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Introduction.
I've
always heard of EPOS as a brand, but I never had the opportunity
to listen to one of their loudspeakers. Therefore I was pleased
when I got an e-mail message from our Editor announcing that
my next review subject would be their small M12. If you have
a look at their web site, www.epos-acoustics.com, apart from
a short history of the company, you will also find a lot of
interesting information on their products.
The M12 are part of a small series that consists of themselves
and their bigger sisters, at least referring to their height,
the M15. Let's see how they are made.
Assembly.
The
M12 surely belong to the mini loudspeaker family, their dimension
375x200x250 leaves no doubt about it. Build quality is very
good: the cabinet, with a 24mm thick rear panel, is extremely
sturdy and quite heavy. The cherry finishing is well crafted
and has a good contrast with the black plastic front panel
that merges with the speaker flanges. On the back side we
find the reflex vent (this may be partially obstructed with
the appropriate cap enclosed in the M12 package, see later
for more details) and the beautiful twin connectors to allow
for bi-wiring. Another positive fact is that the link between
the two pair of terminals is not made with a standard gold
plated metal bar, but by means of a wire whose aspect suggests
a very good quality.
And now let's focus on the loudspeakers: they both are well
tailored; the 15cm woofer has got a plastic cone and a phaseplug,
while the tweeter shows a metal dome. As I was explaining
before, the speaker flanges lay exactly on the same level
of the baffle and no screws or other fixing devices can be
seen. Unfortunately for this reason I felt I'd better not
dismantle something that I could even damage, therefore I
could not satisfy my (and I believe yours) ill curiosity on
what's the drivers' design behind the cones. I am very sorry
for this.
Together
with the M12 I also received a pair of stands (remember? The
M12 are mini speakers while the M15 are floorstanders), a
metallic structure very easy to assemble
light-weight and rigid that has a feature: you get to choose
if you want flat screws or spikes on its top plate. If you
use the latter (two complete sets are enclosed) on the top
side and the same type also on the stand base (these screws
are enclosed in the package too) you will have a complete
spike-coupling from the loudspeaker to the floor.
The drawback, not meaningless to me, is that with a similar
coupling you need to scratch the base of the poor M12, i.e.
a serious "offense", and a serious reduction of the resale
value. In short I would never do it, but this is because I
am a good man…
Sound.
How
do these British young ladies sound? On the web site they
say that a break-in of some dozen hours is needed. This is
a standard: I wouldn't dare a review even of a steam iron
without breaking it in, so why should I do it with a loudspeaker?
The real problem is that I had them here in July and, at our
latitudes, keeping a tube power amplifier on for hours and
hours is not what I call the dream of my life, but this is
what I am supposed to do and I will do it.
Anyway I have to say that, in most cases, the character of
a product will be already roughly evident from the beginning,
only to become more refined and mature when it is at its best.
This is exactly what happened with the small Epos speakers.
You can easily feel from the early few listening hours that
their sound is good. OK, at the beginning the woofer is a
little bit lazy and the tweeter acts like the real boss, but
it is all as usual. After about ten hours the things are getting
better, the woofer improves in authority and the tweeter starts
behaving and shows a very sweet and extended voice, not as
sharp as sometimes we are used to hear with metal domes. The
largest improvement happens in the midrange, really beautiful,
liquid, natural, very musical. I learned, at Epos' website,
that the crossover is made of a simple filter on the tweeter
while the woofer has a mechanical filter (i.e., its natural
attenuation). Is this the secret? Being a single driver fan,
I should say so, but I realize that this would be a little
bit biased, so no comment from myself. But why should we look
for the true explanation? The midrange of the EPOS is just
great, let's enjoy it without asking too many questions.
Voices and particularly the female voices (Lisa Gerrard and
Cecilia Bartoli are wonderful) take the biggest advantage
from the M12 features while male voices sometimes are a little
bit lighter than I would like them to be.
Even at extreme frequencies the response is good. The top
range is better, airy and extended; the lowest range is somewhat
lacking of articulation, while still satisfactory. Talking
about the lower range, I also tested the reflex vent cap but,
at least in my specific case (speakers at 1 meter from the
front wall and 1,5m from the side walls) I definitely prefer
to leave the reflex vent uncapped. When the cap is mounted
the bass range is surely lighter but the balance is lost and
the M12 musicality with it. Perhaps getting the speakers closer
to the back wall…
Anyway you can try by yourself: it's free.
The
soundstage is well extended and believable enough, well defined
and focused.
Faults? Are these speakers faultless? I would not say so,
nothing is perfect. Perhaps something is missing in the body
of the instruments and in the lower voices.
Bass slam is surely lacking, to be fair, and the magic of,
say, LS3/5As is missing, but these speakers can give you hours
and hours of enjoyment.
Note:
all my listening tests have been carried out putting felt
pads between the loudspeaker and the stand instead of using
spikes. Frankly speaking I did not want to spoil a new speaker.
Of course something could change with the spikes, but I will
leave this to their owners to discover…
Conclusions.
My
lucky row continues: these EPOS add up to the long line of
components which I enjoyed testing. The M12 are really beautiful
and musical, especially if you keep their price in mind. The
few faults are largely offset by their qualities, especially
long-run listening pleasure. What else? I'd like to test the
M15…
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