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That does seem a little conservative for dual, active 8" bass drivers.

The Eikon's have caught my eye as I'm converting a former small kids' playroom to a mancave and have been looking into speakers for a 2-channel solution. Based on @The Computer Audiophile' writeup, some additional info from @Derek Hughes, Google searches for additional show reports as well as a thread on these over at the ML owners forum, I've put a few things together: - I'm waiting for a response for an inquiry I submitted to Eikon, but as of now what it looks like is that the the Eikontrol box is a straight up Bohmer Wavelet. I'm curious if Eikon worked with Bohmer to add any additional special sauce or just stuck with their turnkey solution (http://bohmeraudio.com/J345/index.php/2-uncategorised/15-products-turnkey). I wonder if the production version will be in a different looking chassis than what was shown at Axpona, somewhat as suggested by Eikon's video Chris linked to above, but the internals exactly the same. - My gut guess is that Gayle decided to build a speaker that was made to pair with and therefore capitalize on Bohmer's Wavelet, thus offering consumers a ready made active speaker solution that includes stellar Room EQ. That makes sense to do instead of spending years and gobs of R&D cash to develop your own Room EQ solution. That would really make sense if Gayle's target is for a more boutique company and not a huge new brand. He can still sell and tout the benefits of the whole system even if the digital domain smarts aren't his own company's IP. - Unless there are more surprises to come in the shipping version, it's useful to point out that unlike some other active speaker solutions with network connectivity, the system doesn't include any built in streaming sources and it's not a Roon Endpoint. All sources are BYO, which is personally fine by me. Sure, it's nice to have a single app interface that affords content selection as well as master volume control, but I can live with that "limitation" as I prefer existing source interfaces from Roon and Sonos anyway. - This turnkey and separate box route for the digital components can be seen as both positive and negative. For one thing, upgradeability should be easier than upgrading the speaker chassis units themselves. Since the digital processing components are the ones we'd expect to more likely need hardware upgrades over the short to medium term vs the amp section, this is a benefit. And who knows? If Eikon is successful enough, maybe they work with Bohmer to create a more customized version of the Wavelet that could be upgraded to down the road. The downside is that you have to worry about the health and future of 2 companies, instead of just one. An important item of note is that the Wavelet sends data collected from in room measurement's to Bohmer's server for processing and then the results sent back to the Wavelet. From a review from Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity from last year: "The resulting data obtained from measuring the Wavelet’s internally generated tones are uploaded, via your home network, to a dedicated processing server. The server crunches the data, which you can monitor real-time via the web browser on your computer or smartphone, with the final calculations being communicated back to the Wavelet itself." I saw mention in a Legacy Audio forum that this process may be a little annoying ("Connecting to a server in another country is a pain in the *bleep*, as well as other UI issues, but they've done an incredible job at Bohmer."). This makes Bohmer's health and ongoing support for the product pretty darned important. The update question is also a fair one. Since it's Bohmer's product, how much influence do they have over the timeline of such updates? How responsive can/will Bohmer be when Eikon isn't there only Wavelet customer (Legacy Audio)? Will Bohmer roll out platform updates for all Wavelets or might there be a development fork that differentiates the ongoing Legacy from Eikon platforms other than badging for the interface app? - Intersting note is that Legacy's implementation doesn't include amplification, you BYO. Again, Eikon's selling a more complete end to end. Some folks will prefer that while others want the choice on amps. - Some interesting resources: Legacy Wavelet User Manual http://legacyaudio.com/images/uploads/manuals/Wavelet_Manual_2017_opt.pdf Legacy Wavelet Back Panel: Bohmer's Backgrounder on their approach to correction: http://bohmeraudio.com/J345/index.php/background Eikon rear panel with attached cables: A little less tidy than you'd like to see for something sold as an end to end system, but most of us don't see the rear of our floor standers all that terribly often.

The difference matters quite a lot to any potential customer. If those orders are for end user customers, then anyone who hasn't yet placed a pre-order is out of luck until next year. If they however are mostly or all done by dealers who anticipate demand from their customers, then end users need only find a dealer who has a unit pre-ordered that isn't already spoken for by another customer. And I disagree with you a bit on dealer orders for a product like this. Yes, every dealer want to sell inventory, but this kind of product is a statement piece. If it sits in a showroom for some period of time before being offloaded, it at least has a cool factor that may translate to other business. I think many also figure that if they put it out there, it's going to get bought. Between the design element and of course limited production they may not be wrong. Do I think there are hordes of dealers buying one for display purposes only though? Certainly not.

