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Standmount loudspeaker Xavian Primissima Price: 2200 zł (set) Polish distribution: Moje Audio Contact: Powstańców Śląskich 118, 53-333 Wrocław tel/fax: (71) 336 52 67 tel. kom.: 606 276 001, 790 425 142 e-mail: biuro@mojeaudio.pl WWW: Xavian Polish WWW: Xavian Text: Wojciech Pacuła Translation: Krzysztof Kalinkowski |
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The bookshelf loudspeakers Primissima from Xavian – a Czech company, owned by an Italian, Roberto Barletta – belong to the entry level series from this manufacturer called Suona. “Suona” means sound, and “Primissima” – “the first one”. Those two together point to the potential client – somebody, who starts its adventure with music and the way it is presented. Despite the low price tag, the loudspeakers keeps all the characteristics found in other products from this company, like the beautiful craftsmanship, wooden veneer and high quality drivers. And even here Barletta makes no shortcuts, the Primissima are closed enclosure loudspeakers. How much easier bass-reflex loudspeakers could have been made! – the frequency response would be wider, the bass would reach lower (in the +/- 3dB field), there would be more “punch”, that has nothing to do with bass in small loudspeakers, yet is mostly regarded as an asset. But instead we have a fairly big mid-bass driver, 180mm, and a clever cross-over. This allowed to achieve significant efficiency (88dB) at a fair impedance – the manufacturer claims 8Ω. This is rather the mean value, the minimum is much lower, but still there should be no problems in driving those loudspeakers. 
Other Xavian loudspeakers tested in „High Fidelity”: SOUNDI used the following discs:
Japanese versions of the discs available on CD Japan 
Like I wrote during the test of the iQ30 from KEF, good loudspeakers can be divided into two categories – ones that “own” us from the very beginning, transferring us to their world, and the second group, which take longer to open, and to which we have to grow in time. Both groups are cheating a bit, each in its own way, because the first ones will reveal their weaker sides sooner or later, and the second ones have more to offer, than would seem at first glance. But in reality this is about us, the listeners, and we have to mature to both ways of sound, but it can be perceived, as if the loudspeakers are opening before us in time. The Xavian belong in most part to the second group. This was especially well heard after the KEF, which were standing on the stands just before them. The British loudspeakers have a deeper, denser midrange and much better treble. But paradoxically this does not mean better sound. The treble from the metal tweeter KEF employs is unique, but connected with other elements from this price range, like the mid-woofer, cross-over and enclosure – it seems out of its place. One notices it earlier than the rest, what can lead to perceiving the sound as not being coherent, at least sometimes. The Xavian loudspeakers, in comparison, show themselves much more leveled. No sub-range can be shown as sticking out, there are also no “holes”. And this always means solid engineering. As you can already imagine, the midrange is not underlined here, like it was in the iQ30. Despite this it is still the most important part of the spectrum of sound. This is the law of mini bookshelf speakers, that have no lower bass and never will have it. This is why the chosen tonal balance is so important. Here everything is even, in its place – just plain good. This is not a dry sound, completely not, but there is also nothing like bloom, what would make the sound bigger, than the size of the speaker itself would suggest. The upper treble is softer than in my Dobermann, or in the mentioned KEF, and we could even say, that it is slightly withdrawn. But because there is no ‘tuned’ bass, like in bass-reflex loudspeakers, only clean processing of this sub-range, such a move had to be made, otherwise, there could be too much of it. |
So it was surprising, that the Xavian play each kind of music equally well. Of course stand mount speakers do not reproduce the dynamics and might of rock music or electronic music as well, as big floor standing boxes. So we always need a certain compromise. But here it is really not so visible. Putting on the disc 10,000 Tool, or the downloaded disc from William Orbit My Oracles Lives Uptown, issued recently by Linn Records in Studio Master quality 24/44,1 (WMA) showed, that we can listen to it with pleasure. The KEF missed it fully, because there it was about showing a big, full midrange. The Xavian have not underlining of the lower midrange, because they do not have a bass-reflex – hence the much better micro-dynamics, cleaner timbre in this range, etc. Of course, we do not get low bass passages, there will be no “rapacity”, which is guaranteed by larger loudspeakers, but the sound was really nice! The same case was with the Diorama single (I already have the new disc of this group, Cubed, but I need some time to get acquainted) Child of Entertainment, because the voice was at its place, and the electronic sound were nicely placed in the mix – this was just a nice, even sound. Like mentioned earlier, those are very even loudspeakers. I mentioned also, that they are not dry, what means their soul was not “sucked out”, by way of speech. They are just play even. So this should not be a surprise, that they played jazz as good, as rock and electronics before. Because those are mostly small ensembles, the loudspeakers could show splendid microdynamics, splendid ability to differentiate structures, room acoustics, etc. And this is something special, and worth special notice. With the recordings on the Blu-Spec CD sampler I got a saturated, full and vivid sound. The treble was not as resolving an full as with the iQ30, but it was better integrated with the rest of the sound spectrum. The Primissima sound almost like a single driver. The midrange, where we had Davis’ trumpet, and guitars, was strong and big – although there was no bloom, and it was splendidly amended with a fast, uncolored bass. The latter is quite typical for closed enclosures, it seems flatter and not as saturated, when switching over from bass-reflex, but this is mostly the outcome of our habits – let’s listen to the Xavian for longer, and there will be a big chance, that each bass-reflex loudspeaker will not sound natural after that. And finally the space – bookshelf speakers usually handle this better than floor standing loudspeakers for the money, at least when we talk about speakers costing less than 10000zl. The tested loudspeakers handle this aspect even better than the median of this price range. Because there are no visible errors in the timbre, we get a very detailed, but not a “carved out”, stage. The attack of the sound is slightly softened in the Primissima, what is an asset in this case, because it allows for holistic reproduction of space and instruments, and coherent sound in the whole window between loudspeakers. Going through the stages of “taming” this sound, we get to that, what those Xavian loudspeakers are – coherent, brilliantly crafted speakers, which will sound good with many different devices, without making any problems. With warm tube amplifiers they will sound warm, will show the first plane closer with larger virtual sources. With something more even they will sound without brightening, with a slightly withdrawn upper treble, with the first plane a step behind the loudspeakers, and the sound stage reaching far behind. You just need to listen a bit longer to them, and not count on them “killing” you at first sound. SOUNDPrimissima is the entry level speaker from Xavian. It is a part of the mini-series Suona, which encompasses also the floor standing Gran Colonna. Primissima is a two-way, bookshelf speaker, with a closed cabinet. The drivers are really nice – the tweeter is a 25mm Peerless DX25TG09-04 driver, with a soft dome and two folds, and the midrange and bass is handled by a 180mm driver from uncoated paper. Its spider is made from pressed sheet metal, and the top suspension is from rubber. The coil is rather large, it has 38mm. Xavian says, that this speaker, with a very large magnet, is made especially for them – hence the lack of any markings on it. Both speakers were brought close together – the spider of the large speaker comes in the front of the tweeter. The cabinet is made from nicely crafted MDF, with 22mm thickness, and covered with natural veneer. Because the budget is low here, the bottom part is not veneered, but only varnished. The inside is damped rather slightly, with a single strip of sponge, covering the bottom, back and top. The cross-over is mounted on a single, small PCB, and bolted to the back plate. In the treble section we have a small polypropylene capacitor and an air coil, in the other section an electrolytic capacitor. The resistors are very nice. On the back we have a single, very nice wire terminals, made especially for Xavian (those have the company logo on them), already known from the model Mia. There are also grilles supplied. 
Technical data (according to manufacturer): |
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