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The Audio Alto R101 : A special speaker for SET amplifiers and small acoustic spaces

My review on the Audio Alto R101 speaker just went up on the Stereo Times website. It was a pleasure to review this "petite" single driver floor-standing design because of it's overall beautiful musicality, amazingly good overall dynamics, and finally it's excellent top and bottom frequency extension. If you love tube based SET amplifiers or low power Solid State amplifiers (think Pass Labs XA-25) and have a relatively small acoustic space this might be a great speaker for your system. Take a look at the review for all the details that led me to this conclusion.  
teajay
timlub
2,039 posts
 
I've looked at this driver a few times,  nice, inexpensive and well built.  Although this looks like it may be a slight variation on the stock driver.  Looks like Audio Alto did a nice job on the cabinets,  But to reiterate what Ralph said.... You need a minimum of around 95db sensitivity to use a small tubed set amp and 100 is better.  These are rated at 85
teajay OP
1,691 posts
 
Hey atmasphere and timlub,

Normally, I would agree with both of you regarding having to have a higher sensitivity for a speaker to really have a SET amplifier "shine" in it’s performance. However, when I ran the experiment in a medium sized acoustic space with my Triode Lab 2A3 SET amplifier (maybe three watts per channel) during the reviewing process, the R101s with this superlative "flea watt" amplifier sounded terrific and I got the volume levels I wanted with no attenuation or distortion at all.
almaaudio's avatar
almaaudio
14 posts
 
Unlike Terry, we didn’t try a true SET on them, but I can tell you that an 8W Luxman SQ-N150 was able to drive it properly, and a 32W Air Tight was absolutely effortless.
They do respond to more power, but more importantly, for the proper frequency balance, the manufacturer recommends an amp with reasonably low damping factor.

lula
213 posts
 
Hi Terry,
Read your review.....how does the R101s compare with the Tekton Perfect Set? "Articulate bass" usually means detailed but lacking a full-bodied mid-bass and slam....is that the case here?
Thanks,
Phil


teajay OP
1,691 posts
 
Hey lula,

Your asking me to compare" applies" to "oranges" with these two wonderful performing speakers.

1) The Perfect Set has a 12" woofer, so it will go deeper and produce more bass then the single driver R101.

2) The R101 is not lean in the upper bass/lower midrange region. Therefore, it is surprisingly good at presenting the power band of the music for such a small single driver design.

3) The Perfect Set is not a small footprint speaker. The R101 is quite minute and would fit into and sound better in a much smaller acoustic space.

Both are excellent speakers, but serve different design goals and space requirements. 
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