RMAF 2019 Show Report Part 3: Endow Audio, Hegel, Vaughn Loudspeakers, Wavelength Audio

Newcomers to the industry, and to exhibiting at an audio show in general, Endow Audio showed that even in 2019 there are new ideas possible and new avenues to explore in speaker design. They brought their new FS301 floorstanders for a debut at RMAF, which are a smooth curved-upward affair topped with bulbous, eye-catching, multi-speaker “point array.”

The essence of their point array tech -- the name a mashup of point source and line array -- is to house many drivers in a unique looking array that stands off of the front of the speakers. These drivers fire in multiple directions, and are fed via what they call "passive signal processors," i.e. external crossovers, which manipulate timing and amplitude of the divided signal to achieve phase coherence at the listening position.

In practice, on most frequencies, the tonality of the speakers was good, almost excellent. I heard a bit of a hole in the soundstage between them, but I wouldn’t put that on the floorstanders. I also wouldn't fault the electronics driving the speakers, which was a simple Hegel integrated stereo amp. Showing any audio system in a hotel room is a challenge, let alone one with seriously unique and new technology. Here’s betting Endow’s demos improve at subsequent shows.

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Moving on to the Wavelength Audio room, we found another set of truly unique floorstanders designed by Vaughn Loudspeakers: the Zinfandel Line Arrays. A small horn plasma tweeter sat atop each line array of 9 small wideband drivers. No crossover until 7KHz ensures the vocal range is left undisturbed, which is great in theory.

In practice it was great too. The combination of Vaughn’s Zinfandels and Wavelength Audio’s gorgeous tube amps resulted in a lovely soundstage with pleasing depth.

I spied a Duetto v5 Silver Edition among the static demos that Wavelength had, and wished I could have heard it, or some of the other cool-looking display pieces that I didn’t immediately recognize from the brand. Maybe if Larson and I hung out in the Wavelength room all weekend… but we were men on the move. More to come.