without loss of bandwidth.

CABINETS

12. As narrow front baffle as possible to minimize reflections that degrade tone depth and precision of instruments placement
13. Non-parallel walls to minimize resonances inside the enclosure
14. Thick walls to increase their stiffness and weight of the speakers and thus to reduce their vibration susceptibility. In Holophony No. 4 it is a 25 mm thick MDF, and in the more expensive version the exotic 30 mm thick wood.
15. On the inner walls we use a layer of anti-vibration material, and on top of it sheep's wool, which minimizes vibration and resonance.
16. The lower, opened speaker base is separated from the rest of the cabinet with a layer of anti-vibration material
17. The box containing crossover is mounted via three layers of anti-vibration material.
18. The external walls are covered with felt sheets in the places most exposed to direct reflections from drivers. Another version of the finish is flok: a soft, velour-like layer completely covering the loudspeaker, thus potentially eliminating 100% direct reflections.
19. The loudspeakers are placed on our Ball Receptor No. 1 anti-vibration pads, which suppress vibrations more effectively than commonly used hard spikes or soft sorbothene washers.
20. Three-way speaker models are made up of two separate modules, so that the vibration of the large subwoofer located in the separate lower box do not degrade the upper part of the band. In addition, the upper module is positioned on the magnetic feet so to float on the magnetic pad over the bass module.

The speakers were compared to my reference ones, i.e. Harbeth M40.1. They were placed in exactly he same position, i.e. 130 cm from the rear wall (distance from the front baffle), 230 cm apart (distance between tweeters) and 245 cm from the listening position. It took me a moment to figure out the best toe-in angle - remember that conical speakers of such a large diameter as here are very directional in the upper part of the band. Eventually, the speakers were toed-in so that their axes crossed just in front of my head.

The loudspeakers were driven by a powerful solid-state amplifier - the same one that I used during my all tests, the Soulution 710. I used Acoustic Revive SPA-3.0 Triple-C speaker cable.

Recordings used for the test (a sele- ction)

• Enrico Rava, The Pilgrim and the Stars, ECM Records ECM 1063, „ECM Touchstones”, CD (1975/2008)
• Ferdinand Fisher, From Heaven on Earth, wyk. Hubert Hoffmann, Challenge Classics CC72740, SACD/CD (2016)
• King Crimson, In The Court of the Crimson King, Atlantic/WOWOW Entertainment [Japan] IEDG-01, 7” Platinum SHM-CD + DVD-Audio (1969/2016)
• Nat ‘King’, Welcome to the Club, Columbia/Audio Fidelity AFZ 153, SACD/CD (1959/2013)
• Palestrina, Missa Papae Marcelli | Motets, wyk. Sistine Chapel Choir, dyr. Massimo Palombella, Deutsche Grammophon 479 6131, CD (2016)
• Röyksopp, The Inevitable End, Dog Triumph DOG013CDW, „Promo | No. 25”, CD-R (2014)
• The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Apple/Universal Music Group 5745530, „Anniversary Edition”, CD (1967/2017);
• Vivaldi, 5 Concerti for Bassoon, Strings & Continuo, wyk. Milan Turković, I Solisti Italiani, Denon Co-78921, „Mastersonic | One-Point Recording”, CD (1994) w: Welcome to the Concert. The high End reference Sound, Denon Co-78921-25, „Mastersonic | One-Point Recording”, 5 x CD (1994)
• Wes Montgomery, Echoes of Indiana Avenue, Resonance Records 195562, CD (2012)

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Japanese issues available at

It's a truism but I will say it anyway, that Avatars speakers sound differently than all others. It should be obvious, even if you have never seen them before nor listen to them nor read any reviews - just read the introduction above. That does not mean, however, that they sound weird. They offer very capable performance with some typical high-end qualities, but with its elements composed in a way that initially seems very different from anything one has heard before.

