I’ve already posted a few news pieces about Silent Pound and their uniquely intriguing patented Challenger II speakers. So, when Martynas Serksnys reached out to discuss a potential review, there was no need for further investigation.
Even at first glance, the Silent Pound Challenger II promises something unique. As you can read throughout the review, these Lithuanian speakers deliver on that promise, impressing both sonically and musically.
Challenger II
True to its name, the Challenger II speakers challenge many common beliefs about speaker design and shape.
When sound or music is transmitted, it induces millions of microscopic vibrations. A poorly designed speaker chassis, along with inadequate implementation of drivers and wrongly designed crossovers, not only withdraw the music’s energy but also distort the harmonic relationships within the music.
There is a wealth of information, intricacies, and unique aspects behind the design of the Silent Pound Challenger II speakers.
Rather than simply restating these utterly important details, below is an in-depth Silent Pound documentation that explains the fundamental advantages of these one-of-a-kind speakers and why they sound so profoundly in tune with the music.
The Silent Pound Way
The Silent Pound’s responsiveness, professionalism, and everything related to the product under review were exceptional and exemplary.
I’m always evocative about how a brand’s identity starts with the packaging and extends to its responsiveness. In today’s world, it’s all about customer service and meeting the expectations of an increasingly demanding clientele.
There’s a significant difference between making a one-time sale and fostering a lifelong relationship with a satisfied customer, and Silent Pound clearly understands this and it’s reflected through their website, product presentation, or product itself—reflecting their ethos of dedication to follow only the highest standards.
Throughout the evaluation, my experience with Silent Pound truly stood out, demonstrating their genuine commitment to their products—something I can’t say for many other brands, even those with much higher price tags.
The Music
I’ll delve deeper into additional music references in part two of the review. However, in this part, I want to highlight the impressive capabilities of the Silent Pound Challenger II speakers when reproducing complex music, starting with an intriguing electronic composition.
What stands out the most is the Challenger II’s ability to get to the core of the music, revealing layers upon layers of the music with a delicate touch, effortlessly moving air while transmitting the sound into the listening space.
This was impressively demonstrated with a particularly challenging Evangea Mathame, a grand task even for much larger speakers. The Challenger II rose to the occasion, creating an immersive electronic soundscape with exceptional focus, dynamics, and spatial precision, instantly locking onto the pulse of the techno music.
Both electronic and classical music present significant challenges for amplifiers and speakers. I was pleasantly surprised by how the Challenger II speakers produced an immersive journey, featuring laser-focused electronic drums, synthesizers, and expansive artificial reverb. In the “Getsemani”, the soundstage can easily collapse, turning what should be a compelling narrative into a muddled blur. However, the Challenger II captured the momentum of the track with finesse, maintaining balance without pushing the sound too close to the listener and avoiding unwanted reflections from side, front, and back walls.
This is where the Challenger II excels and distinguishes itself from many other speakers. Its unique design not only allows it to seamlessly blend into its environment but also maintains the dynamism and natural character of the music with remarkable and refreshing authority.
Attenuator – A Craig & von Oswald Production
The Silent Pound Challenger II disappearing act was easily demonstrated and confirmed with the Attenuator, delivering a performance that not every speaker can manage: effortlessly escaping the boundaries of its enclosure.
For many loudspeakers, the unveiling of complete Attenuator impact represents a difficult, if not impossible, task.
However, this is where the Challenger II shows its advantages, not only by acting transparently but by easilydemonstrating its ability to present music without its presence with a novel way of dealing with typical problems such as side wall reflections and room modes.
The Challenger II was designed from the ground up to subsist in the listening space and due to proper voicing revealing instruments, voices, and realistic acoustic reflection with a grander way and sense of actuality.
This is possible due to Silent Pound’s proprietary technology and its unusual shape, which allows the Challenger II to avoid the phenomenon of mapping the sound and blurring the character of the music—another highlights worthy of high praise.
Counting Crows -August And Everything After
There is nothing more frustrating than getting excited about loudspeakers conveying complex orchestral or electronic music, but failing to deliver the mojo of rock or metal music, while also presenting vocals correctly.
With everything that entails, this is where I like to pull out the Counting Crows – August and Everything After, the album, which is splendidly recorded and represents quite an intriguing sonic summon—not only for any loudspeaker but also for the entire high-end audio system.
This fully analog recording sets the pace for how the music should flow seamlessly and how speakers, if the system before them allows, can fully subsist and let the music develop guilelessly, without compressing or distorting the sound at any point.
Silent Pound speakers instantly lock in on the heart of the matter and can ably capture the drive of guitars and drums,while never congesting the vocals or pushing them to the “second row.”
It was exciting to observe the Challenger II’s ability to project this iconic record with such ease, reassuring that this sonic achievement and overall design, along with the refined tuning process, were no accident.
Some speakers try to excel in a narrow aural field but fail to deliver music as a cohesive harmonic whole.
On the contrary, from genre to genre, Silent Pound speakers moved between different styles of music with almost nonchalant ease. Nonchalant in the sense of not getting in the way, but letting the music flow freely, without holding back the message, and permitting a level of interactiveness that is rarely achieved. This alone is a key factor that elevates these Lithuanian loudspeakers above many of the déjà vu offerings on the market.
