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The Alumine Three's driver lineup consists of two 8" woofers and a 5" midrange, all made of a "proprietary multi-layer cone material" that Jean-Pascal describes as a "high-strength cellulose fiber impregnated and coated on both sides with damped resins." Midrange and bass drivers are made by PHL Audio. The half-space value is then the minimum sensitivity a user can get in a well-damped monitoring room." Stenheim specifies the nominal impedance as 8 ohms with a minimum of 3 ohms. "The ceiling rear and side walls can have different impacts on the frequency-dependent sensitivity based on the loudspeaker location and the wall materials (absorbent and/or reverberant). "For this measurement, our loudspeakers are placed directly on the floor, one boundary, and therefore a half-space," Panchard told me in an email. When I asked Walter Swanbon to clarify, he connected me with Jean-Pascal Panchard, Stenheim's owner, CEO, and chief designer.
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The pdf brochure on the Stenheim website specifies the Alumine Three's sensitivity as "93dB, half-space." I recognized that "half-space" expression from buying raw speaker drivers, but I wondered why Stenheim was stating it that way in its specifications. Betting the RAAL amp would clip, the Imp kept bugging me to turn the volume up, but even at higher-than-normal listening levels, the Alumine Threes breathed easily, playing Evelyn Glennie's watt-sucking Concertos for Mallet Instruments (24/96 FLAC Naxos/Qobuz) at 85dB with short, seemingly undistorted 99dB peaks. When, as usual, I did what the Imp told me to do, the Alumine Three seemed quite comfortable with 10 watts. John Atkinson's measurements showed that the XA25 can deliver 80W into 8 ohms and 130W into 4 ohms.) The Imp was sure the $32,900 Stenheims would suffocate trying to breathe with only 10 watts. The 3" tall demon shouted, "Pass Labs lied! The XA25 puts out more than 25 watts." (Which is true. Throughout my auditions, the Alumine Three's most obvious and appealing trait was its well-structured, evenly focused clarity.Īfter a few random tracks, the Imp of the Perverse (aka Herb's shoulder demon, my constant companion) began jabbering in my ear, insisting I try the 10W into 8 ohms RAAL-requisite HSA-1b speaker and headphone amp I'm writing about in this month's Gramophone Dreams. The first thing I noticed about the Alumine Three's basic sound character was how unusually smooth (frequency-wise) and well-articulated (transient and detail-wise) they were. At my normal, average 75≨5dB listening levels (C-weighted at 2m), the Stenheims performed effortlessly with 25 watts.
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Here, it means "exquisitely formed.")Īnd Walter did not lie about how easy they are to drive. ( Expensive is a sound descriptor I've never used before. During my previous auditions (in audio show rooms and dealer showrooms), Stenheim speakers always did their obligatory Swiss-precision thing, but their natural, nonmetallic tone kept the music and the humans making it at center stage.Īs soon as Walter left, I connected the Alumine Threes to my 25Wpc Pass Labs XA25 stereo amplifier and played Cheikh Lô's Balbalou (24/96 FLAC, Chapter Two Records/Qobuz)and dang me if I didn't think, yep, sure enough, these speakers do sound expensive. I was however surprised and impressed by how tastefully tailored Euro-svelte the Alumine Threes looked in my room. I seriously doubted they'd play well with 25 watts. They're not as fat as the wide Harbeths or as tall as the tall Wilsons." As Walter pitched the Stenheims, I kept nodding and repeating, "Wow, that's cool." You can use all your low-powered amps." He added, "And they fit in nicely in regular people's living rooms. They are designed to compete with speakers like Magico and Wilson, but they are easier to drive.
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He said, "Herb, I promise you'll like these speakers. Importer-dealer Walter Swanbon dragged them in on a hand truck with fancy pneumatic tires and set them on my floor in the exact spots I pointed to. Because it contains four sturdy drivers bolted to a thick, bottom-ported aluminum cabinet, it weighs 154lb each. The Alumine Three (footnote 1) is a slender, floorstanding speaker measuring 41.3" high, 9.8" wide, and just 13" deep. So naturally I wondered: Will it sound 10 times better? And if it does sound 10 times better, what might the nature of the improvements be? It is not only the most expensive component I've reviewed for Stereophile it costs more than 10 times (!) as much as my $3000/pair reference Falcon Acoustics Gold Badge LS3/5a speaker. The made-in-Switzerland Stenheim Alumine Three floorstanding loudspeaker sells for $32,900/pair.