Silverline Audio La Folia Loudspeakers:impresssions

[Tuberoller]

I heard the Silverline Audio La Folia loudspeakers at this past CES in Las Vegas and really wanted to audition them. I never had the chance to do so but I liked them enough that when I was offered a nice deal I just went ahead and purchased them.

When I heard them at CES what really impressed me most is how they did'nt compress in the small room and did'nt overwhelm the space with boomy bass. I've heard really good speakers sound bad at shows due to the small rooms and obviously poor acoustics. I'm sure the systems manufacturers display at shows are well thought out and likely sounded great in the proper room environment before they were set up at the shows.

I got the La Folia home and was first impressed with the fantastic fit and finish. Everything about these speakers,including the really nice front and rear speaker grills,speaks of highest quality. Mine are in the beautiful Rosewood finish and it was flawless on every surface. The speakers seem larger than the specs indicate and are most certainly heavier than the 120 pounds qouted in literature,at least they feel like it.

After playing with placement a bit,I allowed them to play a few days before I listened to them at length. My wife hates when I leave speakers on for days at a time but she lives with it when I leave the door to my room open and play something she likes so she can listen while she exercises. After five days I sat down and dropped the needle on a few reference discs and liked what I heard right away. I went from the reference discs to music I really love and have'nt stopped listening since.

It's a rare thing to find large floor-standing speakers that do imaging,soundstaging and dynamics very well. The La Folia seem to master all three with ease. The Silverlines image as well as my Von Schwiekert VR-1 monitors and that's no small feat. The VR-1 pull that often desired,but rarely accomplished trick of "disappearing" in your listening space. The La Folia do the same thing and only the incredible, deep bass give away where the speakers might be in a dark room. Treble detail is superb and extension is excellent while remaining very crisp and focused. These speakers have that "snap" in the treble without sounding the least bit harsh. The transition from the upper mids to the higher frequencies is seamless and I hear no loss of detail in this crucial frequency range. All the cliche's about "air" and "space" apply here in great quantities. These speakers just sound real up top.

The all-important midrange is where a lot of floorstanders fall a bit short but the La Folia keep up the great performance in the mids too. Soundstaging is pinpoint perfect and leaves no sharp edges anywhere. All I hear is smooth and perfectly sculpted detail in every part of the mids. Voices and instruments retain correct timbre and tone and notes originating in the midrange and extending to the treble are carried gently to their final destination. Live recordings are held true to the recording venue and the sense of the space is rendered with perfection. I don't think I've ever enjoyed Aretha Franklin's gospel masterpiece,"Amazing Grace" as much as I have while listening to it on these speakers. With proper placement(more on that later) every voice and instrument is alive in it's special place on the soundstage. The talent of the artists is on display and the speakers are just there to let you enjoy them. These speakers have some of the sweetest and purest mids I've ever heard.

Great Floor-standing loudspeakers are known for very definitive bass reproduction and the La Folia do not dissapoint in the least bit. Bass is sub-deep and as tight as I've heard in any single box speaker enclosure. If you need a sub with these speakers,you are beyond a bass-head and need real help. "Tight" is a bad word to describe the bass produced by the La Folia, words like "taut" or "fast" might be more accurate. What I hear is the crispness of a finger falling off the strings of bass guitar or the same fingers being plucked across the strings of an upright. Drum notes are newly discovered from the lost abyss of one-note bass of some other great floorstanding speakers and most headphones. Instrument seperation in the lower frequencies cannot be overstated and is sometimes difficult to descibe to guys who listen mostly to headphones. When you hear a speaker guy describe bass that allows you to discern the "signature" of a drummer and his drum or the space between an electric bass and deep bass drum,this kind of bass performance is what he is attempting to describe. Headphones just can't deliver a bass note or give you a sense of the very force with which the drum is hit. It's about more than volume or air moved,it's about recognizing the drummer by his touch with the sticks. This is not something you feel with just great detail or definition,it's something that comes through only when a loudspeaker is performing with a great sense of ease. These speakers have control and command of bass notes and they never stray. You get the feeling that these speakers can do anything and they seem to know it.

With any large speaker placement is an issue and these speakers were no different. I guess when you weigh 120 pounds and look really hot,you get your way. They wanted to be further away from the side wall and close together and I was'nt about to give them a hard time. It was more than a bear to move these things and they sounded different every single time I moved them. This forced me to continue to tweak placement more than I typically do. Most of the time when playing with speaker placement,after you get close the differences become much smaller and you can settle somehwere near "ideal" placement and still get great results. Not with these divas. They want to be exactly where they sound best and nowhere esle. I knew when they were happy because they made me really happy too, in that special way.

In summary I would have to call the Silverline La Folia Loudspeakers "Confident". That's a perfect word to describe a speaker that comes into your space and knows it looks good,sounds good and is gonna impress you.