Review: Super Slim 1800:
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Review: Super Slim 1800: |
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How many speakers have you heard lately that have totally blown you away? A loudspeaker so captivating, you've just got to have a pair on the end of your amp and speaker cables. If money's no object, or you don't mind saving a little, the Ambience 1800 Super Slims will simply redefine the way you listen to music. Ambience Speaker Systems hail from my neck of the woods, down here in Gippsland, Victoria. But Tony Moore, the gentleman behind Ambience, doesn't produce your average, run-of-the-mill set of lounge room boxes. These are a hybrid ribbon design, standing a smidge over 1800mm tall, though for the most part, the aptly named Super Slims are only some 50mm or so deep. The hybrid design of these speakers results from the marriage of a conventional cone bass driver and crimped aluminium ribbon driver. The ribbon runs almost the entire length (or height, to be precise) of the speaker, while an acoustically tuned 'box' at the speakers' base takes care of the lower end frequency department. To top it all off, the Super Slims come with real timber edges, available in a wide variety of finishes, in order to provide aesthetic charm as well as sonic brilliance. Plus there are two models in the Super Slim series, the smaller 1600s and these, the larger 1800s. Now down to the technical stuff, but put simply. Ambience produces its own ribbon driver, in essence, a very thin five-leafed, crimped aluminium foil suspended between very strong magnets. The passing signals between the magnets cause the foil to vibrate and hey presto, sound waves. |
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Why isn't every loudspeaker manufacturer doing this, you may ask? Well, the ribbon design dates back as far as the familiar cone driver we're all used to. However, early ribbon speakers were hard to drive with the amplifiers that were around at the time, and the cone driver soon was adopted by the majority of loudspeaker designers. These days, with watts galore available from transistor based amps, and more powerful magnets used in the speakers' design, the Ambience ribbons don't present today's amps with any great hardship driving them efficiently. I hooked these great monoliths up my seemingly 'weedy' Audiolink Sterling, a 50-watter from the UK, thinking "this'll never drive these babies." Drive them it did, and surprisingly comfortably too. Thanks to an amplifier- friendly 86dB sensitivity of both the ribbon and bass section, the Super Slims don't need a hugely powerful or expensive amplifier to drive them, though it would help. Admittedly, these speakers sound better, the better the quality of source and amplification feeding them. The Ambience ribbons are one of the most revealing speakers I have ever heard, and I've heard a few in my time. There's something quite extraordinary and deeply rewarding listening to these loudspeakers. Something which is only possible with a ribbon driver. You are totally lost in the music. The sense of space, musical depth and presence is nothing short of breathtaking. This plus a massive soundstage paints a 'Da Vinci' of a musical masterpiece, albeit with some attention paid to the positioning of the speakers in relation to the listening environment. Space is something that you'll need to hear the 1800s at their best. Give them plenty of air from the rear wall, and avoid the comers of the room, this'll only cramp the speakers' style. The nature of the ribbon design works best with a minimal toe-in angle and you can experiment with the adjustable floor spikes to suit either seated or standing listening positions. The bass section of the Super Slim 1800s is, as I mentioned earlier more conventional, using a 175mm bass cone driver in a bass-reflex enclosure. The driver is custom manufactured for Ambience by SEAS of Norway, and is a long throw design, meaning it really shifts some air. The rear- firing bass reflex port of the bass enclosure means some distance is required between it and the rear wall. It takes a bit of experimentation in placing these speakers to fine-tune their performance, though it's more than worth the effort. Perhaps the most striking sonic quality of this Ambience loudspeaker is their sheer openness and sound staging capability. The revealing nature extracts every last ounce of musical detail and expression. You start to hear things in a recording, that you have never noticed before. There's a good and bad side to highly revealing speakers, the good part being you hear more of the performance. The bad side is the speakers will show up any shortcomings with the rest of the system. If I wasn't sure my 50 watt Audiolink Sterling was up to the job of driving 1800s, reassurance wasn't far away from their designer, who assured me he has driven a pair with an old Leak valve amp, chucking out a modest 25 watts. Loud or quiet, The Ambience 1800' s remain poised, articulate and totally in control. The bass is tuned way down low to a window-rattling 32Hz. It's tight, fast and deliciously punchy, a quality that is maintained with driving rock right the way through to large classical scores. In a large room, a metre and a half is ample space between the speakers and the rear wall. The bass can become over- powering if the speakers are placed to far back. I was also impressed by the incredible clarity and openness of the ribbon's mid and higher frequency response. Vocals simply hang amidst a vast soundstage, with remarkable imagery and clarity. I have never heard Icelandic crooner Bjork sound any better than this. Her quirky vocals project with eerie realism from the mix of Post, locked dead centre amidst the towering soundscape. At least 2 metres apart, even more if you can accommodate it, without much toe-in tends to produce the best results from the Ambience. Because of the vertical length of the ribbon, you don't have to be sitting down either to appreciate the speakers' spot-on stereo imagery. In fact, the best listening position I found, was standing about three metres away from the speakers, just behind the sofa! Finally, large gold-plated binding posts allow bi-wiring, and a set of carpet- piercing floor spikes are supplied and should be fitted to minimise bass resonance. A word of warning! The magnetic field generated by the ribbon drivers means anybody fitted with a pacemaker should be very careful around the speakers. The same goes for placing the speakers too close to other electrical equipment, such as a TV set. These would make an awesome pair of main speakers in a surround sound system. I've a feeling anyone
contemplating the Ambience Super Slim 1800s will be a music lover
first and foremost. And at just under $4,500 a pair, once you've
heard this loudspeaker system, the financial side of things soon
pales into insignificance. A speaker that sounds this good, simply
should cost a lot, lot more.The revealing nature extracts every
last ounce of musical detail and expression. You start to hear
things in a recording that you have never noticed before.
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