Ken Micallef-Trenner & Friedl Osiris

Loudspeaker

Austrian loudspeaker manufacturer Trenner & Friedl has a thing for coaxial drivers. They’re used in at least three of the company’s eight loudspeaker models, including the diminutive Sun bookshelf speaker and the large floor standing Taliesin. In these models, T&F eschew more conventional stacked drivers for a putatively time-aligned, wide-frequency range coaxial design.

I first encountered T&F’s approach when I reviewed the above-mentioned Sun,1 which proved to be the best small loudspeaker experience I’ve ever had. And I do mean small, as in 8.25" high by 6.25" wide by 5.5" deep and weighing a scant 7lb. The Sun did tone, soundstaging, image weight, and dynamics so well for its size that I felt compelled to review the No.3 speaker in Trenner & Friedl’s lineup, the floorstanding Osiris ($8500/pair).

T&F likes to name its speakers after Egyptian deities, including Osiris but also Ra, Isis, and (generically, or maybe not—see below) Pharoah. As explained to me via email by Bob Clarke of Profundo, which distributes T&F products in the US, company co-founder and principal designer Andreas Friedl also identifies his speakers with jazz musicians—hence, “Pharoah” is also, very likely, a reference to Pharoah Sanders (note the spelling), “Ra” to Sun Ra.

Regardless, all Trenner & Friedl loudspeakers share such characteristics as cabinets built with multiply birch panels of varying thicknesses, multilayered lacquer finishes, oil-lacquered cones, crossovers built with Mundorf capacitors, locally sourced damping materials, and Cardas Audio cabling and binding posts.

Design