May 26, 1997 Frank Van Alstine Audio by Van Alstine 2202 River Hills Drive Burnsville, MN 55337 RE: Impressions of Biro L/1s Dear Frank, I'm writing to you to let you know how delighted I am by the performance of my Biro L/1s. The longer I have them, the more they amaze me. As you probably know, they are driven by an AVA 440 watt Omega III amplifier, Omega III preamplifier, and TOPP-DAC. They rest on heavy, low-resonance, sand-filled 20" metal stands with small acoustic footprints, securely connected to the Omega III 440 with heavy gauge copper wire. The room that houses them has a concrete floor and four walls of outside construction. Speaker and listener positions are chosen (by computer analysis and listening tests) to minimize room resonances. The floor is covered with thick, dense commercial carpet. Finally, the speakers and stands are nestled in a pair of Watkins Echo-Muffs devices that surround them on three sides with four inch thick open-cell polyurethane foam, thus suppressing rear and side wall reflections. A self-powered, servo-controlled Genesis subwoofer with a 12-inch Kevlar cone (also positioned using computer analysis of resonance modes) can be used to supplement the bottom end. While the Biros are easy to enjoy, they are difficult to evaluate critically. Their performance is best characterized by identifying what they do not do. They simply draw less attention to themselves than any other speaker I have heard. While this says it all, let me describe some characteristics that, to my ears, make the Biros extraordinary. Their neutrality. The Biro's overall tonal balance is remarkably close to that of my beloved reference, the Stax Signature headphones used with the Stax ED-1 (their dedicated equalizer) and is essentially identical to that of the standard monitors of the classical recording industry, the B&W 801s (with which I had the opportunity to compare them in your shop). The Biro's neutrality is most striking on voice perhaps because human vocal sounds are so familiar. Although voices sound real only on the best recordings, on the vast majority of recordings they approach that ideal more closely than any other speaker I've heard. In fact, when listening to the Biros, I often have the sense of being able to separate the colorations of the recording from the inherent character of voices. Their neutrality is also evident in reproduction of instruments. Instrumental timbres in most small ensemble recordings and many carefully-done recordings of larger ensembles are very close to right. In short, the Biros present as convincing a portrayal of overall tonal balance as recordings allow. Their listening ease. As you know, even highly-regarded speakers often have high-Q (narrow, sharp) peaks in frequency response. At concert hall levels, sensitive listeners (like those in my family) often find such speakers painful to listen to a phenomenon my family calls a speaker's flinch factor. The Biros have no such peaks. Listening to them at realistic levels, my family is relaxed and comfortable. As I will discuss below, their comfort is enhanced by their absence of strain with changing volume levels. Their pitch definition. As you know, poorly damped speakers allow transients to excite their resonances, thus muddying reproduction and imbuing transients with a characteristic similarity. Since music consists largely of transients, most speakers, by repeatedly imposing their own resonance signature on music, sing their own songs instead those they're supposed to reproduce. The popping champagne corks on track three of Telarc's Ein Straussfest readily reveal this problem. A few transducers like the Biros communicate the dramatic differences between these pops. Most, including many highly-regarded transducers, transform them into similar sonic events. Since all musical sounds have pitch, pitch definition affects the accuracy of reproduction of essentially all musical events including such subtle sounds as the rattle of a snare, the attack of a trumpet or oboe, the impact a piano's hammer, the pluck of a harpsichord's quill, the repeated capture and release of a string by a bow, the consonants of human language and the expressive subtleties of the human voice. The Biro's pitch definition and thus their intelligibility are unequaled by any speakers I know. Their dynamics. While I never heard a recording convincingly portray the dynamics of unamplified music, I am consistently amazed by the Biros ability to generate steep, coherent wavefronts the kind that knock me back in my chair. Some day I may stop chuckling when listening to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring or Firebird on the Biros. However, that time is not yet in sight. Their transparency and detail. The rapidity of the Biros return to silence in the absence of a signal is stunning. Even in the wake of the violent wavefronts I alluded to above, the Biros consistently reveal subtle details. I have never heard their equal in resolution of the rattle of a snare drum, the subtleties of a vibraphone, or the separation of instrumental and vocal lines and timbres. I am consistently amazed by the Biros ability to reveal tonal and expressive qualities of each individual voice in a choral ensemble and subtleties of construction, technique, and expression in the instruments of chamber ensembles I have never heard speakers that approach the Biro's intelligibility, capacity to resolve detail, or ability to reveal the elusive, low-level information that places performers accurately in acoustic spaces. The integration of their drivers. I am unable to hear any evidence that the Biros are two-way systems. Treble, midrange and bass frequencies are reproduced with no audible evidence of separate drivers. The crossover is entirely seamless; transients in the crossover range give no evidence of fragmentation; they sing as if reproduced by one driver. From their lower limit to the highest audible frequencies, the Biro's neutrality, pitch definition, transparency and detail are consistent, and consistently superb. Their imaging. On many recordings, the Biros disappear, leaving three-dimensional images floating around their end of the room. This ability seems due, in large part, to characteristics discussed above; their neutrality, their pitch definition, their transparency and their detail all help them provide information necessary to construct convincing models of instruments and acoustic spaces. However, these virtues would be of little value if my pair of Biros differed significantly in any of these characteristics. However, I find myself incapable of hearing differences between the two speakers. While the Biros quality control has no drawbacks, their detail and resolution do. The images created by poor recordings (especially multi-miked recordings designed to compensate for the deficiencies of low-definition stereo systems) can sound distressingly confusing on the Biros. And the Biros do little to hide the sins of poorly designed electronics. Their bass. Down to their practical limit (as I have set them up, they are about 3 dB down at 45 Hz.), their distortion, attack, decay, and pitch definition are superb. While other speakers (like the 801s) go lower and louder, I much prefer the Biro's bass quality. The Biros, in any case, are far from bass-shy. My subwoofer adds little but an occasional sense of pressure and fullness. Their smooth, low rolloff and lack of exaggerated mid-bass (characteristic of most other small speakers) allow them to blend superbly with my sub. Their ability to disappear. The Biros are free of the limitations of both big and small speakers. Whatever their virtues, big speakers often suffer from resonances in the large panels from which their boxes are made (or, in planar speakers, from resonances in their radiating surfaces and supporting structures), diffraction problems (due to the large panels on which drivers are mounted), and poor driver integration due to wide spacing of drivers and complex crossovers. The Biros, with their small, non-resonant box, closely-spaced drivers, free-air mounted tweeters, and two-way design, avoid these problems. Whatever their virtues, small speakers often sound strained at concert hall levels. As noted above, the Biros have exhibited no sense of strain at the levels I have listened, and, when challenged, can generate formidable wavefronts. What do I wish were different? While I delight in having speakers that combine almost magical sound with unassuming appearance (and they blend well with my stands, which add some visual interest), I sometimes wish they had more visual panache. And while they go respectably low and play bass very cleanly. (I'm not sure I'd bother purchasing a subwoofer if I didn't have one), I wouldn't mind if they went lower. However, I wouldn't sacrifice their sonic virtues for either of these. The Biros do superbly everything I ask a speaker to do. If offered the industry standard B&W 801s at the same price, I would unhesitatingly choose the Biros. They may not go as low or loud, but, to my ears, even the notoriously clear and neutral 801s sound colored, resonant, and confused by comparison. Sincerely, -Barnet Feingold

Note: Mr. Feingold is the author of the book, How to Beat the Stereo Rip-Off, published by Geronimo Press, printed by Small World Press, Inc. 306 North Plum Street, Northfield, MN 55057, copyright © 1982 by Barnet Feingold.

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