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REVIEW: Triangle Celius Speakers

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Model: Celius
Category: Speakers
Suggested Retail Price: $1995
Description: 3 way, high-efficiency floorstanding loudspeaker.
Manufacturer URL: Not Available
Manufacturer URL: Not Available

Review by Goyescas on August 01, 2003 at 12:55:26
IP Address: 216.38.178.85
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The following is an update to my previous review of the Triangle Celius. The goal of this piece is to provide current and potential owners with what I hope is a clearer picture of the speaker’s shortcomings and advantages, along with some suggestion for equipment and room compatibility optimization.

Previously I reported a concern with the ability of the Celius to remain coherent and play at higher SPL’s in a fairly large listening room. After 19 months of heavy and diverse use in my 14x22 (cathedral ceiling sloping from 10 feet in the center to 8 feet at the room corners), the speaker continued to have difficulties getting out of the way of the music. Now with simpler acoustic music, such as Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, the speakers exhibit a dynamic and palpable sense of presence. Tonally things are just on the bright side of warm, with plenty of harmonic overtones which provide much (well, actually ALL) of the timbre or tonal balance of the instruments. Here I am talking about nuances as well as the overall timbre; one will not have to guess how wet the saxophone player’s mouthpiece is – the saliva practically drips off the tweeter.

This level of “detail” is a double-edged sword of sorts. The more generous critics describe the Celius as “analytical,” or, “on the hot side of neutral,” while harsher listeners claim a peaked-up treble response provides a false sense of detail and sonic nuance.

In my view, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Play Blue Oyster Cult’s “Curse of the Hidden Mirror,” which is a carefully crafted CD and was engineered with high-end tube gear, and you may very well run from the room in agony. But to focus on an example such as this one is to remove from context the decisions made in the studio to record non-acoustic instruments and a miked vocal. In other words, who is to say the recording is not at fault? After all, the goal of the producer is often to render a “product” that will invite airplay, much of which is to be reproduced on cheap audio gear accompanying a compressed signal.

Nevertheless, if this CD is representative of the majority of better pop/rock/hip-hop recording techniques – and I believe it is – then the Celius might just sound far too bright, etchy and at times downright brittle. And even if you LIKE this sound, you will not be able to realize the ear splitting SPL’s that cause the police to drive by every 10 minutes.

Since I usually only listen to contemporary rock in my car, I will focus instead on recordings of acoustic music, which is far more interesting from the perspective of capturing music to “accurately” recreate it, but certainly not always to manipulate and improve it. This is where things get interesting, as a lot of my source material captures changes in air pressure in time (i.e., sound) at one particular position, usually a single mike or, if a stereo recording, simply a pair of microphones. Yes, this is an oversimplification, but I am hard-pressed for space. Please don’t write to inform me how much recording engineers do in the studio with such recordings – I’ve made some myself.

Within the first 45 minutes of listening you may find yourself taken aback by how fast and dynamic this speaker is, likely a function of the light and relatively undamped cabinet, as well as the drivers themselves, which are incredibly light and responsive. Bass is tight and a bit lean, and a subwoofer certainly helps if you are a super-low bass freak, (and if you are, the Celius would be a poor choice anyway – their midbass is prominent enough that you will be crossing over at 40Hz). But once settled in to the signature sound of the speaker, it is hard and sometimes impossible to settle in to the MUSIC; instead, the speaker keeps drawing your attention. “Look at me” it says, “I’ll bet you never knew Tibaldi took such a big breath, did you?”

This type of detail can either be intoxicating or downright obnoxious, and I mean this both in a general sense, for starters, and ultimately on a case-by-case basis as well. If you like your sound euphonically “warm,” look elsewhere – Spendor or perhaps Vandersteen might be a better choice. But if this highly exposed, almost analytical sound appeals to you, know that there are in fact many recordings which lend themselves very well to the Celius, including those of large orchestral works.

A good and popular enough example of this is the complete set of Beethoven symphonies recorded by DG (Leonard Bernstein conducting the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, ca 1982-84). If you are auditioning these, bring with you the slow movements from Symphonies 3 and 5. Especially listen to the transition from 3 to 4 in the 5th symphony, as Bernstein brings the band in Vienna to the most nerve-racking and exposed pianissimo before the blast of the horns announce the triumphant 4th movement. It is moments like these where a speaker like this really shines, assuming you wish to hear what Lenny - and not the folks in row M - heard. It is truly breathtaking.

But even then, the speaker still sometimes “fails” on two important counts. First, the lack of consistent coherency, and second, the fact they will not tolerate anyway near a concert level tutti blast from the orchestra. Bummer. The drivers are simply not very well integrated. They therefore draw attention to themselves, as if to personally direct you to their crossover points. Now this is not to say this is a constant concern; hardly, but enough of one for this listener to become distracted from the actual music just long enough for it to ruin the incredible aura the speakers themselves just moments ago helped to create. This may not be a major quibble to some or even many listeners, but it slowly started to preoccupy and then annoy this one.

