Koss Totem Mani-2 Manuel d'utilisateur télécharger pdf (Page 38)

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Listening Room

o here’s Castle again…with a new

Canadian distributor, but then

again new ownership too. Castle

was founded many years ago by a

group of former Wharfedale executives,

who had left when the aptly-named Rank

organization had bought Wharfedale.

Those execs are now retired, and Castle

was bought by…a group of Wharfedale

execs. Plus ça change…

This very small and inexpensive

speaker is very much a Castle, though.

Notice the 13 cm carbon ﬁbre woofer

(with a cast metal basket, which of course

you can’t see), and the “upside down”

conﬁguration. Notice the subtle shape of

the Skipton castle pressed into the soft

dome tweeter face plate. Notice the ﬁne

ﬁnish, brighter in the centre, darker at

the edges. Inhale the furniture oil while

you’re at it.

Then look at the rear for the cheap

plastic binding posts Castle has long

used on its economy speakers. Only you

won’t ﬁnd them. These gold-colored

posts are better than most.

We set the Richmonds up on our

Foundation stands (which cost more than

the speakers themselves do), connected

them to our Alpha system, and pulled out

a few potentially difﬁcult recordings.

The first was our familiar choral

recording, but from the SACD version

(Proprius PRSACD9093). Albert and

Gerard had plenty of praise for the great

clarity of the choral voices, for the way

we could pick them out individually,

and yet for the way they hung together.

The rhythm was at least reasonable, the

recording’s great depth reduced but not

destroyed.

And yet not everything was perfect.

In one passage the women took on a

“honky” tone, and Reine liked neither

the male voices nor the counterpoint

with the ﬂute. Albert would have liked

a little more energy. Turning up the

volume helped, but these little speakers

are not designed to be run that loud, and

we backed off again..

With a large-scale orchestral record-

ing (Beethoven’s Symphony No.5, Penta-

Tone 5186 102) we realized again how

easy it is to run these speakers too loud.

The violins were ﬁrst to tip us off and

cry for mercy. Once we found the right

compromise the Richmonds surprised us

with their energetic sound and the coher-

ent way they made sense of Beethoven’s

complex orchestration. The music was,

by turns, lyrical and lively. The stereo

image was precise, each orchestral sec-

tion well anchored in space. Well…space

is perhaps the wrong word, because the

depth was all but absent.

We were in the mood to make this

speaker work hard! We turned to a

DVD-A of the Ray Brown Trio’s Take

the ‘A’ Train (from Soular Energy, Hi-

Res HRM-2011). Through such small

speakers this recording should have

been unrecognizable, but that’s not what

happened. Brown’s powerful bass was

surprisingly lively and rhythmic, though

of course we heard the slap of the strings

more than the resonance of the instru-

ment body. Pianist Gene Harris really

pounds the right side of his keyboard

in this piece, and the notes had a decid-

edly hard edge. “But that’s the way he

plays,” said Albert. Both the bass and

the (subtle) percussion kept the swing on

track. “What I like,” said Gerard, “was

that even when these speakers play too

loud and they harden up, they never get

blurry or fuzzy. They stay clean.”

We wondered how well they could

render the expressive voice of jazz singer

extraordinaire Margie Gibson (Say It

With Music, Shefﬁeld CD-36). They did

more than honorably, with only a touch

of hardness here and there, but lots of

clarity and expressiveness in the song

itself. We liked the sensuous way Gibson

glides along a note before settling on its

perfect pitch (actually we always like it,

but the Richmonds didn’t spoil it). The

accompanying instruments — piano,

bass and cello — were very good, and

their dialogue was coherent and pleasing.

“It’s surprising how much you can hear

in the background,” said Gerard, “like

for instance the piano solo when she

hums softly along with it.”

We ended with Victor Feldman’s

Secret of the Andes, ﬁguring it might have

trouble with a couple of those exotic

drums that make up the introduction.

If a cabinet is poorly put together, this

recording will spotlight it. The Rich-

mond wasn’t quite perfect on this test,

Brand/model: Castle Richmond 3i

Price: C$799

Size (HWD): 33 x 17 x 23 cm

Sensitivity: 88.5 dB

Impedance (claimed): 8 ohms

Most liked: Beautifully made, great

energy and clarity

Least liked: Very limited depth

Verdict: The Energizer bunny in

speaker form

Summing it up…

Castle Richmond 3i

36 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

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Koss Totem Mani-2 Manuel d'utilisateur Page 38

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