You weren't the only media person who has had positive things to say about the SF launch event location: SoundStage! Hi-Fi | SoundStageHiFi.com - World of McIntosh on the Mediterranean SF seems to have been putting in a lot of effort to elevate the brand. The number of new products and entire new lines rolled out the last few years is substantial. They've pushed into headphones, now all in one units, fleshed out the speaker offerings from entry level to very high end and have offered more than one limited edition product. It will be interesting to see if the SF16 becomes a hard to acquire item given the limited production run or if the novelty wears off and you see many of them functioning as attractive dealer showroom pieces. That's not a knock on the product at all, but any gear costing this much has competition with a variety of alternative solutions so it remains to be seen what the true consumer appetite for it is. It's made to be on display so while it will work for some room environments, it simply won't for many others. The product that's always tugged at me is the Ex3ma. I followed the launch and all the coverage that came after. I even made inquiries to SF reps about them. Unfortunately, production was simply too limited. I was told there was no ability to get them in an alternative finish and frankly, even finding a pair to audition proved onerous, so I moved on. I still would love to hear them sometime though. Stand mounted 2-ways can be magical and these seemed like they could be that and then some.

You mean already spoken for by dealers who got to see it right? I'm not doubting the statement, but rather differentiating between end user sales and dealer orders, the bulk of the latter of which is of course intended to be then sold to customers. It would seem unlikely that 200 customers would have bought one sight unseen and sound unheard within a day after the launch. It's not impossible of course, after all we do live in a Kickstarter world, but at this price point I would be surprised.

So Chris, answer the key question....how does it sound???

Saw some info from KEF saying that these will ship in the next 2 weeks.

I actually haven't heard anything from KEF but I respect what they do and have always wanted to get an ears on. Have you had the chance to hear the LS50? If so, what were your thoughts? Jeff

I really hope that we see more competition in this segment. Granted, there are lots of computer speakers out there but so few are made by true audio companies. Even then, you usually see only one model and I don't think that represents the best that company could do and certainly what they might do should they take a shot at multiple models at multiple price points. That might result in a real revolution in the category and produce some truly amazing results at a variety of price levels. We are seeing some companies at least "dabble" in it, so that's something.

I agree about the target price point likely driving design elements here. That being said, so many computer speakers really aren't all that good and are being fed by poor audio cards or onboard motherboard sound outputs. While these aren't cheap (or small) they do offer quite a nice package from a company with a respectable pedigree. While these almost certainly won't sound as good as the widely praised LS50s from KEF, there are a lot of design cues these are taking from those. Notably, the driver design and the intended nearfield use that evolved from studio monitors. There's a good bit of promise there, so while the flexibility is limited, I think the results could be quite good. There's also something attractive about a simple all in one package. Less clutter, multiple boxes, etc. While $800 is far from cheap for speakers in this category, it pales in comparison to multi-component setups that include a DAC, amp, passive speakers, etc. I'm interested to take a listen and see what they offer once they are released. Jeff

The concept is good, but there are a couple of limitations that people should consider. On the positive side, the solution is all in one - speaker amplification an DAC. In fact each speaker has its own DAC and the connection from the primary speaker to the slave is digital. On the downside, the DAC tops out at 96, there is no sub out (if you wanted more bass), the digital input is USB only and any incoming analog signal through the aux input almost certainly gets digitized and then D to A'd before getting output. These probably aren't deal breakers for most folks, but hey are trade offs people should be aware of.

These are supposed to start shipping this month, so I would expect user reviews sometime after that. There was an early review on Tone Audio: KEF X300A powered speakers

I saw the same and was wondering exactly that. Maybe a 2.1 variant is in the works. Edit: Just looked through the other sections and the "Wireless Solutions" category, which also only has one product, also has that range tab. That product has been around for years so maybe the range tab is just part of the default menubar for the Series subsection of the website.

That's the one design element I wish they would have accounted for here - the ability to add a sub, even as an optional element. You could do it yourself using the analog input, but that seems like a huge waste of the built-in DACs (each speaker has its own). As a desktop system, I get the limited frequency response, but that option would have been great. Yes, it would have required additional hardware elements inside the units, but they aren't exactly small - or cheap, so it seems like it could have been added. Maybe they'll do that in v2...

Hi Bernard, I'm using screen sharing (in this case Remote Desktop - have used it for years), but I can also use the remote app on my iPhone or iPad to control playback from the desktop machine wirelessly. Separately, I have a copy of my lossless itunes library on a portable HDD that I sometimes use with my laptops, so this works well too. All in all, it's not a major problem by any means, I was just curious. That being said, the development roadmap for the Devialet Air software also indicates future AirPlay support, so that's why I was thinking that this may be just a current technical limitation/bug. For ultimate fidelity and data integrity, I agree though that a user shouldn't do multiple hops from source file to playback at the Devialet. Jeff