| Penaudio Charisma and Chara
Loudspeaker System |
|
The Way It Ought To Be |
|
February 2004
|
Dave Thomas
.jpg) Where
Did You Guys Come From?
During HE 2003 in San Francisco, I visited a room that
had a rather interesting looking speaker in it. At
first I thought it was a Pro Ac Tablette Signature in
what looked like cabinet with a bamboo veneer. It was
sitting on top of another cabinet made with a
beautiful birch veneer that had the same footprint but
was three times taller and housed a slick looking
side-firing woofer. The great Conrad Johnson Premier
140 amplifier and Premier 17LS preamp were driving the
system. There was no one in the room at the time so I
decided to come on in and have a listen. A gentleman
named Val Kratzman welcomed me into the room and asked
if I had brought some music to listen to. As I handed
him one of my favorite recordings, Kurt Elling’s Live
In Chicago, I asked him what the name of the speaker
was? “This is the Penaudio Charisma on top and the
Chara subwoofer on the bottom,” he said.
I sat back centered on a sofa that was positioned in
the “sweet spot” and began to enjoy the music. The
speakers created such a realistic experience that I
soon closed my eyes and began to feel myself sitting
at one of the quaint bistro tables that populate the
fabled Green Mill Jazz Club where this disc was
recorded here in Chicago. I could almost smell the
smoke. The first song that we listened to was “Night
Dream.” This is nice mid-tempo melody that is very
easy on the ears but does also have a great drum solo
that sounded wonderful via the dynamics that this
system was capable of reproducing. This considering
the rather narrow footprint and slight dimensions of
this speaker amazed me. I was so swept up in this
thoroughly enjoyable experience that by the time the
song ended and I opened my eyes I was stunned to find
that the once quiet room was now full of more
listeners. I just hoped that I hadn’t been too
animated in my enjoyment of the sound. There are times
when I can enjoy music so much that I’ll begin rocking
from side to side like Stevie Wonder on an I-V drip of
caffeine.
I asked Val, who is a member of the Finnish Trade
Council, representing Penaudio, to play another track
from that same disc called “Goin’ To Chicago.” This is
a rockin’ good blues tune in which Elling and the
“Father of Vocalese” Jon Hendricks, perform a duet
that is both poignant and hilarious, raising up
cat-calls and howls of laughter from both the crowd on
the recording and the one that was in the Penaudio
listening room with me. Things were going so well that
Val and a rather attractive young lady who had
suddenly appeared on the sofa next to me, asked that I
give them another disc to play. So I handed Val yet
another live jazz recording The Ray Brown Trio’s Live
At The Loa. I had Val play track 7, “Can’t Help
Lovin’ Dat Man.” This cut features a
crowd-pleasing solo by Gene Harris that is executed
wonderfully through the Charisma/Chara system. Once
again, the crowd got into the performance, some even
clapped at the end of the song. The young lady who was
sitting next to me had now engaged Val in a discussion
in a separate corner of the room. “She bought a pair,”
Val said. That’s one of the neat things about a show
of this type when it is opened to the public. Real
people, real music lovers, get to experience things
that they ordinarily would not get to see and hear.
The result is that they get to immediately express
their appreciation for the products and, in this case,
put their money where their mouths are. We need more
of this in high-end audio.
Fit and Finnish
The Penaudio speakers are made in Finland by a quiet,
unassuming, yet brilliant young man named Sami
Penttila who is the Owner, Founder & Chief Designer of
Penaudio. I called Sami at his home in Finland to
discuss his design and learned a lot about what makes
these products so unique. “I am trying to achieve the
voice of natural instruments,” said Penttila who is
himself a musician. In designing these speakers
Penttila went to the University of Jyvaskyla to
conduct tests on the effects of the sound of music
coming from his speakers on people when hearing music
that is played from an SACD in a wideband format
versus the same music also on SACD with the
ultrasonics removed. After listening they measured the
EEG and heart rate of the individuals and were able to
conclude that the speakers sounded best with music
recorded in the wideband format. “The wideband
recording sounded better than the recording with the
cut off ultrasonics,” said Penttila. Now the key
here is not so much that one recording sounded better
than the other, but that the speakers were so highly
resolved that the difference could be sonically and
physically felt by the listeners. This is something
that was somewhat evident to me and the other visitors
to the Penaudio room when we heard the speakers for
the first time in San Francisco, and again just
recently at the 2004 CES.
I alluded to the Charisma and Chara’s attractive
cabinetry at the start of this review and learned just
how unique it was during my discussion with Penttila.
“The cabinets are made exclusively for us. There is
a 1.5mm plywood veneer covering 19mm of MDF, and
another sheet of plywood veneer inside of the cabinet,”
explained Penttila. “This veneer is made only for
us and makes the cabinet extremely non-resonant.”
What it looks like is if you took eighty or so 1/8”
thick sheets of plywood and stacked and glued them
together and then cut out your cabinet. It’s a very
slick look that has an extremely high Wife Acceptance
Factor (WAF). In other words, she’ll think they look
cute.
SEAS make the drive units on the Charisma and Chara.
