I dont normally do "reviews" as sound is so subjective - we all hear differently and have different priorities towards sound quality, so my opinion of a product is just that- an opinion.
I'm also not impressed with the majority of reviews in the audio world, as most reviewers have an appalling lack of technical knowledge, and are really quite unqualified even to broadcast an opinion.
Never the less, I've come across a product that I would like to make comment on, as the design philosophy is very close to what I consider to be state of the art in audio playback.
Regular readers of this blog will know that my reference speaker system is a hybrid active electrostatic system that consists of a Martin Logan Request , which has a large electrostatic panel with 12" bass driver in sealed box. The bass is driven by a solid state amp and the stat panels are each driven by a strong tube monoblock amplifier.
The passive crossovers are removed, crossover is by DEQX, 12dB Butterworth. Adjustment to sound done via computer USB and can be done on the fly , with levels/EQ able to be adjusted from burning your ears out with detail to warm euphonic "tube" sound.
Of course I prefer a natural, accurate sound.
The system is complex, heavy, burns a lot of watts and sounds very good.
The Whise HA1500 is also an active electrostatic speaker with built in power amps, crossovers and adjustment controls . It is relatively compact, comes in a glorious design and finish , so good that it won a Good Design Award 2007 from the The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design .
Normally a speaker with this type of looks and finish would exist in the 10-15$K price range.
The Whise HA1500 has had an interesting history; conceived and designed in Australia, it was presented to Nakamichi of Japan who decided to market the speaker under their brand and gave it the highest distinction by naming it Dragon, which is reserved for the highest echelon of their product range.
The Nakamichi Dragon tape deck is still considered to be one of the finest recording devices ever made.
Unfortunately the relationship between Nakamichi and the designer/manufacturers fell through and only around 200 pairs were built.
They've been available in Australia for a few years, and have been quietly sold through various retail outlets.
I became aware of them a few years ago, and admired them from a distance, and even came close to buying a pair in 2010.
Recently the price became even more attractive as the manufacturers wanted to quit all stock and move onto other projects and I could not resist temptation any longer.
Using the Dragons simply requires an input from a preamp, line source or amplifier terminals, although under the latter method the Dragons inbuilt power amps are still driving the speakers.
I connected a preamp , and watched as the yellow neon lights on front panel turned to blue as audio was detected, very cool, and I sat down with an iPad in my hand to remotely select some music.
The Dragons have a series of controls on the back panel, consisting of volume, and 3 tone controls: a "room brightness" control to adjust treble, a +- 6dB bass control at 80Hz and a +- 6dB control at 250Hz which is approx the crossover frequency.
I placed all controls at the 12 o'clock or midway position and played some music.
Immediately I could tell I was listening to a very good speaker, but the frequency response was not right at all, with too much bass, and too much treble.
It turned out that the 12 o'clock position is not the "flat" position for the controls , and I spent a considerable amount of time adjusting the controls to get a reasonably flat response.
The Dragons are difficult to adjust , I dont know why the designers chose this particular set of controls , but I would have much prefered to see simple level controls for the bass and stat sections of the speaker; the separate sections of the speaker are very good, and don't need such heavy handed controls imo.
I've read of people immediately disliking the Dragons, I'd suggest the tone controls were not set to advantage, it is quite easy to make the dragons sound very strange with the tone controls.
However, they do provide the means to adjust the sound to suit a wide variety of rooms and taste, it is a slow and tedious procedure but after a couple of days I was quite happy with the frequency response. Later on I moved them into a quite different and larger room and had to go through the same procedure, but again had good success at integrating them into the room.
If achieving the correct frequency response was hard work, there was certainly no problem in recognizing that the sound of the electrostatic Dragons was extra-ordinary. The music literally leaps out of the speakers in a highly defined soundstage that has excellent width and very defined depth, perhaps the best 3D effect I've heard . Detail is amazing , electrostatics are renowned for resolution, but the light membranes used in the Dragons give the best resolution and transperancy I've heard from the dozen or so electrostatics I've heard over the last 40 years. They are very, very fast, I doubt there is a speaker available that has the rise time of this electrostatic panel.
But they aren't overly bright or fatiquing - the "room brightness" control needs to be adjusted accordingly to avoid treble attenuation, but used appropriately the speakers give a very natural, organic sound.
