Seen above is the world's smallest horn loudspeaker made by the folks at Zingali. Their new Colosseum Small (2,500,000 Lira) features a 2-way minimonitor (see above) and subwoofer system. The bigger Colosseum Large system (3,500,000 Lira) features the D'Appolito-type minimonitor and a larger subwoofer system (below photo's leftmost speaker array). These speakers use the patented Zingali Omniarray ZG used here with a 2" to 1" wooden horn throat. Sensitivity for both systems is around 90 db/w/m and both systems are bi-wireable. Frequency response is claimed as 40Hz to 25kHz for the smaller and 35Hz to 20kHz for the larger system. Stands for the minimonitors are also available from Zingali (500,000 Lira).

Snell's new XA 90ps speakers have landed in Italy! These 125 lbs. $7,000 USD a pair behemoths speakers stand over 54" high and use the same basic D'Appolito design as in many of their other offerings. The two 10" woofers are self-powered with adjustable crossover. Sensitivity is a quite low for such a large design at 90 db/w/m. Worse still, the impedance is a harder-to-drive 4 ohm nominal and therefore it seems only those with large current amplifiers with the prerequisite large budgets need apply.

Never resting nor content, Yamamura is always working on his next "big thing" proving that bigger is better. In the great Italian magazine "Audiophile Sound" room they were giving demonstrations of vinyl versus 16-bit versus 24-bit music. Speaking of big, the speaker used is approximately 8 feet high and features a very special hand-crafted driver all by none other than Yamamura. The very large horn design insured high sensitivity coupled with fairly wide frequency response. While there were no specifics as his systems all seem to be "one off" designs, i took the liberty of taking a very close-up photo of the driver as seen below.

Click here to see larger photo.

Size doesn't matter. Well... Ok, so we have this smallish about 3-incher in a cabinet around five feet high featured in the Souno room. Hmmm... It actually sounded quite interesting as there are two resonant chambers inside specifically designed to enhance the lowermost frequencies. Impressive sound for such a design! So guys, it seems size doesn't matter after all! Did i ever tell you the joke about the gynecologist and pizza delivery boy?

Available in scrum-dilli-umptous red are the L' Ergo speakers featuring the Tec ribbon tweeter. L'Ergo seems to be working in concert with Technology speakers. In fact L'Ergo makes tube unit for the 12 volt car audio market! These products for the 12 volt market include a tubed preamplifier and DAC! Their PL1 (5,000,000 Lira) is a preamplifier with three inputs and offers a balance and volume adjustments while their DAC 1 (3,000,000 Lira) is a 20-bit DAC. Both units feature the 6922 valve. Brings new meaning to the phrase "i'll take a pair of 6922 tubes to go please." Would you like fries with that?

Back again from last year with about the same setup is the folks who carry B&W speakers, Roland amplifiers and other goodies.  Seen here are the B&W 801 which were used bi-amped with the Jeff Roland model 8Ti stereo amplifiers, Jadis JD1 Drive CD transport and the Jadis Symmetrical Converter JS 1 DAC.

After a great performance most musicians will stand up and take a bow. Well these speakers are always bowing to their adoring public. These speakers were featured in the Audioreview room and were quite impressive sounding giving good bass extension during the pipe organ music they were playing while i was there.

Noah would not have needed to build an arc if he had these speakers. These speakers get my vote as the best looking speaker at the show.  Alas, they also get my vote for the worst sound and value for the money as well. Being an opposite D'Appolito design may have something to do with the super high unreal imaging and what seemed to also be drastic phasing problems (maybe they were wired incorrectly?). Visually, these were very, very impressive. The speakers are reminiscent of the old Sony APM drivers with their flat honeycomb cone structure. The great thing about these speakers is in the unlikely event of a flood, simply remove the from panel and you will most probably have the fanciest wood boat in the neighborhood.