If there’s one speaker that shows less is more, this is it. We
reckon the new Radius 90 is the mouse that roars!
Loudspeakers come in all shapes and sizes, for better and
for worse. Some folk love big boom boxes able to supply copious amounts of low
frequencies, while others crave a light and airy sort of sound that focuses
more on finesse than it does on visceral, flare-flapping volume. It’s a simple
choice, and comes down to taste in the end, and if you’re the sort who is more
interested in the latter approach that puts quality before quantity, then I’d
respectfully suggest you audition the little boxes you see before you here.
Monitor Audio
R90HD
Monitor Audio’s new Radius 90 fits the latter category
perfectly – indeed it epitomizes it. Measuring just 125 x 198 x 140mm (W x H x
D), there are few loudspeakers on sale anywhere near as diminutive. But while
that has obvious consequences for bass extension, it has real positives, too. Being
so small, the Radius 90 is never going to produce bass that goes down lower
than Australia. However, by going down no further than Monitor Audio’s claimed
80Hz, this speaker isn’t going to set off the resonant modes in your room; it
won’t start booming and booing in a distracting manner, and so this can never
sully the sound further up.
Secondly, its mid/bass unit is so tiny that it can be
mounted really close to the tweeter. This brings an advantage that speakers
with bigger drivers can never enjoy; the two drive units appear much get the
sense of them you very much get the sense of them working very well together in
both the time domain and also in terms of stereo imaging.
That tiny cabinet, with just 1.5 liters of unable volume
inside, comes in a choice of real wood veneer, or piano lacquer while or black
(on display here) – gone is the option of silver, which the previous two
incarnations came with. The finish and construction quality of this speaker is
truly excellent; it’s hard to find fault in any way. Inside, a single
through-bolt fixes the mid/bass drives to the back of the cabinet for extra
rigidity. Give it a rap with your knuckles and you get a dull ‘thunk’ perfectly
illustrating just how little room there is in the design for unwanted
resonances. This means we’re listening to the box proportionally less than an
equivalently priced floor stander (or larger stand mount); there is less
overhang, time-smearing and other such nefarious noises.
The tweeter is
superb; spacious and extended, yet smooth and delicate.
The drive units themselves are impressive, and this is where
the new Radius 90 really distinguishes itself from the previous incarnation.
The latest 25mm gold-coated aluminums dome C-CAM tweeter is claimed to extend
to 35 kHz, while the simple second-order crossover uses high grade metalized
polypropylene capacitors and transitions to the bass unit at 2.8 kHz. Monitor
Audio claims that the high-grade air core and laminated iron inductors give the
lowest possible distortion and insertion losses. The company’s Pureflow 2.5mm
square-section OFC wiring is used.
The new 100mm mid/bass driver has a cast aluminum chassis
for strength and rigidity and a cone that’s constructed from metal – this is
the key difference to the previous Radius 90HD, which employed glass-loaded
engineering polymer.
Quoted sensitivity is a poor 83dB, so be aware that you’ll
need a punchy solid-state amplifier, putting out at least 40W RMS per channel if
you’re going to want to be able to produce realistic volume levels.
The new Radius range offers a choice of two active
subwoofers, the 380 and 390, but in designer Dean Hartley’s words: “We tried to
ensure the R90 could be used as a full-range speaker, so we set out to get a
balanced, flat frequency response”. As such, the speakers can be placed on
stands, and Monitor Audio makes an elegant bespoke pair that are pre-wired
between terminals at the speaker mounting and at floor level through terminals
mounted to the stand plinth; the top terminals neatly auto-connect with the R90
speaker terminals. If bass is felt to be limited, the speakers and stands can
be rammed right against the rear wall for boundary reinforcement.
The new Radius
range offers a choice of two active subwoofers, the 380 and 390.
Alternatively, this is one of the few loudspeakers you can
position on a bookshelf, ideally rigidly mounted. If you choose to do this,
then do make sure it’s a substantial one, preferably close to ear height and
always Blu-ray the speakers firmly onto the shelf. Finally, there’s a single
point wall fixing, which works with the Monitor Audio speaker mount or any
standard wall bracket. Positioned in any of these ways, with just a small
amount of toe-in, plus a decent source and amp that aren’t afraid of making
bass, you might be surprised by just how deep and strong the Radius 90 can
sound.
Sound quality
Those unfamiliar with the Radius 90 who come into a room
with a pair of them playing will often do two things; first they’ll remark on
how tiny they are, and then they’ll ask, “But where are the main speakers?’.
This shows how they’re able to make a sound that is almost TARDIS-like – one
that totally defies their physical dimensions. They can fool the ear, leaving
the listener questioning the evidence that their eyes are giving them. One
reason for this is the solidity and speed and articulation of the bass; given a
little rear-wall reinforcement, it comes out of its shell and shows itself to
be amazingly lithe and communicative. You’ll marvel at the way Bernard Edwards’
breathtaking bass guitar work modulates up and down on Chic’s My Forbidden
Lover, for instance. It’s so fast and fun that you forget that it doesn’t
have the physicality of, say, the equivalently priced, but vastly larger Q
Acoustics 2050i floor stander. Better still, the long-throw mid/bass driver
soaks up quite a lot of punishment before it begins to compress things; you’d
never use it in lieu of a PA stack at a live gig, but in a medium-sized listening
room it goes louder, more cleanly than you might think.