The amazing transperancy does mean that a very good preamplifier needs to be used, I went through 5 preamps before I found one that I thought really suited the speaker and my taste.
Some will use the speaker with a direct connection to a line source, this may work well, but I'd always use a tube preamp with an active set up, or indeed any serious audio.
The ultra-quality of the sound exposes any weakness of equipment and recordings, other owners of the Dragons say the Dragons are best with certain equipment and recordings, that some recordings don't suit the Dragons.
I think it is a case of the Dragons revealing the short-comings of these recordings, a less than optimum recording may escape observation by lesser speakers, but the Dragons reveal all.
The bass of the Dragons is particulary interesting.
Now I'm not usually impressed or believing of the marketing hype that comes with audio products , but there are some aspects of the Dragon design that are innovative and clearly audible and to quote the Dragon literature:
” Balanced PAMSubwoofer technology for a powerful bass experience without any loss of punch or transparency in the low frequencies;
” Ultra-thin Electrostatic Loudspeaker (ESL) Arrays which break boundaries in physical size, dispersion, loudness (SPL) and transparency, to provide a musical experience with unsurpassed realism.
” Ultra-thin Electrostatic Loudspeaker (ESL) Arrays which break boundaries in physical size, dispersion, loudness (SPL) and transparency, to provide a musical experience with unsurpassed realism.
The advanced subwoofer technology adopts advanced acoustic measures to ensure that the bass/sub bass audio is clear from distortion and vibration. Harmonic distortion is reduced to incredibly low levels, even at full power, combined with an incredibly fast transient response"
Whise were highly regarded in the pro-audio world, and their sub-woofer technology has filtered down into the Dragons. Neither of the 2x 8" drivers are visible as they are used in a band-pass design which encloses them inside the enclosure. Output is from a single port, and frankly the definition and output from this port is hardly believable.
Those damn tone controls have to be used again to get the output reasonably flat, but once done the bass is as clean and free of overtones as you could hope for from such a reasonable sized enclosure.
Whise called this form of bass modelling P.A.M and Greg Borrowman in a review of a Whise subwoofer explained very well how it works:
A very good test of a subwoofer is to drive it with a full-range audio signal and listen to what comes out. The easiest way of doing this is to connect the line output of a CD player to the line inputs of the sub, insert a CD and press ‘play’. What you shouldn’t hear are any muffled higher-frequency sounds, particularly voices. Try this test with the Whatmough-Whise Impulse and all you hear are low frequencies…and if there are no low-frequency sounds on the CD, total and complete silence. The high-pass filtering is that good.
The bass I heard from the Impulse was immediately noticeable because it was so free from distortion that I was able to immediately detect the pitch of every note the instant it was played. In a perfect world, this is exactly what should happen, but the fact is that almost all subwoofers have such high levels of distortion that this is not possible. The mechanism that’s at work is that when a bass guitarist plays a low ‘G’, for example (49Hz), nearly all subwoofers will generate not only this ‘G’, but also another ‘G’ an octave above (at 98Hz, which is the second harmonic) as well as a ‘D’ five notes above that (at 147Hz, which is the third harmonic). So instead of hearing just the one single note, you’ll hear three notes, and it’s up to you to decide which one the composer (and musician) intended you to hear! The ear works this out automatically from the context of the music (the key the music is in lets you eliminate the false D fairly quickly while the phrasing would be the only clue to which G to choose). These decisions are made by your subconscious, in just a few moments, but the more distorted the signal (and thus the harder your ears and brain will have to work) the less ‘easy to live with’ you’ll find the quality of the bass.
Play a ‘G’ through the Impulse and all you’ll hear is the original ‘G’ at 49Hz. The difference this makes to the clarity of music being played is so unbelievable that you really have to hear it for yourself to believe it. When you do, you’ll discover it’s easiest to hear with musical examples, either from a CD or a DVD soundtrack, but the freedom from distortion is clearly audible even with movie sound effects.
