E Q U I P M E N T
R E P O R T
ELECTRONICALLY REPRINTED FROM MAY 2007
Peak Consult
El Diablo
Michael Fremer
DESCRIPTION Three-way, dual-ported, floorstanding loudspeaker. Driveunits: 1" non–ferrofluid-cooled, softdome tweeter; 5" plastic-cone
midrange unit; two 9" plastic-cone
woofers. Crossover frequencies:
200Hz, 4800Hz. Frequency response:
20Hz–45kHz, –3dB. Sensitivity:
94dB/W/m. Nominal Impedance: 7
ohms.
DIMENSIONS 44.5" (1140mm) H by
11.8" (300mm) W by 21.5"
(550mm) D. Weight: 188 lbs
(85.5kg).
FINISH Italian Walnut.
SERIAL NUMBERS OF UNITS
REVIEWED 5150A, 5150B.
PRICE $65,000/pair. Approximate
number of dealers: 6.
MANUFACTURER Peak Consult, Langelandsvej 12, DK-5500 Middelfart,
Denmark. Tel: (45) 64-400-580. Fax:
(45) 64-400-680. Web: www.peakconsult.dk. US distributor: Signals
SuperFi, LLC, Atlanta, GA 30318. Tel:
(678) 528-8077. Fax: (678) 884-1167.
Web: www.signals-superfi.com.
www.Stereophile.com, May 2007
LOUDSPEAKER
Peak Consult El Diablo
T
he devil’s in the details, so here’s one detail you should know going in:
The El Diablo, a deceptively modest-looking, casket-like, compact, threeway loudspeaker from Danish firm Peak Consult, will cost you a penny
less than $65,000/pair. Why? Yes, the dollar’s continued slide has alarmingly driven up the price of imported audio gear, but even so…
The Details
Though it’s only 44.5" tall, 11.8" wide, and 21.5" deep, the Diablo weighs a hefty 188
lbs. Clearly, a great deal of something has been packed into its relatively small cabinet,
and it’s not lead.
The hand-built enclosure is a glued sandwich of various thicknesses (1.5–3") of highdensity fiberboard (HDF), with specially designed resonance suppressors at key spots.
Encasing that is a 1"-thick skin of solid, hand-selected Italian walnut. Despite the speaker’s outwardly rectangular shape, no two of its interior walls are parallel, to avoid standing waves. This is one well-put-together cabinet that I feel absolutely confident will
pass John Atkinson’s accelerometer test with ease.
The front baffle’s slant and back-tilt are said to align both the phase and the arrival
P E A K C O N S U LT E L D I A B L O
times of the outputs of the tweeter,
midrange, and woofers. Though often
promised by speaker makers, this is rarely
delivered—as anyone who pays attention to
JA’s “Measurements” sections knows.
Adding to the Diablo’s weight are its topshelf drivers. The 1" tweeter, made by
ScanSpeak (another Danish company), is a
low-compression design that does without
ferrofluid cooling or a phase plug. It has an
neodymium motor, and its nonresonant
backwave chamber and machined faceplate
are both made of aluminum.
The 5" midrange unit and two 9"
woofers (which feature “huge” magnets,
per Peak Consult) are custom-built to the
designer’s specifications by AudioTechnology, yet another Danish company, which was
cofounded by Ejvind Skaaning (and his
son), who also founded Vifa/ScanSpeak and
Dynaudio. AT drivers are used by Rockport
Technologies and Sonus Faber, among
other brands that don’t blush at selling
expensive loudspeakers.
The Diablo’s second-order crossovers, set
at 200Hz and 4.8kHz, are hardwired with
silver solder and use cost-no-object electrical components chosen for their sonic characteristics. The network is sealed at the cabinet bottom to eliminate microphonics and
to shield it from electrical and magnetic
radiation. Internal wiring is from Stereovox,
an American company owned by Peak
Consult importer Signals SuperFi. The
biwire terminals comprise two pairs of
WBT Platinum Signature binding posts.