But the overall news is far from bleak. A fairly high efficient speaker like this means users may be able to use lower powered amplifiers to good effect. Earlier I reported poor results with low powered tube gear, preferring instead high-current, solid-state amplifiers. Now before you write to chide me on this point, understand that my original assessment was limited to a total of 5 different amplifiers. Since then, I have discovered just how difficulty an impedance load the Celius can be for some amps, and further just how outrageously its frequency balance can be altered by others.

Before delving into this, I would first like to summarize a few points, some gleaned from my earlier review. The speaker functions best in not too large and fairly well damped rooms. Toeing the speakers in toward the listener is a bozo no-no (unless you cannot hear above 8k Hz), as would be placing them very close to the rear and side walls. The speaker will stand a better chance of realizing the designer’s objective if you are listening off-axis: basically, a nearfield set-up with the speakers firing straight ahead (or even slightly outward!) in the proverbial equilateral triangle configuration is optimum. Period. I’ve dragged these things all over the house looking for the best configuration, and this is where I always ended up.

If you don’t listen very loudly (but still loud) or have a medium sized listening room that is well damped and you favor small jazz or classical chamber music over rock and roll or large orchestral works, and appreciate hearing musical nuances such that you might ALSO tolerate being able to guess the weight of the brush on the cymbals or the percentage of bow hair applied to the violin string, this may be THE speaker for you. I make this point again – you cannot hear musical nuances such as those I allude to in the Beethoven above without also hearing some other things as well. People often tell me they don’t want to hear the conductor humming, or the clickity-clack of the bassoonist’s noisy keys. Well, that comes at the expense of also not hearing how well (or poorly) the bassoon expresses the nuance of a passage or how a violist articulates the instructions of the composer when she gets her only 3 minute solo opportunity of the season.
Take your pick, but you’ll never get both.

So it is not a question of accuracy, really, but personal preference. You can never REALLY know the accuracy of this or any loudspeaker/transducer in practical applications anyway, so know what you like. Which leads me to my final point, and also the reason I felt it was important to write this follow-up to my earlier review.

Because of its impedance, which is basically all over the place, this is one speaker that will react very differently to the amplifier you mate it with. Just as I was lamenting how poor a match, ultimately, the Celius were for my particular room and listening habits, I procured a pair of the Rogue Audio Magnum Monoblocks. This is a high-powered (120 wpc), push-pull which uses matched KT-88’s; users can select between pentode and triode mode. IF you own or are considering the Celius, you MUST hear this combination in triode mode. The frequency response of the speaker changes dramatically. The amp becomes an equalizer of sorts, and I do not mean a subtle one.

Put another way, the amp becomes a giant tone control (no surprise if you understand how tube gear in general interacts with loudspeakers; one can never predict what a given tube amp might sound like unless you are looking at the response and impedance curves of a given speaker). You get all the speed of these drivers, with the treble still ahead of the rest of the band (meaning you will still hear a great deal of detail), but none of that “nasty” or peaked-up tweeter that sell so many “audiophile” speakers. I know, this is clearly not at all about accuracy, but what you will hear is just as likely to astound you as it is to upset you. This is a match like no other I have heard, and I have had friends bringing over all kinds of amps to try with the Celius; none came close to this synergy, however bastardized (because of the speaker) it might be.

Listening fatigue vanishes, strings take on a mid-back hall presence, and the low-mid bass integrates far better with the other drivers. Everything just sounds…right, including the bass. There is no need to horizontally bi-amp with solid state on the bottom, saving you lots of cash on power and cables. This is certainly something worth considering.

So in the end, the Triangle Celius is an enjoyable speaker whose design compromises add-up just shy of optimum for my listening preferences and room acoustics. In a slightly smaller (too small is far worse than too large) and fairly well-damped room, coupled with a predominant preference for chamber music and smaller jazz ensembles, this would make a remarkable speaker, especially at its incredibly low price point (a benefit to buying from a large company that makes its drivers and cabinets in house; outsourcing components is far more expensive).

Given these constraints, I still think it is one of the better values on the market. And if you do check it out, do so with an amplifier like the Rogue Magnum monoblocks. You might very well be astonished.

ATB,

-Kurt Wolf


Product Weakness: Lack of complete coherency, a bit peaky on the treble, and unable to play at higher SPL's with momentarily tripping protection circuitry.
Product Strengths: Fast, Dynamic and Revealing.


Associated Equipment for this Review:
Amplifier: See Goyescas in systems
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated): See Goyescas in systems
Sources (CDP/Turntable): See Goyescas in systems
Speakers: See Goyescas in systems
Cables/Interconnects: See Goyescas in systems
Music Used (Genre/Selections): Refer to Text
Type of Audition/Review: Product Owner




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Topic - REVIEW: Triangle Celius Speakers - Goyescas 12:55:26 08/1/03 ( 7)