The frequency response is exceptionally flat. I connected a standard synthesiser directly to the line inputs of the Impulse and played a two-octave chromatic scale starting at the lowest note on the synth (a ‘B’ at 30.87Hz) I couldn’t detect any change in volume level until I reached the ‘G’ at 98Hz. Needless to say, if the Impulse can pass such an extreme ‘live music’ test, you’ll have no worries playing back recorded music. The synth also showed the Impulse’s response dropped off very quickly above the ‘G’, being noticeably softer even just three notes above, at ‘C’ (130.81Hz). The Dragons also have this character of low distortion, but that very steep roll-off of the higher harmonics is particulary evident , and leaves the splendidly clean and resolving sound of the stat panel free of any bass overtones or "muddiness.
Bass is similarly transperant and resolving- there is never any "one note" tone and one can easily follow a bass line quite distinctly from the music.
The two technologies of PAM bass loading and the light weight, high speed electrostatic panel combine perfectly , although this is an active hybrid system, it is integrated in superb unison.
One downside is that the downward extension of bandpass designs are restricted by enclosure size. The Dragon has exceptional bass, but it does not do sub-bass, you need a real sub-woofer to get earthquake effects. Again that 80Hz tone control is of no help here, its just too high for sub-bass control.
Another of the marketing claims is for what is called NTM crossover design.
The Dragons use an analog crossover which surprisingly uses quite ancient IC chips, however they have been proven as high quality sound devices over a long period- think of them as NOS exotica!
The design is claimed to offer high order roll-offs with low order group delay, and it certainly sounds like this to me.
I've had a lot of experience with active crossovers and while it is possible to get very high order crossovers these days, they never seem to have the same "organic-ness" and natural sound of lower order crossovers.
The designers of the Dragon claim to have combined the best of high and low order crossovers and I believe them. The proof is in the splendid 3D imaging and sound-staging that extends beyond the physical boundaries of the speaker.
Internal amplification is by 100 watt class AB amps, one each for the stat panel and the dual bass drivers. They sound fine, there's no mistaking they are solid state amps, but they have good tone and good control over the drivers.
Without passive crossovers to soak up the power the Dragons can play very loud- at extreme volume levels they do strain a little, but this is at volume levels you only get to enjoy when home alone.
Once upon a time stats didn't do high volume, but the new designs available now are up there with the very best at providing clean volume, the Dragons are probably better than the majority of moving coil speakers for loud, clean and accurate sound.
So how does the Nakamichi Dragon compare to my similar Martin Logan active stats?
Firstly, my ML's are heavily modified and quite different to a stock Martin Logan Request, I dont think there is any comparism to a stock ML and the Dragons- the Dragons are clearly better in just about every way. My modified, active Martin Logans are quite a bit larger than the Dragons and do have a slightly bigger soundstage, but the stat panel technology of the Dragons, combined with the special crossover gives better imaging - that 3D presentation I keep talking about, the Dragons also have more detail and insight.
The Martin Logans have a baffle mounted 12" bass driver in a sealed box; while not as well defined as the Dragon bass in the upper bass region, it does extend further into sub bass area and moves more air than the rear mounted port of the Dragon can.
The big advantage the Martin Logans have is that external amplifiers are used, and they are powerful 100 watt tube amplifiers especially built for stats.
As good as the Dragon stat/class AB amp combination is, nothing sounds as real as a stat driven by a capable tube amp.
The ML's may lose a little detail in comparism, but they are smooth and very naturally musical.
Musical sessions are enhanced and prolonged by this rare ability to connect with the music.
I really enjoy the Dragons but after a while you realize you are listening to a very good speaker without perhaps the involvement the active tube driven ML's give.
The ML's also have the advantage of a very useful and very variable digital crossover, the DEQX can offer an option of 3 crossovers available on the fly, EQ which is very useful for extending and tightening bass well into the sub-bass area, and tuning for room effects/ taste.
But this comes at the cost of complexity and less than eco-friendly power requirements, 4 amps, DEQX, preamp, and line source. And most people don't have the ability or inclination to do a modification of this scale.
The Dragons simply need a line source, although I consider a preamp a neccessity. As a complete package the Dragons are awesome, and I consider them to be possibly the best audio product to ever come out of Australia.
If they didn't have those damn tone controls and had the ability for the stat panels be driven by a tube amp I would consider them the perfect speaker.
Hopefully the designers will one day resurrect the concept, in the meantime I'm happy to join 200 other owners in enjoying the music.
NB I'm using the Dragons with JBL active subs, and a little bit of JRiver 64 bit EQ.