The Charisma uses a modified 20mm textile dome tweeter
and a 120mm specially treated paper cone midrange
driver with a solid copper phase plug. The Chara’s
passive subwoofer uses a 176mm treated paper cone
driver with a 39mm voice coil. The crossover points
are at 180Hz and 5500Hz and achieve a silky smooth
transition between the two boxes. “Most people
describe the sound as ‘astonishing’",
says Joe Abrams, of Portal Audio, Penaudio’s U.S.
importer. “The Charisma/Chara system has the
quickness of an electrostatic and defines a
wonderfully realistic soundstage much like a
proscenium.”
The system also uses top quality WBT binding posts
that allow you to torque down on your speaker cables
for a tight connection. To help prevent any cabinet
resonance interaction the Charismas are placed on
absorbent feet, which sit atop the Charas. The
cabinets are only connected electrically not
mechanically. And this electrical connection is
accomplished via specially made MIT Magnum jumpers.
Coupling the speakers to the floor is accomplished by
a couple of metal rails that attach to the bottoms of
the Charas and accommodate spikes that screw down
through the rails and into the floor. This also allows
for easy height adjustment.
Music Maestro Please
When the speakers arrived I was a little worried about
the difficulty that they might have projecting an
accurate stage in my large (24’ x 20’) listening room.
Fortunately, they were being paired with my
Electrocompaniet Nemos, amps that are probably capable
of creating a huge stage with a pair of Grado
headphones. So the combination proved to be a
synergistic match in my room.
The first piece of music that I listened to was
Barbara Morrison’s I Know How To Do It [Chartmaker
Records CMR14460]. Now, this entire disc is wonderful
to listen to but the track that got my attention most
was the final one, “Come Home To Me.” The
Charismas hung such a delicate image of Morrison’s
delicious vocals that it was easy to develop a visual
image of her in my mind. The chestiness of her voice
and the sweet, sweet sentiment with which she sings,
drips with romance. Not even my reference Talon
Peregrine X achieves quite this level of holography.
Solo piano work does not ordinarily float my boat
unless it is a performance that is truly personal and
thoughtfully portrayed. Such a recording is the first
effort from Patrick Noland called Gathering Light [Naim
cd011]. Naim Audio engineer Ken Christiansen recorded
this disc in the acoustically splendid Ascension
Church in Oak Park, Illinois. The space and size of
the stage upon which Noland performs is captured
accurately by the Penaudio system. The percussive
nature of the hammer strikes on piano strings is kept
intact, while all of the resonance and decay sound
natural. This is more than evident on track 6, “When
Dawns Glide.”
Now don’t get the wrong impression here, this is still
a full-range system. Just because a speaker excels at
rendering the delicacies of jazz vocals and acoustic
music, doesn’t mean that they can’t bump and boogie
too. The Chara’s side firing woofer provides plenty of
low-end weight and the bass is, of course, tight and
tuneful. On the Yellowjackets’ Greenhouse [GRP
GRD-9630], Jimmy Haslip’s bass line pushes the
envelope on the Chara’s deep bass capabilities,
particularly on track 2, the title cut “Greenhouse,”
but the Charas never lost their composure ... And then
I got greedy.
One of my favorite R&B artists is D’Angelo. On his
debut album, Brown Sugar [EMI 7243 8 32629 2 2 RE-1],
he wrote, composed, and performed all instrumentals
and vocals himself. It’s a brilliant piece of work.
But like much of the music that is of the R&B and
Hip-Hop genre, this recording borders on deep bass
overload. I’ve had a number of speakers in house this
past year that, while attempting to play songs like
the track 9 hit, “Lady”, ended up making that
odd farting sound, as if the woofer could not push out
enough air, and causing the cone to vibrate too hard.
The Chara fell prey to this as well, though not before
handling this disc at surprisingly higher volumes than
I thought it could. Frankly, music at this level is
pretty non-musical and the bass sounds more like
low-end energy and less like music.
Conclusion
My time with the Penaudio Charisma and Chara system
was extremely enjoyable. At a price of around $5,500
this is a stellar looking and sounding performer.
Another advantage is that you can build a Penaudio
system as your budget suits you. You can start with a
pair of Charismas, which are excellent mini-monitors
on their own, and add the Charas later. Either way,
you’ll be rewarded with a speaker that is thoughtfully
designed, sonically stunning and, yes, they’re cute
too.
Specifications:
Charisma and Chara System
Type: three-way, floorstanding, reflex-loaded
loudspeaker.
Drive units: 20mm ferrofluid textiledome tweeter,
custom made 120mm special treated midrange/bass unit
26mm voice coil, heavy copper rings above and below
pole piece, solid copper phase plug, long throw 176mm
treated paper woofer, 39mm voice coil
Cross-over: 180Hz, 5500 Hz
Cross-over slopes: acoustical 3.order
Frequency range: anechoic response +- 3 dB 30-25000Hz,
in room 25-20000 Hz
Phase shift: +- 15 degrees at 20-20000Hz
Sensitivity: 87 dB/1m/2.83V
Nominal impedance: 4 ohms (3,8-15 ohms)
Recommended amplifier: 30+ W
Dimensions: (wxhxd) in mm: 140x1000x285
Weight: Charisma 17 kg/pair, Chara 30kg/pair
Extra: WBT connectors, internal wiring and inductors
are from 99,997% copper foil (alpha-core),
polypropylene caps, Goertz MI1 internal wiring.
Price: Charisma - $2,995, Chara - $2,500 |
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