Designer Per Kristoffersen claims the
Diablo is easy to drive, with a gentle, lowcurrent-drawing phase angle, a sensitivity of
94dB/W/m, and a load of close to 7 ohms
across its entire claimed in-room response
of 20Hz–45kHz, –3dB.
Clearly, its build and parts qualities are
high, but to really appreciate the Diablo’s
workmanship and exquisite finish—and its
price—you need to see it close up and run
your hands across the stunning woodwork.
Photos just don’t do it justice. With its
leather-clad front and rear panels, its cravat-shaped mid/tweeter grille cover
(which I left off for my auditioning), and its
angled front baffle, the Diablo shares some
of its appearance with speakers from other
brands. But while it lacks the visual allure
M E A S U R E M E N TS
A
lthough Peak Consult claims a very high sensitivity of 94dB
for the Diablo, my estimate of the speaker’s sensitivity was
somewhat lower, at just under 90dB(B)/2.83V/m. This is
still usefully higher than average, however. Its impedance
(fig.1) resembles a 4–5 ohm resistor over much of the audioband,
with a very small electrical phase angle, though this is significantly
lower than the 7 ohms specified. There is a combination of 3.8
ohms magnitude and –34° capacitive phase angle at 27Hz, but
given the low frequency, where music will rarely have high energy,
this will not give rise to any current-delivery problems with good
amplifiers.
The traces in fig.1 are free from any of the small wrinkles that
would indicate the presence of cabinet resonance problems, and
indeed, investigating the panels’ vibrational behavior, I found almost
nothing of interest. Fig.2, for example, is a cumulative spectral-decay
plot calculated from the output of a simple accelerometer fastened
to the cabinet sidewall level with the midrange drive-unit. Only two
modes can be seen, and even the lower one, at 480Hz, is high
enough in frequency and low enough in level to be subjectively irrelevant.
Fig.1 Peak Consult El Diablo, electrical impedance (solid) and phase
(dashed). (2 ohms/vertical div.)
www.Stereophile.com, May 2007
The small saddle centered on 32Hz in the impedance-magnitude
plot indicates that this is the tuning frequency of the two large-diameter ports on the Diablo’s rear panel. The ports appear to behave
very similarly; the red trace in fig.3 is the sum of their outputs, scaled
Fig.2 Peak Consult El Diablo, cumulative spectral-decay plot calculated
from the output of an accelerometer fastened to the cabinet’s side
panel level with the midrange unit (MLS driving voltage to speaker,
7.55V; measurement bandwidth, 2kHz).
Fig.3 Peak Consult El Diablo, anechoic response on tweeter axis at 50",
averaged across 30° horizontal window and corrected for microphone
response, with the nearfield responses of the midrange unit (green),
ports (blue), and woofers (red) plotted below 1kHz, 1kHz, and 2kHz,
respectively, along with their complex sum plotted below 300Hz
(black).
P E A K C O N S U LT E L D I A B L O
of, say, the Sonus Faber Stradivari Homage,
and some other dramatically sculpted
speakers, not everyone, especially of the
wifely variety—I’m a realist, not a sexist—is
looking to make a loudspeaker fashion
statement in the living room. The Diablo
can blend in like the finely finished piece
of furniture that it is, and its size and footprint would seem to make it an ideal candidate for the city sophisticate’s drawing
room.
Setup
Positioning the Diablos was easy. They
sounded best in my room where almost
every other pair of speakers has: where
RPG’s computer program said they would,
based on the room’s dimensions and the
physics of wave propagation. And I sat
where I always do: where the program tells
me to, about 11' from the front wall and 8'
from the speakers.
