FLOORSTANDING SPEAKERS PRO-TONSIL SIESTA WOJCIECH PACUŁA Translation: Krzysztof Kalinkowski

Tonsil is an icon of Polish hi-fi. But icons have a tendency to quickly become a legend, and this means detachment from reality. This also happened to Tonsil. After many difficult ownership transformations, that caused 40% of the stock to fall in the hands of Pioneer, Tonsil S.A. declared bankruptcy on April 7th. Later, after separation of smaller structures, tried to enter the market of cheap loudspeakers, where it could compete very well with all the production in China, both in terms of price and surely in terms of quality. But something went wrong. From some time the company has a strategic investor and started the restructuring, including rationalization of the production. It is worth mentioning that many constructors left the company and now function well in the same environment, many times with interesting achievements, like the tested speakers AEON from the company APS, that we tested in the March (#35) issue of HFOL.

The speakers we test come from Tonsil. So why the different name? Well, Tonsil, while being one finance group, was divided into a few smaller entities, and Pro-Tonsil is one of them. There came also Mr Przemysław Koserczyk, who worked earlier in the “big” Tonsil, and it is his passion that led to the design of these speakers. Let us also mention that the enclosures and the drivers come to life within the boundaries of the same company, so those can be shaped and designed to fit a given speaker. The tested model Siesta was first equipped with drivers with paper membranes, but it turned out quickly, that glass fiber paired with a well designed trap (the membranes of that material have a resonance around 5kHz) is much better – more rigid and lighter.

SOUND

Before I connected them to my system, the speakers from Wrzesnia spent some time (about one week) in the “wait for your turn” corner (yes, there is a queue...). This is a place a bit to the side, but all of the people that visited me during that time, audiophile or not, noticed them immediately. They all thought those are expensive speakers – they are used to the fact that I have such speakers – and praised them for good proportions, solid drivers and workmanship. When I told them what is their real price the common reaction was nodding their heads. This really testifies well of the Siesta's.
As Mr Koserczyk stated, the earlier constructions from Tonsil were viewed by the audiophile press with mixed emotions – on one hand they were applauded for the materials, engineering behind them, but at the same time, with grief, it was stated that “they tried very hard, but something went wrong again...”. And there is a part of truth in it, as the impression was that the speakers look well when measured, are put together as they have been taught to, but did not sound like they should. The problem in schooling engineers wanting to design audio equipment, and I know many examples of that, is that they are not taught how to listen. Theoretical knowledge is priceless. Such basis is the pass card for the world of high quality sound. But without the ability to verify this knowledge in practice, without listening what came out of it, nothing will work. As knowledge is the basis, but only the basis, that needs to be verified or deepened in pain at later stages.

That was the case with Tonsil – a good project and the sound – in the best case – acceptable. The Siesta are different. I started testing without special emotions, although Mr Koserczyk, that brought me the speakers personally, is an exceptionally nice man and told me much about the speakers themselves and the company, and that could bias my vision of the product. But based on this example I must say, that I probably heard so much, and so little of that was confirmed later on, that my journalist part notes all information thoroughly, but places a kind of distance between me and that information. Not that I would decoy anybody, smile, and beneath that plot my betrayal, but listening with true interest I cannot wait to verify all that in practice. The speakers from Pro-Tonsil, despite the low price, turned out even better than what I could imagine listening to the introduction. Because a week earlier I listened to the similarly priced Celestion F28, I had a fresh idea on how a sensible product in that price range should behave. And although the British (though assembled in China) F28 have better treble, especially in terms of resolution and definition, but about that in a moment, the Siesta sound with much better midrange and most of all a splendid bass.

It did not take long time to hear those assets. The sound of the speakers is vivid, carrying, resembling in some way that what was coming out of the Celestion, but with a more energetic, subjectively lower bass. The low frequencies from the disc of Seal – IV (Warner Bros., 48614, CD) was quick and dynamic. The speaker handled the generation of really low sounds with very good resolution and energy. Despite the large mass at the bottom, the bass is short and dense. It is not as dry as from the Celestion, as it always has filling and flesh. We have here a very good example of combining mass and speed, without sacrificing any of those ranges. Such way of sounding has an influence on the lower midrange, that was a bit nasal, but this could only be heard by comparing to the very open speakers like the Dobermann from Harpia Acoustics. On this price level such sound is perfectly in place, but I have to mention that the Celestion, probably due to the lower saturation of the bass did play without this euphony.

