An Introduction to Estelon Speakers
REFERENCE AUDIO – WITHAM ESSEX
BOB’s Review Series - No 75 – Estelon Aura and XB Diamond MKII Speakers – First Impressions
INTRODUCTION
Estelon are a new speaker brand to our store, and we have been spending time with both the entry level floor standing Aura and the more expensive XB Diamond MKII to run them in and get to know how they perform in various systems for this first impressions review. If you are not familiar with the Estelon brand, then do have a look at our website for further information. All their speakers are eye-catching in terms of aesthetic appearance and quality of finish and more importantly it’s how they sound that really impresses.
Estelon are not surprisingly based in Estonia, but where exactly is Estonia you might wonder? It sits in the Baltic Sea, just below Finland to the North and Stockholm in Sweden across the sea to the East. To the West it has a land border with Russia and to the South with Latvia (as you can probably tell I had to look it up).
Estelon were founded in 2010 when over breakfast with his daughters, Alissa and Kristina, Alfred Vassilkov proposed setting up a new company to design and build “the world’s best loudspeaker”. He had been designing speakers for 25 years before that breakfast meeting and used his considerable experience to design and develop Estelon. Alfred had the idea to use different materials to realise his dream of unique design aesthetic and the best sound possible in room friendly cabinets and this was accomplished by utilising a marble based composite material for most of their speakers which allows them to construct them in shapes not suited to other materials. Their Aura models are constructed from thermoformed composite rather than using marble composite to help keep costs down. Estelon don’t just build speaker cabinets in unusual shapes for aesthetic reasons, the shapes developed are also for acoustic reasons and for added room integration. Estelon, X-Series speakers, like Marten and other high end speaker manufacturers, use drives made by the German company Theil and Partners who manufacture drivers under the Accuton brand, including ceramic, diamond and aluminium cones. Their YB range uses drivers from SEAS and Scan-Speak. Crossovers of course use high quality audio components. Going up their range above the XB Diamond when you get to the heady hights of the Forza and Extreme then they use the more expensive Accuton Cell drivers.
THE AURA
Like almost all speakers in the Estelon range the retail price of each speaker is very much dependent upon the finish specified. The Aura is their entry point speaker, and it retails at between £16,500 and £21,000 depending on finish, but their range extends all the way up to the Extreme MKII at a just short of £200,000. There are 7 standard colours available across the range, but they can be specified in any colour of your choice at additional cost and additional production time. The Aura cabinet is a sealed box configuration, and it incorporates a 26mm Scan-Speak textile tweeter, two 130mm paper coned mid/bass drivers and an internal 250mm paper cone woofer driver firing downwards onto a specially designed plinth. It is 1366mm high, 384mm wide and 367mm deep and weighs 34kg each. The Aura is rated at 4 Ohms and 90dB sensitivity.
THE XB DIAMOND MKII
The XB Diamond MKII sits towards the middle of their range and retails at £52,250 in black or white and rises to £58,000 for Red Rocket Liquid Gloss as our demo pair. The cabinet is made from marble composite and features a 25mm Accuton diamond tweeter, 158mm Accuton ceramic midrange driver and a 220mm Accuton ceramic sandwich bass driver. It is rated at 6 Ohms and 87dB sensitivity and weighs in at 69kg each. The XB Diamond is a bass reflex design with a single rear firing port. Both speakers only accommodate single wiring.
THE SYSTEM
Both speakers were used in the same room with two very different systems, the only common part being the Innuos Pulsar streamer.
System 1
- Innuos Pulsar Streamer
- TAD D1000TX SACD Player and onboard DAC
- TAD C1000 preamp
- TAD M1000 power amp – 250W Class D into 8Ohms
System 2
- Innuos Pulsar Streamer
- Gryphon Essence Preamp with onboard DAC
- Gryphon Antileon Evo monobloc power amps – 170W Class A
The obvious difference here is the TAD M1000 is a Class D amplifier whereas the Gryphon Antileon Evos are Class A. Chalk and cheese you might think but a great way to evaluate a pair of new speakers. The three box TAD system costs almost £60,000 and the Gryphon system with DAC costs £95,000 so both systems are hardly entry point but are realistic choices for the speakers, especially the XB Diamonds.