RPG’s program takes into account the
height, size, and location (front, side, or
rear) of a speaker’s woofer(s). While variations in these factors will affect the results
to a small degree, there’s been a remarkable
consistency of speaker positions throughout
the years I’ve used the program to review
speakers in this room. Almost all of them,
El Diablos included, end up about 9' apart,
a bit more than 2' from the front wall, and
toed-in, with the corners of their rear baffles about 3' from the sidewalls. The Diablos sounded best with their tweeters firing
directly on axis.
with respect to the outputs of the woofers (blue trace) and
midrange unit (green) in the ratio of the square root of the radiating
areas. The ports’ output does indeed peak in the region of 30Hz,
though the corresponding minimum-motion notch in the summed
woofer output (where the back pressure from the port resonance
holds the woofer cones stationary) occurs a little higher in frequency, at 34Hz. Of more concern is the high-Q peak seen at 480Hz in
the ports’ response, coincidentally the frequency of the panel vibrational resonance seen in fig.2. This might be high enough in level to
lead to coloration, though working against its audibility will be the
fact that the ports face away from the listener. I was bothered by a
slight “cupped hands” coloration in the midrange when I auditioned
the Diablos in Mikey’s room. Perhaps I was hearing this port behavior.
The woofers (fig.3, blue trace) cross over to the midrange unit at
around 300Hz, and are well behaved above their passband, rolling
off with what appears to be a 12dB/octave slope. The Diablo
extends quite low in frequency: –6dB at 30Hz in this graph (the
slight boost between 45 and 400Hz is probably due to the nearfield
measurement technique). The midrange rolls in with a shallow
slope and has a shallow suckout in its farfield output around
1200Hz. The overall response is otherwise smooth and even
through the bass and midrange, up to the crossover to the tweeter,
Fig.4 Peak Consult El Diablo, lateral-response family at 50", normalized to
response on tweeter axis, from back to front: differences in response
90–5° off axis, reference response, differences in response 5–90° off axis.
Listening
The understated and meticulous sensibility
informing the Diablo’s appearance has also
been applied to its sound. And like my first
look, my first listen to them, with the
importer in the room, was definitely underwhelming. Going directly from the Wilson
Audio MAXX Series 2s to the Diablos was
like going from fluorescent bulbs to candles—
or, to be less subject to misinterpretation, like
stepping out of a Ferrari and into a high-performance Bentley coupe. It took me some
time to appreciate what the Diablo could do.
While definitely full of surprises, it drew me
in rather than bowled me over—but it was
never “polite” or “reserved.”
The Diablos produced a stable, exceptionally well-proportioned, clearly defined,
where there is a sharp discontinuity in the speaker’s output followed
by a slightly shelved-down high treble. As MF noted in his auditioning, El Diablo’s “personality” is on the slightly mellow side, which I
also felt to be the case.
Michael mentions the danger of taking a relatively large-diameter
midrange unit too high in frequency, mainly due to the fact that it
Fig.5 Peak Consult El Diablo, vertical-response family at 50", normalized to
response on tweeter axis, from back to front: differences in response
15–5° above axis, reference response, differences in response 5–10°
below axis.
Fig.6 Peak Consult El Diablo, spatially averaged, 1⁄6-octave response in MF’s
listening room.
www.Stereophile.com, May 2007
P E A K C O N S U LT E L D I A B L O
and especially tactile aural picture, and
excelled at re-creating front-to-back depth
in great relief. The front of the stage developed well in front of the speaker baffles, and
rear-wall information from familiar live
recordings appeared from what seemed like
the side yard, beyond the walls of my listening room. If you’re into imaging and soundstaging, the Diablos won’t disappoint. In
fact, they may redefine those terms for you
in terms of bubble-like cohesiveness, if not
in terms of grandiosity.
The Diablos’ image specificity rivaled
that of the Vandersteen Quattros, which is
about as good as I’ve heard. Stage height
was somewhat restricted compared to what
I’ve grown used to from the MAXX 2s,
producing, with symphonic recordings, a
sensation of listening from the lower balcony rather than from the main floor—an
adjustment easy for the ear to make. Most
important, the picture never appeared to be
generated from the baffle surfaces.
Every loudspeaker has an overall character and specific colorations, and some are
easier to identify than others. In my experience, the best speakers try to maintain that
character throughout the audioband in
order to provide a seamless illusion of musical reality. For instance, you wouldn’t want
to mate a sparkly tweeter with an underdamped, boomy woofer. Conversely, you
wouldn’t want to pair a silky-sounding ribbon tweeter with an overdamped, leansounding woofer.
