Stand out

Nick Tate auditions six seriously special standmount speakers

- Nick Tate

YOUR FIRST PROPER separates system is always going to delight. But what about your next upgrade, when it’s time to move from a good budget system into what’s called ‘mid-fi ’? Suddenly there’s a big, wide world out there of upgrades to be made, with higher stakes as you’re spending more money.

The six standmount speakers on test this month are the sort of products that many buyers will likely shortlist. You’ll be moving from your entry-level bookshelf speakers to something that delivers substantially more insight into both the recording and the overall emotion of the music.

Yet as the quality improves, so does the variety on offer. You begin to see quite different solutions to the question of reproducing music – sometimes using fundamentally different approaches in acoustic design. This is interesting in itself, as there’s no single ‘perfect’ way of making a mid-price standmount speaker – if there was, everyone would be doing it the same way!

Just to make things more confusing, at this price point (and above), buyers need to be crystal clear about what they actually need. Do you want a pin-sharp, ultra-revealing sound for classical music or a big banger that thumps out copious amounts of low frequencies for techno, drum and bass or reggae? Or maybe a good working compromise? Getting this clear in your mind is just as important as what you put on your audition shortlist – as you don’t want to be sampling speakers that simply don’t match your tastes and/or requirements.