PERFORMANCE
During the writing of this review and as I was still in the process of giving the XB Diamonds a thorough running in we had a customer visit the showroom and he wandered into the demo room where they were playing and immediately asked if I was streaming music, which I was at the time. Apparently, he had recently visited another dealer where he felt that the streaming experience on offer wasn’t a good one and he had concluded that streaming was a poor way to listen to music. That was before he heard our system playing and I was pleased to hear how amazed he was to hear streaming sounding so engaging. Streamers have improved significantly in recent years and streaming services such as Qobuz and Tidal have upped their game considerably. Modern DACs are also playing a big part in the high-quality reproduction of streamed music. Of course, the rest of the system needs to be able to do justice to the streamed music files and clearly the Estelon XB Diamond Mk II had a lot to do with the thoroughly engaging sound he was hearing in our demo room.
Both these speakers are rather good and extremely competitive sound wise at their price point. The Aura and XB Diamond Mk II are clearly from the same design stable with the Aura giving a good percentage of the XB performance at way less than half the price. Estelon suggest that both speakers are partnered with amplifiers with at least 30W output and I would concur. Their efficiency (especially of the Aura) means they can be driven with lower power valve amplifiers but just don’t expect them to have the same dynamic ability as when driven by well-designed solid-state amps.
Listening to almost anything on these two speakers is a joy and probably the first thing you will notice is the depth of bass they can deliver, especially the XB Diamond. As expected, the TAD system produced a slightly dryer and perhaps more dynamic sound than the Gryphon system which was warmer and more engaging during a longer listening session. But with both systems both speakers performed ay above expectation.
The Aura develops a wide and expansive image with lots of fine detail, especially in the mid-range. Paired with suitably priced amplifiers and a highly revealing source they are more than most of us would ever need in the typical British home. Although the Aura have a larger bass driver than the XB Diamonds (10” v approx. 9”) they rely on Scan-Speak drivers whereas the XB Diamond use Accuton drivers, drivers I am much more familiar with. First impressions when listening to the Aura and the XB Diamond is where is the subwoofer hiding. Bass from both these speakers is astounding and what you would normally expect from much larger cabinets and drivers. But it’s the midrange and top end where the magic really happens, and those expensive diamond tweeters in the XB Diamond really bring excitement to a listening session. The tweeter on the XB Diamond sits below the mid-range driver and when seated is at ear height and I think this help them form a firm and engrossing level of detail. On the Aura the tweeter sits between the two mid-range units, again at seated ear height which is always a plus in my book.
Way back in 1971 Pink Floyd released their Meddle album (can you believe that was 53 years ago) and you just need to listen to those opening pings on the Echoes track to get a feel of where either of these speakers are going to take you. More so on the XB Diamond but you would hope so looking at the price difference. Female vocals, guitars, piano, electronic synths and just about everything else all combine to make the hairs on your arms rise in applause to the performance both these speakers can deliver.
CONCLUSION
I must congratulate Estelon for producing two such fine speakers and I can’t wait to hear more from their range. If I do, I’ll let you know (I’m hoping for a factory visit sometime). I also need to congratulate TAD for their three stack 1000 series system used in this review, the build quality is astounding (simply the best CD loading tray I have ever experienced) and with a sound to match, a TAD system review will follow. The best sound however was the Estelon XB Diamond MkII driven by Gryphon Antileon Evo Monoblocs, a different sound from the TADS and personal taste will dictate which you prefer. The Estelon speakers are a joy to behold, come in some fantastic finishes and sound so natural that you wonder why all speakers don’t sound this good. I could easily live with these at home but more so the XB Diamonds with those Accuton drivers. Highly recommended.
July 2024
Bob – Team Reference Audio