Per Kristoffersen has effectively matched
will “beam” where its diameter approaches the wavelengths of the
frequencies it is emitting. Yet looking at Peak Consult’s plot of lateral dispersion (fig.4), it can be seen that the Diablo’s output off axis is
relatively uniform below 3kHz. However, there is a distinct step in its
radiation pattern just above 3kHz, and it’s possible that this, rather
than the port resonance, is responsible for the slight coloration I
heard. The tweeter is slightly more directional in its passband than is
usual for a 1" dome, which will add to the speaker’s mellow character in all but very small rooms.
In the vertical plane (fig.5), the Diablo has a sharp suckout centered on 5.6kHz for the listening axis above the tweeter, which suggests that the actual crossover between the midrange unit and
tweeter occurs here rather than at the specified 4.8kHz. To provide
the flattest perceived treble balance, the Diablos should be auditioned with the listener’s ears on a level between the tweeter and
the midrange unit. Fig.6 is the Diablo’s in-room response, averaged
across a grid centered on the position of MF’s ears in his listening
chair. Other than residual room effects that have not been eliminated by the spatial averaging, the pair of speakers produce a remarkably even and smooth balance at the listening seat from the upper
Fig.7 Peak Consult El Diablo, step response on tweeter axis at 50" (5ms
time window, 30kHz bandwidth).
the tweeter’s character—pleasingly airy,
somewhat soft and forgiving yet finely
detailed—with the woofers’ by slightly
underdamping the latters’ tuning. But that’s
not to suggest that the Diablo’s top is dull or
muted, or that its bass is slow, woolly, or
sloppy. The Diablo was extended and supple at both frequency extremes, providing
exceptionally natural instrumental textures
that were free of edge, brightness, or grain
on top without sounding dull or uninvolving, while the low frequencies were sufficiently well controlled to sound nimble and
firm but never thumpy. The extension into
the low bass from the two 9" woofers was
deep, full, and satisfying.
When the Diablo was called on to deliver
the low organ-pedal notes in the second
bass through the mid-treble. The region covered by the tweeter definitely shelves down more than would be expected from the usual
increase in the room’s sound absorption in this region.
In the time domain, the Diablo’s step response on the tweeter
axis (fig.7) indicates that its tweeter and woofers are connected in
positive acoustic polarity, its midrange unit in inverted polarity, this
confirmed by looking at the step responses of the individual units
(not shown). However, the fact that the step of each driver smoothly hands over to that of the next lower in frequency correlates with
the good frequency-domain integration seen in fig.3. The relatively
small height of the tweeter’s step (the initial spike in fig.7) ties in
with this unit’s more than usually restricted bandwidth.
The Peak Consult’s farfield cumulative spectral-decay plot (fig.8)
is generally clean, but is marred by a ridge of delayed energy at the
frequency of the on-axis response discontinuity. This is probably a
cone phenomenon in the midrange unit, and could also be associated with the slight “cupped hands” coloration MF and I noted in
our auditioning, though it is fair to point out that he felt this could be
accommodated to relatively quickly.
The Peak Consult El Diablo’s measured performance is very
respectable, though its balance appears to have been tailored to
achieve a specific end result. It also looks drop-dead gorgeous.—
John Atkinson
Fig.8 Peak Consult El Diablo, cumulative spectral-decay plot at 50" (0.15ms
risetime).
www.Stereophile.com, May 2007
P E A K C O N S U LT E L D I A B L O
movement of Saint-Saëns’ Symphony 3,
from a 1987 LP with Marek Janowski conducting the Radio France Philharmonic
Orchestra (Harmonia Mundi HMC 5197),
those notes appeared as very deep, distant,
well-controlled, compacted thunder—just as
they had earlier that same evening, during a
live performance at Avery Fisher Hall.
Never mind that Avery Fisher doesn’t have
an organ, and that those notes were generated electronically via a pair of tractor-trailer–sized subwoofers placed against the back
of the stage.
