Eryk S. Concept SUPERIORO Speakers review

Widebander & art

MONO AND STEREO HIGH-END AUDIO MAGAZINE

Sometimes I wonder what happened with the spirit of the simplicity and pureness. The times when what mattered the most was music seem to be lost and obsolete at present. We transition to the fast forward age with such pace, that information and technical aspects become a prevailing attributes instead of music and its ability to moves us with emotions. We seems to forgot, that music have an almost esoterically appeal in changing us. In a better, more positive way.


We’ve seen the rise of technically oriented speakers, that produce impressive specifications and looks, but fail on the basic primal role of reproduction of music.

They lacking of coherence, absence of the "material" sound and anaemic imprint. Instead of ears, many reviewers and magazines tends to use marketing material to judge and write about speakers performance. If world and everything surrounding us would base on numbers this would be easy to grasp, yet universe runs on a different more subtle particles fuel. And thanks God it's so...

MEET Eryk S. Concept SUPERIORO SPEAKERS

First thing, that happened when opening the shipping box was a brief moment of nostalgia . And a positive one.

I’ve went through many cycles in my high-end audio history and one of them was as a sole single ended triode “period” that was connected with with “widebanders”. There is some inherent magic coming with single driver speakers that presents the music like no other speakers can. Their ability to shift the reality and reconstruct the illusion into something very organic is distinct and special.

Eryk S. Concept SUPERIORO recall this feeling vividly and I've got a strong feeling, that Eryk didn't chase the Goliath. He clearly knows the shortcomings of such small sized speaker and he pushed beyond boundaries to make it musical and natural sounding.

SOUND

When listening Eryk S. Concept Speakers for first few hours I’ve had a friend visiting over at my place. SUPERIORO's were placed on my rack with music spinning, but I didn’t say anything about what speakers are playing or which amplifier. As they were placed just beside my floor standers, this was a nitty trick. Two or three songs passed and I teased my friend on the topic of the sound. He commented: "Well its coherent and unlike typical speakers." Indeed!

With some milage and sharp ears you can quickly spot the difference between the multiple drivers based speaker and crossover-less design. The second option adds to the purity and direct impact of the music reproduction like no other speaker do. When used with the “right” material they present the vocals and acoustical instruments with an natural lightness and distortion free nature.

This was exactly what Eryk S. Concept SUPERIORO Speakers excelled at.

Back to my friend. He was pleasantly surprised by the potency of this small speakers. Of course I didn’t played the large scale and hard to “digest” material, but the bass and size of the soundstage coming from SUPERIORO was remarkable. We both commented and discussed around the Eryk S. Concept and nature. It's interesting, how certain products evoke the pleasant discussion about the music with such ease. And SUPERIORO's awaken our emotional side. We made a lengthy travel throughout the history of music and our favourite artist. I have a soft spot for the music recoding during the 50's and 60's of last century and those little wooden musical boxes brought back those exact emotions.

It was a great feeling seeing something carrying me over to the musical collage of my favourite artist of a certain era.

One thing to note is a correct positing. When place closed enough to the back wall you'll not only gain with the bass frequency, but also upper bass, that is much needed to form a correct presentation of three dimensional shape of human voice and instruments. It also add as substantial feeling to the music  weight and help in portraying more lifelike experience.

TECHNICAL SIDE

Eryk S. Concept SUPERIORO Speakers use a single driver and sealed wooden box made of plywood. Loading of 87dB/4-ohm is not ideal, but will let even low powered amplifier to show the nature of Superioro.

Eryk also made a "tuning" of speakers a bit easier with the switch on the speakers back that adds a frequency boost in 2dB steps at 4.5kHz.

ARTISTIC TOUCH

I'm not sure what exactly draws Eryk to Japanese way of doing things, but he's drawn to the spirit of their artisan approach as it seems.

With the SUPERIORO's you'll get one kind of product. While you can order it in piano gloss or different colours Eryk introduced an art concept of unique hand painted and printed side panels by the Polish artist Aqualoopa. These adds a certain aura and feeling of proud ownership, that extends in value and decor awarness.

MUSIC

If speaking about the speakers made for music, then Eryk Concept SUPERIORO Speakers are the chip to cash in. I'm smitten with the purity of full range drivers when it comes to the music of past era recorded without the artificial reverbs and delays. Just musicians taking their role and playing in natural surroundings, that creates the decays echoing in a different way. It's also the easiest way to make a reference imprint of something. We don't have almost no knowledge about how certain studio album was being made. What kind of gear was used and how processing was executed. But, with the music recorded directly and in acoustic "friendly" arhitectural spaces we can have a certain strong reference about how things should sound in real.

It's seems by default, that the more things go complicated the more we loose down in the translation of music and also the more people seems to elaborate on a nonsense complexity. Simple things are simple. With the stacks of text people to often sublimely try to hide the artificial add

CONCLUSION

Eryk Concept SUPERIORO Speakers role goes beyond simple desktop speakers. Their art concept and true audiophile nature breaths a fresh air to the world intimate music reproduction at close listening. I've loved the concept from the first encounter and the pure, direct nature of presenting the music brings very intimate emotions.

You cannot expect SUPERIORO's to act like larger floor-standers, but their ability to render the music beyond their proportions is something more then worthy of mentioning.

Eryk Concept SUPERIORO Speakers are able to act as all rounders. Not a perfect ones, but still with enough "mojo" to drive. The dynamic switch on the back helps with this to some extend.

Match them with a pure A class solid state or SET amplifier and something unique happens. They become a windows to the acoustic music. Their ability to interact between the performer and listener as a transparent via medium is their raison d'etre.

In the age where everything is becoming accountable for something technically measurable without proper listening "repay", SUPERIORO's aural performance is a welcoming sign that human urge for something substantially organic and artful is for some still a primal need to fulfil.

http://www.eryksc.com

Matej Isak. Mono and Stereo ultra high end audio magazine. All rights reserved. 2006-2013. www.monoandstereo.com. ..:: None of the original text, pictures, that were taken by me, links or my original files can be re-printed or used in any way without prior permission! ::..