A pair of no-name speakers for (almost) everything

Those who follow my blog are already aware that I love and listen to “Made in Hungary” high-end audio gear: https://peter.czanik.hu/posts/zsolt-audio-turns-40-this-year/. This weekend I visited Zsolt Audio again. He showed us his latest creation, a pair of speakers, which he called “no-name” and “anti-marketing”.

However, when I arrived at today’s event, music was still playing on another pair of loudspeakers. Last time I wrote about a pair of classical floor-standing speakers, a reincarnation of the StandArt line of loudspeakers. It is now turned into a proper product and should be available soon. No more beautiful code names, instead it’s called C35, where C refers to classical design, and 35 to the years of his experience in loudspeaker production. After a few songs Zsolt changed to the main attraction: a completely boring looking, bookshelf loudspeaker. A slightly larger 12 liter brick. Spoiler alert: “No-name” and “anti-marketing” only describes the look, not the sound…

Someone recommended him to check out Wavecor speakers. He built a loudspeaker around the sample pair of speakers he received from the manufacturer, and was impressed about the result. We had a chance to listen to the design which is considered to be final, and as far as I could tell, everyone in the room was impressed about the no-name loudspeakers as well. :-) Once upon a time I became a Zsolt Audio fan, because I heard the Enigma 5 loudspeakers at an event. They are non-directional speakers, and I love the spatial sound they create. These “no-name” loudspeakers are directional, at least by the look. Of course they cannot match the Enigma 5, but these boring looking loudspeakers do a really good job playing back any acoustic music, be it jazz, classical or contemporary recordings, in a spatial way. Voices and instruments are not just right and left, as with most speakers, but a bit also up and down, close and far away, which is usually Enigma territory. Somewhere between the C35 and the Enigma 5. The above list of genres of course also means that something is missing. (Prog)rock and metal, where it’s not just the ear, but the whole body is sensing the sound, are a kind of weak point on these loudspeakers. Except when you double them. Note: Do not try this at home! :-) Zsolt connected a second pair of “no-name” loudspeakers to the amplifier, and we listened to some Rammstein. The result was considered as perfect also by the rockers in the room!

I just realized recently that Zsolt also has loudspeakers, which combine directional and non-directional sound. This event was of course not about these, I’m not even sure if they are still produced. But I hope that one day I can listen to the Envoy:

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