The pedal notes on the Janowski recording had authority, weight, and a velvety texture that avoided sounding canned or onenotey, or even as if they were emanating
from the speakers. Low bass may be omnidirectional, but some speakers that go very low
also produce an audible mechanical backlash
that is directional. The Diablo didn’t.
The Diablo handled electric and acoustic
bass equally well, convincingly reproducing
both the harder attack of the former and the
softer attack of the latter. Lovers of hard rock
and orchestral music will be thrilled with the
Diablo’s low-frequency performance in
terms of both extension and dynamics. With
live recordings taped in large venues, the pair
of them easily produced an illusion of enormous space. The speakers’ response was subjectively smooth, and extended down into
the 30Hz region in my room. The Diablo
didn’t produce the Wilson MAXX 2’s slam,
but that would not have meshed with the rest
of the speaker’s sonic personality.
Kristoffersen asks the Diablo’s 5"
midrange driver to handle an unusually
wide bandwidth: 200Hz all the way up to
4800Hz, or 2kHz higher than in most twoand three-way designs, which usually cross
over at 2.7kHz or so. The advantages of
extending the midrange’s bandwidth so
high are tonal and phase continuity in a critical musical frequency range. For instance,
fundamental violin frequencies range from
just below 200Hz up to just above 3.1kHz,
and a concert grand piano is capable of fundamentals from around 28Hz up to almost
4.2kHz. The overtones, of course, go much
higher, but having a single driver reproduce
the key instrumental fundamentals, in addition to many of the resulting harmonics,
should result in a strong sense of musical
continuity. Indeed, I found that just such a
continuity was one of the Diablo’s key
strengths. It gushed forth a sense of smooth
musical flow while suppressing the discontiwww.Stereophile.com, May 2007
nuities that afflict some multi-driver
designs.
But in any speaker, piling so much on the
midrange driver’s plate will result in tradeoffs. One of these is that, as the frequencies
reproduced by the cone rise, so does its
directivity, which leads to “beaming” at the
higher frequencies within the driver’s bandpass. As the frequencies rise, the amount of
cone area used to reproduce those frequencies decreases and becomes concentrated
toward its recessed center, where it attaches
to the voice-coil. However, rather than
being heard as excessive brightness, the
result is usually an overly polite sound—the
driver can’t produce enough off-axis output
at the higher frequencies to provide adequate frequency and power response to fill
the room.
Another potential problem created by
extending a relatively large cone’s response
ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT
ANALOG SOURCES Continuum
Audio Labs Caliburn turntable; Continuum Cobra, Graham Phantom,
Kuzma Airline tonearms; Lyra Titan i,
Air Tight PC-1, EMT Jubilee JSD 5,
Transfiguration cartridges.
DIGITAL SOURCES Musical Fidelity
kW DM25 DAC & transport, BPTmodified Alesis Masterlink hard-disk
recorder.
PREAMPLIFICATION Manley Steelhead, Blue Amp MC 42 phono preamplifiers; Musical Fidelity kWP,
DartZeel NHB-18NS preamplifiers.
POWER AMPLIFIERS Musical Fidelity kW monoblocks, Music Reference
RM-200.
LOUDSPEAKERS Wilson Audio Specialties MAXX Series 2.
CABLES Interconnect: TARA Labs
Zero, Shunyata Research Antares
Helix. Speaker: TARA Labs Omega,
Stereovox LSP-600. AC: Shunyata
Research Anaconda Helix, JPS AC.
ACCESSORIES Continuum Audio
Labs Castellon magnetic isolation
stand, Finite Elemente Pagode
equipment stands, Symposium
Rollerblocks; Audiodharma Cable
Cooker; Shunyata Research V-RAY
Reference, Hydra 8 power conditioners; Oyaide AC wall jacks; ASC Tube
Traps, RPG BAD & Abffusor panels;
Furutech DeMag’ Loricraft CD and LP
demagnetizer, VPI record-cleaning
machines.
