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Listening Room
We moved on to the scene from The
Fifth Element, starting shortly before the
Diva’s concert. There’s a lot of low-frequency
action in this scene, and it would
have been easy enough to switch away
the very low-pitched stuff to our massive
subwoofer. Still, that wouldn’t have
told us what this speaker was capable of
all by itself. In fact, it did rather well.
There was considerable punch where it
was needed, and the voices — including
that of the Diva — were gorgeous. A
definite 3-D effect was emerging. There
was a bit of a tonal shift as sounds moved
across the front stage, though of course
that probably wouldn’t be the case if
the Model One were matched to other
Totem speakers. The overall effect was
enjoyable, and we were unanimous once
more.
We should add that, despite the fact
that we were running the Totem (and
the other speakers in this test series)
full range, the subwoofer was helping
anyway, simply because the producers
of many films put extra bass in the LFE
(low frequency effect) track, the “point
one” channel.
If you are already using Totem Model
Ones as the front speakers in your system
(and they are an excellent choice, in our
view), this speaker is the logical match.
Can it match other, bigger speakers,
especially in large rooms? We weren’t
unanimous. Recluctantly, we answer
with a definite perhaps.
JMLab CC 900
It had been years since we had had
a JMLab speaker in our reference
room, and it was about time. We
were reminded of that at the Montreal
show in March, when we sat in
on a home theatre demo done entirely
with JMLab speakers. Good sounding?
You bet. But come to think of it our last
encounter with JMLab had not been
exactly a chore either. You can read all
about it in UHF No. 48.
This grey and black speaker, neatly
styled to blend in with most TV sets
(other finishes are available too), is part
of the Electra series. JMLab is of course
a division of Focal, known for high
technology woofers and tweeters, which
means that it has access to Focal speakers
at what we assume is a favorable price.
The CC 900 has two 16.5 cm woofers,
focused slightly inward, as is common
36 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine
in the JMLab line. The speckled grey
cones are made of two layers of glass
with foam between them. The tweeter
is an inverted dome made of what the
company calls “Tioxid” (but don’t bother
looking it up in your table of elements).
The crossover point is at 2.5 kHz. This
is a reflex speaker, with a front port filled
with open-celled foam.
There are four binding posts,
allowing biwiring…or biamplification,
which is what we did. They are quite
large, allowing a good finger grip, but
with an hexagonal rear section, allowing
us to use our Postman wrench. Once
Using first-class
components pays off.
No surprise.
tightened, they stayed tight. The holes
for bananas are plugged up with plastic
inserts, as in all European speakers, but
they are easy to remove.
We began with the recording of our
own voices, played back at a level as close
as possible to that of our actual voices.
What we heard pleased us a great deal.
The naturalness of the inflections was
striking. The bottom end was palpably
present, but without exaggeration. The
natural sibilance was certainly present,
but it was neither highlighted nor distorted.
Indeed, both Reine and Albert
judged that there was a certain attenuation
of the top end. “I think they did it
on purpose,” said Albert, “but I like it.”
All of us commented on the neutrality of
the sound, despite that slight softness.
On the Beethoven recording, the
JMLab did much better than the previous
three speakers. “The strings aren’t
really silky, but they’re getting closer,”
said Gerard, “and I like the brass.” Reine
and Albert also noticed that the bottom
end, and especially the lower strings,
were clearly audible for the first time,
adding body to the orchestra. Reine also
mentioned the sensation of depth, quite
audible despite the mono sound.
The JMLab also did well on the
Jennifer Warnes recording. Once again
the augmented bottom end did good
things for both her voice and the string
bass, though without exaggeration, and
especially without boominess.
We moved the speaker into the
Kappa system, and noted approvingly
how it seemed to blend in visually with
our Hitachi monitor. But it didn’t really
blend sonically with our other speakers,
as we noted from the pink noise bursts
used for the setup. That of course doesn’t