A fussy Scandinavian
By SHAHRIZA HUSSEIN
Model: Primare L25 Loudspeaker
Price: RM5,900
Distributed by CMY SOUND & VISION (Tel: 03-2143-9406), LG 090, Sungai Wang Plaza, Jalan Sultan Ismail, 50250 Kuala Lumpur / Website: www.cmy.com.my / E-mail: cmysoundvision@yahoo.com
SCANDINAVIAN audio gear has come to be highly regarded worldwide for build and sound quality. Most brands available here originate from Denmark, but some hail from neighbouring Sweden, and these tend to border on the High End. Primare is one of them.
Like the others, Scandinavian manufacturers Primare offers entire systems, with well-matched CD players, amplifiers and speakers. However, Primare’s range of loudspeakers tends to emphasise AV rather than straight audio applications. While any components of the brand’s AV speaker systems, such as the front speaker pair (or even the rear satellite one) can be used for straight audio, these are likely to offend the sensibilities of many audiophiles. So for them, Primare offers the L series, a range of three speaker models dedicated to straight audio use – although the perverse can still make them function as the front pair of an AV speaker system.
HIGH PEDIGREE ... the Primare L25 loudspeakers might be a handful, but with the right partnering equipment, they’ll blow you away.
The models in the L series are the L20, L25 and L30, the former two being two-way systems and the latter three-way. All are as solidly built as Volvo cars and impeccably finished with top grade wood veneer. All are floorstanders.
Inside out
Measuring 20cm wide, 36cm deep and 85cm high, the L25 is a medium sized floor stander, which is unusually weighty at 25kg. Some of this weight is contributed by the cast metal parts, which make up the driver baffle and lug legs, but most of it comes from the thick MDF cabinet walls and the internal bracing. Rap on the cabinet and you get a dead “thuck” sound.
The L25’s driver complement is a 150mm bass/midrange unit and a 25mm tweeter, the former with polymer cone and the latter with a doped fabric dome. These drivers look so ordinary as to be proprietary, and audiophiles expecting Scanspeak units should look elsewhere. But the units must be competent performers in their own right, as they are flush mounted on a thick cast metal baffle which protrudes 1.5cm over the speaker’s front surface. The baffle takes up just over a third of the top section of the panel and there is a cloth cover that fits in neatly and can be removed, if desired.
As no literature of any sort accompanied the L25, I could only assume that the crossover network is a second order Butterworth unit which crosses over to the tweeter around 2.5kHz. The quality and complexity can only be guessed at, but if Nordic speakers are anything to go by, there should be nothing to complain about. What is more obvious is that the L25 is a bass-reflex speaker, with its fluted port in the rear panel, right in the centre. Something of a mystery, though, is a 25mm hole at the bottom of the panel. This is closed by a plug of sponge rubber, removal of which appeared to make no difference to the sound.
The L25 offers bi-wiring via gold-plated terminals with chunky screw knobs. Here again the finish quality is excellent, the terminals offering holes large enough to hold thick soldered ends.
Setting up
Installing the L25 required some muscle. Even taking the units out of the box was a challenge. But with the help of another pair of hands, I managed to extract the L25 without damaging the speaker, the inner packing or the carton. Then came the chore of fixing the lug legs and the spikes, which come in their own individual boxes.
The L25 is unusual in that the spikes are positioned outside the base area. They are screwed onto the extension of three lug legs, which are in their turn securely bolted onto the speaker base. The resulting support stance is that of a tripod – a good arrangement like my Thiels because, unlike four legs, three legs don’t wobble and don’t need to be adjusted to be level.
Because of its size, the L25 required a reasonable amount of space. Placement was therefore 3m in front of the listening area and a mite over 2.5m apart. The final angle-in, through trial and error, was about 30 degrees off axis.
As my Luxman amplifier caters for only one pair of speaker leads, the L25 could not be bi-wired. Connection was thus to the speaker’s bass terminal, which linked up to the treble terminal with the supplied brass links. Sound source was from a Sony DVP-7000 through an Octave DAE.
The sound
The L25 required quite a long period of burning in – over two weeks, in fact. Straight off the box, the sound was decent enough, though a bit hard and cold. As time went on the sound lost its rough edges, taking on texture and detail.
The balance of bass, midrange and treble remained as when the L25 first came out of the box. The bass is not the heavy kind, but it’s there when required, extending quite deep and cleanly, too. The little holes at the base of the cabinet mentioned earlier, when uncovered, made no difference whatsoever to the bass. As for the treble, this is well aired, but without the sweetness of the famed Scanspeak silk dome.
The soundstage is impressively deep and wide, and when the L25 is fully burned in, this assumes extra depth, giving a good sense of space between the instruments. This spatial quality is maintained over a wide range of sound volumes.
Yet for all that, the L25 did not lose much of its initial qualities. The sound may be described as clinical, despite the mellowing and warming influence of the amplifier’s Class A operation and the valves of the DAE. Partnered with any of Primare’s own amplifiers, I would think that the clinical quality will be more pronounced. Still, it’s a sound I could live with, especially with my diet of classical music.
Attack and pace are impressive, injecting a welcome liveliness into small orchestral works, especially of the baroque variety. There were exceptions, though; Nigel Kennedy’s interpretation of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, brash enough on my Thiels, emerged as positively brazen on the L25, as if his violin had been strung with steel wires. In fact, the L25 somehow didn’t deal very kindly with string instruments, favouring woodwinds and brasses instead and, yes, human voices. I tried to trace the root of this characteristic but could only guess it as a peak in the upper midrange region that translates to a slight forwardness. This tends to draw the listener into the music, making focus easier, but by the same token it can make some works sound a trifle hard and too much up front.
Large orchestral works fared somewhat better, the massed instruments tending to tone down the edges without actually blunting them. The opening bars of Dvorak’s New World Symphony came through well enough, with sufficient dramatic impact, as did Williams’ Superman and Star Wars themes. Mahler’s fifth symphony was as engaging as I’ve heard it and even full operas came through with a satisfying sense of space and movement.
With this kind of capability, the L25 deals with pop, folk and C&W with no trouble at all. Heavy rock, though, lacked the in-the-gut quality. Perhaps the L25 is too clinical for this kind of music, or perhaps it needs an amplifier with more power and control. Whatever, it didn’t much matter because I don’t listen much to rock music.
Conclusion
I had the L25 for over two months and during that time have come to like the speaker. But it’s a mismatch with my equipment nevertheless. However, for those who already have a Nordic amp or one of the powerhouses from the USA, the L25 is likely to fit in nicely.
Pros: Well balanced sound, with good detail and soundstaging; superb finish and impressive build quality.
Cons: Something of a cold fish; a bit fussy about partners; expensive for the given performance.