—Michael Fremer
is the nonlinearity caused by the cone’s flexure. However, the Diablo’s smoothness
leads me to suspect that AudioTechnology’s
expertise has tackled that problem, just as
Peak Consult’s Per Kristoffersen has successfully navigated the off-axis response
issue.
Which is not to say that Kristofferson’s
choice was inaudible. The Diablo had a
slightly mellow overall sound, with less
sparkle and life than some might wish, as
well as a very slight, easily ignored coloration
that I heard as just a touch of compression or
congestion—what JA likes to call “hootiness”—in the upper mids and lower treble. In
fact, this was the first thing I heard when the
Diablos were first fired up in my room—but,
as it has with all great speakers, my ear/brain
system quickly made peace with this coloration, which quickly blended into the
musical flow and disappeared. (And if you
think your favorite speaker is without colorations, think again.)
When I encountered—in an enormous
room—another pair of El Diablos at the
2007 Consumer Electronics Show, I immediately heard that same minor coloration.
Yet despite the venue’s size, which should
have exacerbated the off-axis response problem, those Diablos sounded remarkably
similar to the pair in my listening room at
home.
However, despite what I believe JA’s measurements will reveal about its slightly mellow character, the Diablo’s overall presentation never seemed starved for air, and never
sounded soft, bland, or boring—nor, of
course, did it ever sound bright, etchy, grainy,
or harsh, unless the recording itself was
grossly so. Trumpets, flutes, xylophones, and
brass all sounded sufficiently airy and metallic. Cymbals rang convincingly, and overall,
throughout the months I listened to the
Diablos, I wanted for nothing in terms of
high-frequency or transient response.
But most important, and perhaps because
of that high crossover frequency, instrumental harmonic structures, and especially the
human voice, were exceptionally lifelike
and coherent. I can’t think of a loudspeaker
that better reproduces instrumental and
vocal touches and textures. I could consistently rely on the Diablos to provide long
evenings’ worth of entertainment without
producing boredom or fatigue. They always
invited me in and never pushed me away.
The Diablo’s tonal balance was as selfeffacing as its looks and, on closer inspec-
P E A K C O N S U LT E L D I A B L O
tion, equally and understatedly spectacular.
The speaker never sounded too bright
unless the recording was, nor did it sound
polite—unless the recording was. From top
to bottom, the Diablo never sounded
mechanical, never showed any aural seams.
The bass extension was deep, full, and satisfying without being overwhelming. While
the overall balance was clearly tipped downward ever so slightly on top, this was never
to the point that the Diablo sounded soft or
rolled off. It was just slightly reserved. Some
might wish for a more open sound, but I
think the Diablo’s balance would be more
welcome over the long haul. It was among
the best-balanced loudspeakers I’ve heard
here—its designer has managed to maintain a
single sonic personality throughout the
entire audioband.
Unlike speakers that require high SPLs
to work effectively, the Diablo, despite its
slightly laid-back character, never failed to
engage me. Even at very low SPLs it maintained impressive macrodynamic authority,
sounding relaxed and unrestrained in my
smallish room—like a high-powered
amplifier just loafing along. Conversely,
when cranked, the Diablo never sounded
compressed, never lost its tonal or dynamic
composure. I couldn’t come close to exposing its dynamic or SPL limitations.
How loud will the Diablos play? Very, as
I discovered at CES, where they filled a
large space with ease. The Diablo sounded
equally magnificent driven by Musical
Fidelity’s mammoth kW monoblocks and
by the 100Wpc Music Reference RM-200
tube amp. With the RM-200 the Diablos
weren’t as tight or as controlled on bottom,
or as dynamically authoritative—but at
94dB claimed sensitivity, they still got plenty loud.
Conclusion
The Peak Consult El Diablo is a very largesounding loudspeaker in a surprisingly small
package. It’s comfortable playing softly or
loudly in a small or a large room, whether
reproducing chamber music, large orchestral pieces, solo voice, hard rock, metal,
acoustic jazz, or anything else you might
throw at it. Its highly refined, slightly mellow personality won’t appeal to all, but I suspect it will to most, regardless of musical
tastes.
