Anyone heard the Acapella Campanile or Violin?


These speakers are from Germany and have an ion tweeter, a horn and 4 conventional bass drivers. My wife and I heard these at CES and heard 'something special' - a super solidity to the soundstage imaging within the framework of a nicely dynamic and competent sound presentation. It sounded much more like the 'absolute sound' than anything we heard before. The associated equipment was the Aero Audio Capitole CD Player and Amplifiers.

It is not that we doubt our ears - but are curious as to 1. whether other people are also addicted to very good soundstaging (pipedreams or better) and are no longer able to enjoy 'nice fuzzy sonic blobs in space' speakers; 2. whether somehow there was a special (hard to reproduce) room synergy or (easy to reproduce) equipment synergy; 3. whether anybody else has heard this 'extraordinary solid soundstage' when listening to these speakers; 4. whether we were so taken with the imaging and 'you are there' musicality, that we missed listening for things like 'air', 'resolution' etc.; 5. any other comments on these speakers you might have.

Thanks so much!
justacoder
As nice as they were at THE Expo, I really think a bigger room would have done them more justice. I think they sounded gorgeous; lush and delicate. I would have preferred more "life", but found them quite appealing sonically. I also like that they are very easy to drive. The Audio Aero amplifiers sounded terrific with them.

Nice room.
I am very familiar with the sound of them, Justacoder and Jonathan and they are indeed that good. Part of the secret of their soundstaging is their excellent ion tweeter, of which I own a pair. There is nothing better on the market today. The A-capella make practically any kind of electronics you throw at them sound their best and with really good stuff they sound out of this world. I've seriously considered them already quite a few years back and then decided to stay with my wall of stators. The A-c have a much better holographic soundstage, which beats anything I have heard to date, but to mys ears they sounded just a bit too aetherial, too finely woven, too see through, which I found -compared to live music - to be an artefact, which though is very kind to CDs. So, being a vinyl-man, I stuck with my stators, which I found more "real", though greatly improved in highs and soundstaging by the ion tweeters.
By the way, Jonathan, I quite agree with what you heard, they can develop slam however....teamed up with Jadis 200's
(the four chassis job) and the Jadis 500 amp as I once heard them, but even then, there was something subtly overdelicate about them, you could practically "touch" the players, so three dimensional it was, but the players were holograms, not "people". You only very rarely get that with stators, that feeling, that the players are with you in the room, but if you get it, it sounds uncannily like real people and real music.
Next to the Campanile and the Violon they also have cost no object offerings ( vide www.acapella.de), which are also, as Jonathan rightly remarked, very easy to drive.
Their sound characeristic has the same see-through quality together with a bass rendering, so precise, defined and DEEP, it can scare the sh;;s out of you.....
Thank you Jtinn and Detlof.

We did not notice the lack of liveness/slam during our listening and appreciate that you did (well, kind of ;-). We like slam as much as the next guy but are willing to modify our amplification to compensate for this particular weakness, should we actually get these speakers.

We are also glad to hear that you are making good use of their ion tweeter, as we had wondered why, if it was so good, other people/manufactorers were not using it - and now we know: they are!

As for the soundstage imaging being better than what is heard at a live venue: I, personally, do not hear hardly any imaging at live venues (we mostly listen to small jazz bands with amplified intstruments at an old, well designed theater building, so there is potential). I always thought this was because the mixing equipment used (and the person operating it) have messed up the feeds from the microphones so that people on the sides of the theater hear everything.

And, re: hologram people vrs. real people - we do not think our ears have enough experience to tell these two apart - but we hoping to learn (and anticipate that this will be as fun and rewarding (and expensive :-) as all the other courses at 'Sonic University').
Justacoder, I am glad you trust your own ears. That's all what counts. The holographic versus real comparison I used, was for a want of a better metaphor. In a sense, I found the sound too pristine to be true, but that's purely personal. Should you consider buying an A-capella, I'm sure you'll be more than happy. In actual fact, the tweeters are an exclusive of A-capella. I got my pair after much begging, pleading and armtwisting only and from a friend, who happens to sell these speakers. The tweeters function flawlessly, they have the problem with ozone completely licked, so there is no danger at all. Not to worry!