Anyway, due to the strong lower midrange the vocals are big and palpable. First the velvet voice of Seal and later the bit laid back, warm voice of Anja Garbarek from the just bought disc Smiling&Wiving (Virgin Records Norway AS, 850622, CCD; in the section Music you will find the review of the disc Briefly Shaking) occupied a significant space between the speakers and I really liked them. Their slightly nasal character does not bother, as for once this that money and not more, and for twice the open midrange and strong treble distract our attention from that frequency range. After listening to the disc from Anja, with its mix of samples and real sounds, I could not resist to play something fully synthetic. Téo& Téa - J.M. Jarre’a (Aero Productions/Warner Music Fr, 99766, CCD+DVD) fits the description. I did also because I noticed one thing while listening to Garbarek: the treble of the Siesta is not very resolving. This is the only element where the Celestion are better, maybe not spectacularly, because here all the capabilities of the tweeter were exhausted, but without question. The Tonsil tweeter dome material has had its better years, and even the superb, much better mechanical construction – chassis and drive cannot surpass a better membrane. Anyway with discs of this type we will not notice the difference, maybe due to the copy protection, that can be heard in the form of distorted harmonics in that frequency range and granularity of the brass. I mention this from journalist duty, not to reprimand, as there is really not much to talk about (the speakers were listened to with inexpensive amplifiers, but also with the Leben CS-300), but because the fact that if Tonsil wants to advance they will have to think about a new tweeter. Also the amplifiers from that price range are lately very pleasant, rather warm, and devices like the MAP-105 Advance Acoustic will deliver hours of pleasant sound. NAD C-320 BEE will play a cleaner sound with the Siesta, but maybe the sound of the French amplifier will be that what most of the listeners search for. And adding to that the bass from those speakers – for that kind of money it will be hard to find anything else coming even close to this.

The Siesta are vivid, evened speakers, that – as every product- have their flaws. But because this are not much money, there is not much to deliberate about. We just have to mention the derivative from the treble – the sound stage, which is not especially resolved and expanded. The speakers make up for that with temperament and energy. Listening to them I could not loose the thought, that Tonsli, now pro-Tonsil, at last achieved the coming together of the three elements: engineering, listening and company goodwill. Only those three things together are capable of success. The latter has to be worked for at least for some time, and the company was off the market too long to rely on the magic of the company name alone. The first step was taken, and hopefully it will not be waisted. There will be no large innings from that at the beginning, but we have to remember that there are years needed to work-out a strong position. In case of Celestion we have a eighty years long, uninterrupted tradition. Pro-Tonsil, although supported by the name Tonsil, is just starting and we need to give the constructors and salesmen some time, and I think it is worth to do it.

DESCRIPTION

The model Siesta of the company Pro-Tonsil is a large floor standing two-and-a-half way, three speaker construction. The treble is handled by a soft dome with a short tube and metal, cast front covered with a soft substance. This is a special variety, designed especially for this construction. It is placed in the middle of a symmetrical d'Apollito setting, with two midwoofers GDN 15/40/5 with a cone from unvarnished glass fiber and 150mm diameter (usually those are covered with black varnish). Let us mention, that almost identical midwoofers (who knows, maybe manufactured in Tonsil) are used by the British Revolver (tests: RW16, RW33, RW45). Let us also mention, that the Siesta is an ultra new construction, we got the first exemplar that came from production. That is the reason for the lack of the logo and serial number plate. We could have waited, but we wanted to show you this inexpensive and incredibly interesting speaker.

The workmanship is very good. This is a tall, very narrow speaker. The drivers are placed near the top of the front baffle, in the d'Apollito setting, with the tweeter closer to one of the edges. The front is varnished in black, and the edges are rounded. The sides and the back is covered with artificial veneer, that looks very nice. The whole is mounted on a small, black pedestal with screwed in spikes. The drivers, although identical, work in different chambers and are vented with separate bass reflexes – one to the front and one to the back. The wire terminals are placed near to the floor, that eases the connection of the speaker cable, but on the other hand requires a long cable inside the speaker. The terminals are single. And good – you don't have to worry about the cramps. There is also a grille. It must be said, that for the given money the speaker is built fantastically, especially if we take into account, that the drivers ‘sauté’ cost as much as a dozen Chinese ones. And they are quality controlled at every stage of manufacture. And in China 100% of the production comes into sales... As it seems the division is glued directly under the tweeter, diagonally (you know, standing waves and similar...) and below it, a splendid made cross-over is screwed to the back cover. We have there very large polypropylene capacitors and air coils. The connections are made with braid OFC copper cables, connected to the speakers by means of plugs.

HOME PAGE