But while very capable, the Diablo is very
expensive at $65,000/pair. Although its
value will be in the eye, ear, and wallet of
the beholder, you may wonder why anyone
would spend so much on a pair of speakers.
Its relatively small footprint (for a big, bassproficient speaker), exquisite finish, and
understated appearance will make it attractive to the wealthy, urban audiophile who
lives in an apartment of small to medium
size, but who wants big sound when he can
crank it and convincing sound when he
can’t. And if that well-heeled audiophile has
a big dedicated listening room, well, no
problem there either.
I spent three months with the Diablos
and found them to be among the most
capable and musically engaging speakers
I’ve yet auditioned. They could rock out
and play very loud and gritty, and they
could lie back to deliver delicate acoustic
music with all the textural and tonal
nuance needed to convincingly sell it as
happening live—and that’s within an hour
of my return from a concert at Avery Fisher Hall.
■■
MAN U FACTURERS’ COMMENTS
Peak Consult El Diablo
Editor:
All the people from Peak Consult would
like to thank Stereophile for the good and
thorough review of our loudspeaker, El
Diablo.
Thanks to Michael Fremer for describing
the speakers and the sound that Peak Consult wishes to be known for. He perfectly
described our product with understandable
language for non- and audiophile persons.
Thanks also to John Atkinson for making
the measurements of our speakers and ending up with the conclusion that the Peaks
had respectable measured performance, and
still mention that we made El Diablo to
achieve what we do and believe in. We
have our sound and are very proud of that.
Per Kristoffersen
Peak Consult Int’l.
Peak Consult El Diablo
Editor:
We would like to thank Michael Fremer
and John Atkinson for taking the time to
review and measure Peak Consult’s El Diablo loudspeaker.
“…like stepping out of a Ferrari and into
a high-performance Bentley coupe.” With
this one phrase, Michael Fremer demonstrated that he very aptly understands the
Peak Consult approach. El Diablo is both a
fairly conservative and a precision, highperformance design meant to be a complete performer. This required a very wellconsidered and meticulously derived balancing act. It needed to perform at a true
reference level in a real-world acoustic
space, and it needed to have a small footprint so as not to overwhelm the elegant
spaces in which it would be installed. As a
full-range loudspeaker, it needed to sonically disappear, project lifelike images into a
vast soundfield, and still deliver a complete
reference-level performance.
Michael quite keenly noticed that “The
Diablo was extended and supple at both
frequency extremes, providing exceptionally natural instrumental textures that were
free of edge, brightness, or grain on top
without sounding dull or uninvolving,” and
that “instrumental and harmonic structures,
and especially the human voice, were
exceptionally lifelike and coherent.” Here
Michael discovers what is at the heart of the
Peak Consult “house sound,” and what
makes El Diablo so very seductive.
El Diablo is designed to be used in a
home environment and will “blend in like
the finely finished piece of furniture that it
is, and its size and footprint would seem to
make it an ideal candidate for the city
sophisticate’s drawing room.” The performance of Peak Consult loudspeakers is tailored to be correct without the need for
much (if any) acoustic treatment to the
room, allowing the owner to display them
with pride in a house’s main living space
without being penalized when the stylus is
finally dropped in the groove.
John Atkinson opined quite expertly that
“The Peak Consult El Diablo’s measured
performance is very respectable,” and that
“its balance appears to have been tailored to
achieve a specific end result.” That specific
end result is, as Michael observed, to be
able “to provide long evenings’ worth of
entertainment without producing boredom
or fatigue” in real-world living environments.
Michael concludes, “I spent three
months with the Diablos and found them
to be among the most capable and musically engaging speakers I’ve yet auditioned.”
We’re delighted that you enjoyed the El
Diablo loudspeaker. It is certainly a point of
pride and a source of tremendous enjoyment in our collection.
Chris Sommovigo
Signals SuperFi, LLC
Posted with permission from the May 2007 issue of Stereophile ® www.stereophile.com. Copyright 2007 PRIMEDIA Inc. All rights reserved.
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