Patricia Barber – Café Blue
Today it is relatively easy to design, envision, and construct a loudspeaker. With all the tools available, the internet acting as a giant archive, and the wealth of proven speaker concepts, modern drivers, all types of crossovers blueprints, schematics, and white papers, it seems that creating loudspeakers is no longer a major accomplishment.
Yet, when it comes to properly voiced speakers that can present timbre and color as they are in real life, capturing the natural lightning-fast dynamics and creating the needed harmonic density, the difference between mediocre and fully mature speakers starts to show.
One of the albums that pushes speakers to the nth degree is Café Blue, calling for the upper echelon, dynamic transducers without constraints.
This is where the “tree and the forest” analogy comes into play. Many speakers, regardless of price, can present one aspect of this juxtaposition with high marks, but they fail to bring the complete sonic imagery and unfold the sonic palette with all the shades, layers, and colors. They often merely zoom in on a distinctive characteristic important to someone involved in the design and tuning process.
Far from gluing to any specific standout, the Challenger II depicts music harmonically rich, transparent, and not affectedby the usual hubris of room resonances as other speakers might be, thus not diminishing its prominence.
Silent Pound speakers keep the music narrative intact, preserving its potency and message in the room-reaching the listener, with all the dynamism coming from the speakers first and not being bound to the wall reflections, room bounces, etc.
Especially with “Romanesque“, immersive, sonic holographic sphere Silent Pound speakers laid out acoustic nodes and focal points of a higher-order density. This permits and bestows the finer tails of the decays and delays to mirror the subtle reverberation of the space with outstanding authority.
The Challenger II represents a novel approach, standing on its own with its exceptional ability to deliver pure musical momentum, an utterly potent culmination of musical energy, without losing any of the individual parts.
The Challenger II acts very differently from what even an experienced and demanding listener would expect, seemingly presenting both attributes—fabric of space and individual segments—without losing any characteristics in its territory or stepping into the opposite realms, seamlessly fusing two appearing structural counterparts.
It’s challenging (pun intended) to make complex ideas simple, but Silent Pound transcends the concept of a speaker in a “box,” which, frankly, many contemporary speakers—even far pricier ones—fail to do.
It takes considerable time and serious R&D to deliver something notably different, and Silent Pound’s ability to encapsulate all of these concepts into a speaker that plays so engagingly, without overcomplication, is a remarkable achievement.
The Conclusion
Many high-end audio speakers can stray from the essence of the music. Despite technical sophistication, exotic components, and marketing claims, they often sound like a collection of drivers that shuffle notes in a kaleidoscopic way, producing unpleasant listening fatigue.
In contrast, the Silent Pound Challenger II speakers offer a harmonious and sympathetic union of well-researched technologies, drivers, crossovers, and enclosure design (or lack thereof).
This allows the Challenger II to act as a medium for pure, free-flowing energy, with every detail—from the clear focalization of instruments and vocals to the natural vibrancy of the music—instantly engaging the listener and making it easy to connect with the performance.
The Silent Pound Challenger II doesn’t impose an artificial order on the music but lets it flow freely, as intended, no matter the genre. These speakers are exceptional in many ways, but I was especially impressed by how rhythmically accurate they are, how precise the timbre, tone, and color are, and how effortlessly they disappear into the listening space.
They have a high engagement factor, drawing one into the music and allowing to fully enjoy and comprehend what is being conveyed. Their clever design makes them easy to place and position, and their patented midrange driver enables sound to expand far beyond the speakers, creating a remarkable horizontal and vertical soundstage.
The same goes for the depth of the sonic sphere, where the Challenger II allows music to emerge from a deep, black background, cutting through with refreshing airiness while staying true to the realistic portrayal of musicians and instruments.
Voices and instruments are presented with lifelike size, drum attacks are sharp and fast, and the leading edges of notes retain their crispness. This enables the Challenger II to instantly lock into the beat, reproducing music with stand-out clarity, transparency, and vividness.
The Challenger II speakers offer a fatigue-free listening experience that keeps the listener actively engaged, delivering the musical message directly without filtering through any logical barriers.
Silent Pound has infused various fields of product design into their Challenger II speakers, utilizing modern materials, techniques, and inventive approaches. Ultimately, Silent Pound’s creativity manifests in an unforgettable listening experience, no matter the genre.
For what it represents technically, musically, and in terms of quality—from packaging onward—I wholeheartedly award the Silent Pound Challenger II speakers the highly coveted 2024 Mono & Stereo Upper Echelon Product Award. ❖
The Price
- Price: Starting at €27,999
Technical Specifications
- Frequency Response: 30 Hz – 18 kHz (±2.5 dB), 28 Hz – 24 kHz (±5 dB)s
- Sensitivity: 88 dB
- Recommended Amplifier Power: 100–400 W per channel
- Dimensions: 124 cm (H) x 36 cm (W) x 35 cm (D)
- Weight: 60 kg per unit
- Price: Starting at €27,999
Contact
SP Audio, MB
Vaizganto 9-21, LT44225,
Kaunas, Lithuania
Tel: +370 698 88223
Email: hello@silentpound.com
Web: www.silentpound.com