Acoustic Zen Adagio Jr.

[Κώστας Φ.]

"The Jr. Adagio's cabinet is constructed of 1-inch MDF. Its tapered and curved cheeks are said to reduce internal standing waves and also redirect the rear wave of the drivers to minimize their direct reflections back through the cones. The Jr. Adagio sports a single pair of binding posts and the rest of the accoutrements are said to be identical to the larger and more expensive Adagio: same 6.5 -inch mid/woofers constructed from a fabric layer sandwiched between two skins of ceramic doping; same 1.8" circular ribbon tweeter with a shielded 3.5-oz high-flux, highly temperature-resistant magnet structure. The ribbon's diaphragm is said to be of less mass than the air in front of it, implying it's unusually responsive to the input signal and won't ring as a metal dome nor store energy.

While the ribbon tweeter may be what catches most people's eyes, much of the success of the Jr. Adagio will be owed to the unique and proprietary woofers manufactured in Germany for Acoustic Zen and only Acoustic Zen. Robert Lee didn't invent the underhung motor assembly, with several other notable companies such as Thiel and Wilson Audio
having championed them for years. Yet Acoustic Zen does have their own take on the subject, with drivers of their own design. Basically (no reason for eyes to glaze over on such an important yet simple concept), the voice coil is what propels the driver's diaphragm. It's a wire-wound bobbin at the 'throat' of the cone that moves positively or negatively (back and forth) in reaction to an alternating signal being applied to a magnetic field. Generally, a long voice coil moves through a fairly short magnetic gap. The coil ends routinely move outside the control envelope of the magnetic flux field. This can mean distortion. An underhung motor assembly places a shorter coil inside a longer magnetic field. Regardless of excursion, the coil will never move outside the magnetic gap's control force. The result is said to be less THD, greater transient speed, reduced overall bass distortion and increased detail.

As a two-way speaker, the 3-driver Jr. Adagio utilizes two 6.5-inch mid/woofers with 2.5-inch underhung 7-ounce rare earth Neodymium motor assemblies in a midrange-tweeter-midrange arrangement also referred to as a D'Appolito array. The woofers are mounted to the aforementioned bezels, creating physical time alignment as well as a thicker wave launch foundation due to the combined 1.5-inch stack of enclosure baffle plus added bezel.


Nominal impedance is said to be 6 ohms and sensitivity is 89dB at one watt, one meter - all in all, not that difficult to drive. The crossover hands over to the ribbon tweeter at 3kHz with a 3rd-order 18dB/octave slope. Acoustic Zen rates the Adagio Jr. as having a frequency response of 35Hz -25kHz ±3dB and a power handling of between 50 and 200 watts.

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Conclusion

The Acoustic Zen Adagio Jr. loudspeakers are sophisticated transducers designed for the sophisticated listener looking to be enthralled by the music rather than being impressed by the equipment. Most impressed by the Jr.s will be the listeners who think that most other high-end speakers are too bright and forward. Almost completely self-effacing and always subservient to the music, the Adagio Jr.s do a better job of getting out of the way than any I can think of in their class. So free of self flavor are they that the best way to get a handle on their personality is in direct comparison to the competition. There are speakers that produce a larger and more dramatic soundstage.

Most are more in your face and few if any will match the sweet fatigue-free treble and upper midrange of this speaker. At 89dB, I doubt many will choose low-powered SET amplifiers (at least not without an active crossover and a really good subwoofer), but I can't think of another genre of amplifiers I wouldn't try as long as the amps were fairly neutral. If you're already using solid-state amplification and find your sound a little thin and cold, these could be the speakers for you. Particularly in the dark Burled Walnut of the review samples, they are gorgeous to look at and lifting their considerable mass off their stands has you appreciate how solidly they are made. All in all, there is a lot of speaker here for the money and a lot of speaker to love. I can't recommend an audition of the Acoustic Zen Adagio Jr. more highly.

Unremarkable then? Well, only at first blush. In the long term, I think the Adagio Jr. has what it takes for an extended relationship with an awful lot of music lovers. If that's not remarkable in today's market, I don't know what is!"


Full Review: 6moons.com