Therefore, our first exposure to music played with Number Four should be treated as a chance to reorient our perception. Let yourself to get used to this type of presentation, let your habits created by listening to classical designs, have a chance to be forgotten. The point of Avatar's loudspeakers is not to propose else just to be different. This is an original idea for a sound, a different path than one taken by most companies.

À propos "surround": the presentation these speakers deliver might be somewhat familiar to those who know and like the sound known from the omnidirectional columns, e.g. Duevell (Polish) - you might remember these from Dr House, German Physiks, MBL, and those who at least once listened to the Davone Mojo (Polish). It's probably a coincidence, because the design assumptions for Number Four are completely different, but the effect is quite similar.

They deliver a very consistent performance. It is rare that multi-driver speakers sound so consistent, that you can't hear sonic signature of any of them and that they sound so much as a single transducer. Which reminds me the sound of classic BBC school "monitors", especially the LS 3/5A (Polish). The music arrives to our ears immediately, as if there was no air between membranes and us. This is obviously the result of a quick response to the impulse, but also the way of shaping space. When referring to omnipolar speakers, I meant two of their qualities: imaging, which seems to be completely freed from the cabinets, and the building bodies of instrument without the fleshiness of the classical designs.

Let's start with space. In most cases, sitting in front of a couple of speakers, we sit in front of the stage - hence the term "sound stage". Everything is placed in front of us, unless the sound engineer encodes information out-of-phase, only then we have the impression of being surrounded by the sound. But the foreground is always in front of us, usually behind the line connecting speakers. Avatars play as if by chance listener sat on the line where the sound produced. This is no longer a sound stage, but a sound field. When listening to classical music, it seems that we are sitting in a larger or smaller room, but - room. We feel as if the sounds are bouncing off the walls around us.

The foreground is in front of us, but closer than usual. The more compressed the sound is, i.e. the farther away we are from classical and jazz music, the closer the foreground is. I think it's about the specific distortion that the compression causes, which are clearly shown here. This is all the more audible, that it's very open, dynamic sound with a very quick response to the impulse, and thus not blurring the leading edge.

The second thing that distinguishes them is how they build instruments' bodies. With Number 4 everything is open and less fleshy than with classic designs, which also resembles omnipolar speakers. Placement in space is very good, it is not a fuzzy "sound cloud", but the weight of instruments is smaller, as if their saturation was not as good. Which does not mean that it sounds bad, just different and that it will not work for everyone. Perhaps that is why rock, pop, club music sounded too “light”, without the lowest bass (which is obvious), but also without proper saturation of lower midrange.

On the other hand, the openness and immediacy of the sound are remarkable. Sitting in front of a pair of these speakers we feel the almost overwhelming presence of the sounds. Typically, the space, or rather the "air" around the performers resembles something like a triangle, or a trapezoid with arms going upward. Avatars generate something completely different, resembling a rectangle, or rather a cuboid - as if we were sitting in a larger room with more lively acoustics.

I would not count on low bass. It's not this type of speaker. When listening to classics and jazz it is no a real issue. We realize that the sound is not as rich, it doesn't have as much weight as provided by similar sized loudspeakers with classic transducers, but we also know that they are much faster. Or maybe that's how we perceive the absence of extended decay phase? I can not answer that question with an absolute certainty because equally fast as to this sound I'm just getting used to the sound of my Harbeths when returning to them from listening to other products. My intuition tells me that in the lowest area, below 100 Hz, the tested speakers do deliver sound with less energy.

However, if we do not listen to the music that requires "pumping", it is surely more important for us that the speakers are incredibly pure and colorful. I was most surprised by the quality of the treble. Conical drivers should not sound so good. Class, purity, saturation – all these features were superior to my Harbeths. The only element missing was openness of at the very top – this is unavoidable but it shouldn't be a big problem.

The nature of Avatar's sound naturally narrows the pool of amplifiers they should be paired with. The Soulution 710, a high power solid-state with high damping factor, showed the advantages and disadvantages of Number 4 very clearly. But not always the "truth and nothing but the truth" is the best choice in audio. I think the best choice will be both tube amplifiers and transistor ones but with class D operation. Both share a similar sound signature, i.e. a saturated a lower midrange. In this case, it should perfectly "fit" the tested loudspeakers.

