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Reference 3a
MM De Capo-i
42 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine
The “i” in this new versions’s
name stands for “improved.”
The speaker is still made in
Canada, though not at the
same factory. The woofer is still substantially
the same, with its familiar knitted
carbon fibre cone, but the tweeter is a
new one. The crossover remains minimalist,
with direct connection of the
woofer and only a pair of capacitors to
keep the lows from blowing the tweeter.
Internal wiring is from Cardas. So are
the binding posts and the jumpers, the
latter looking like those stars Kung Fu
warriors throw at each other.
Our speakers were beautifully finished
in red cherry, and came with a pair
of adjustable wood stands, as shown in
the picture. The stands’ unusual design
horrified some observers, who thought
they looked knock-kneed. Reine liked
them, however, which could indicate that
their WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) is
high. We performed the actual test with
the much more massive Foundation
stands from Focus Audio.
We did our listening entirely with
LPs, because…well, it’s always fun to
return to vinyl. Most of the selections
came from audiophile recordings,
though the one exception turned out to
be the most revealing, as we shall see.
The first of them was a long discontinued
Wilson Audio recording
called Center Stage. The first track, the
fanfare for the 1984 Olympics, is notable
for the palpable impact of the tympani.
Our Alpha reference speakers, with their
push-pull woofers, can let you hear both
the sound of sticks against membrane,
and the huge impact that results. Could
these speakers accomplish the same
feat?
Well, no, and we suspect no tunedport
loudspeaker can. The piece sounded
impressive nonetheless, with bright and
brash brass that emerged with none of
the grainy texture some speakers add to
this sort of music. Reference 3a speaker
have long been known for the ability to
play as loud as you want without having
blood pouring from your ears. This one
still can.
We then sat through one of our
favorite test discs, William Walton’s
Façade (Reference Recordings RR-16,
also available on CD, RR-2102). There
are lots of passages to delight the listener…and
plenty of traps too. Like most
speakers, this one fell into an early trap,
the soaring piccolo solo. We know that
it doesn’t have to sound shrill, though in
fact it often does. And it did here. Even
the cymbal was a bit “hi-fi” during loud
clashes, though it sounded superb when
the percussionist was barely touching
them together.
But what all three of us noted was
the beauty of the instrumental timbres.
Pretty much each member of the Chicago
Pro Musica gets a solo, and we
have heard some speakers homogenize
their sound so that members of the