The Fidelio 2 speakers were the speakers that were played most often. Like many other rooms, the smaller speakers seemed to be able to stretch their legs, so to speak, in the small room, whereas the larger speakers had volume and bass resonance issues to deal with.

The system when driving these speakers ($6,800.00 at the time of this show review), performed quite well on most material. Early the first day of the show, ouch, they were compressed and uneven and maybe even a little scratchy. By the afternoon of the second day they were cooking quite nicely: almost zero box colorations, dynamic, able to go loud (in the small room anyway), big soundstage, good separation. The sweet spot was really fun to listen from.

On some material, however, the notes seemed to take too long to decay and were not finished before the next notes started playing. This smearing was even more evident on the bigger LaCampanella's, so I would suggest that a more powerful amplifier, or one able to control the speaker a little better anyway, might be in order for the person wanting to get the most out of these speakers.

Additionally, the leading edge of the notes were not reproduced in a way for them to be detectable to my aging ears. For example, a downstroke with a pick on a guitar string sounds just perfect except there is no leading 'click and scratch' of the pick encountering the string at high velocity as one might expect to hear.

The system driving the LaCampanella speakers ($26,000) sounded in the same vein as the little Fidelio's. But with more fullness and macro dynamics, and more bass, of course. The bass and general higher SPLs of the larger speakers interacted with the room with negative manifestations consisting of bass notes traveling around the room for days and perhaps even some congestion during complex passages. These speakers also were not controlled sufficiently by the upstream components.

All in all, of all the systems at the show, if I had to be stuck in a deserted miniature hotel room, like these at the show for example, for a length of time with a system and not permitted to change anything in the system, the Fidelio-based system would be in my top two or three picks. [See Winners and Losers for more picks].

Einstein CD player

Acapella LaCampanella speaker and (smaller) Fidelio 2 speaker

Acapella LaCampanella speaker and (smaller) Fidelio 2 speaker