Anti-vibration feet
RECEPTOR No. 1

Together with the speakers, Avatar's chief is developing a series of vibration damping products. This is a direct result of the vibration problems of the speakers, but the results of his work can be applied to any audio product. In the Receptor series we find anti-vibration platforms and feet; the latter come in two types: with magnetic decoupling and open ball bearing. The latter we described in the test of anti-vibration Receptor Number 2 system and in the review of the Stacore Advanced platform.

The latest version of Receptor No. 1, that are also a part of the Holophony No. 4 loudspeaker system, is very nicely made. The changes they introduce to the sound are clear and consistent with what I had heard with other products of this company. But with a slight twist. It's a very smooth sound, with a sweet top, very rich. Its main advantage is the tunefulness that it brings to the sound. The foreground is a placed a bit further away than with the reference system (Acoustic Revive RAF-48H platform + PAB Ceramic 7 SN (Polish); price: 6690 + 1740 PLN). In my opinion this characteristics serves classical music best. Jazz, most often recorded with close-up microphones, sounds better when presented closer to the listener.

I am not going to delve deeper into this matter because it was a difference in aesthetics, not class. It was great that the affordable Receptors No. 1 did not give way to the expensive reference system in terms of richness, smoothness, in something called "flow". Where it does not quite match my reference system is in terms of high precision, equally excellent differentiation, and therefore multidimensionality. The differences have nothing to do with price differences, but they are clear and unambiguous. They appear in less precisely defined edges, in less diverse imaging. But, as I say, the tonality - especially of the midrange - was with No. 5. 1 exceptionally nice. These are inexpensive, nice-looking, incredibly interesting anti-vibration feet.

Price: 500 PLN/3 pcs..

Summary

You could fit this whole test into one paragraph and write something like: these are incredibly pure, fast sounding loudspeakers, real monitors. They deliver excellent high tones and spectacular imaging. The latter is similar to what one can hear listening to the analog master-tape, i.e. instruments that are not clearly separated and selectivity is not the most important thing. It is about the richness and the coherence of all the elements. The tonal balance of these speakers is very well balanced, but their sound is perceived by the weight prism, which is lower in the lower midrange than in the classical designs.

Such a brief description would probably suffice. But I think that such an interesting product requires a more elaborate description. The Number 4 is an interesting speaker that will suit needs of people listening to classical music, vocals, small ensembles. This long review is addressed mostly to them. I think they will know what to do about it. RED Fingerprint.

The Number Four is the Avatar Audio loudspeaker that is a part of the Holophony series. This is a two-way, stand-mounted design, with bass-reflex cabinet. Both transducers were made a few dozen years ago. They feature paper coned membranes – the 100mm tweeter and a 200mm woofer. The tweeter is loaded with a short horn that extends its diaphragm.

The small diameter bass reflex port is placed on the rear panel. There are also single speaker terminals and a brass rating plate. Cabinets are finished with flock, a velour-like fabric. Together with speakers user gets a roller which should be used to clean this fabric surface. The cabinet features a trapezoidal shape and user has to use stands with the upper plate of similar shape. The speakers are placed on top of Receptor No. 1 anti-vibration feet.

On the bottom there are nine milled pits. Together with the balls and their supports, they form a complete anti-vibration platforms. There are several pits so that everyone can choose a variant depending on the stands they use - the size of their top countertops and the sound they want to get. The feet feature five layers of vibration damping and are made from the material developed by the Avatar Audio. The balls are made of a hardwood selected after testing nine exotic types of wood.

Manufacturer delivered speakers in solid cases.

Specifications (according to manufacturer)

Power handling: 20W
Impedance: 4Ω
Sensitivity: 90dB
Frequency range: 33 – 20 000Hz
Dimensions (H x W x D): 380 x 330 x 330mm
Weight: 13kg/pc.