If I had to describe the Piega C-3 Limited in one word, it would be linearly neutral. Okay, that’s two words, but who’s counting. What follows is an attempt at describing what these speakers do, and how they sound.
The first time I heard Piegas, they were the P-5 Limited. This was not a speaker I liked at all. There were many things working against that speaker that day. Not the very least of which was a really bad 5.1 channel recording, and an engineer at this show trying to convince a room full of two channel guys that 5.1 was the future, and that we should bow down to the elite, supreme sound of this new format. After this event, I was totally unimpressed with the Piega sound, and crossed another speaker off my list of potential candidates for purchase.
I had always considered myself to be a listener who was most satisfied with a speaker that could convey the maximum amount of emotion, and did not really ever think that a neutral speaker could do that. I was resigned to the fact that a colored speaker that emphasized certain frequencies was just going to be a fact of life to get an emotional experience. Thank goodness I fell upon Piega’s new “C” series.
The “C” series Limiteds from Piega introduce a new coaxial ribbon system that handles all but the lower frequencies which are reproduced using 2 7” aluminum bass drivers. All of the Limited series drivers are produced in house by Piega. The enclosure is a single piece of 36” tall sand cast aluminum. It is “C” shaped, which is where the series gets it’s name. In other words, if you look at it from above, it is shaped like a “C”. Really a dumb looking “D”, but you get the picture.
Piega says that this is an optimal shape for rigidity, and excellent sound transmission. This cabinet is shaped a lot like the B&W Nautilus series, but quite a bit more attractive
.
The coaxial system is quite interesting, and is comprised of an LDR II tweeter, and a P-1 ribbon midrange in a single unit. Piega says they have only one guy making all of their coaxial ribbon systems, and it takes him 4 hours to do one single driver. This is all done in a low tolerance dust-free, climate, and humidity controlled environment. With this knowledge, one can see why they call this series “Limited”. Piega is a small company, and they only ship a few pair of speakers per week. Being a Swiss company means that they have a heavy emphasis on quality, and less emphasis on quantity. In fact, they can only produce 2 pair of their flagship loudspeakers, the C-40, per week.
What does all this mean to you? It means that you get a speaker that has been handcrafted, and inspected by master craftsmen from a country known for paying too much attention to detail. (See Patek Phillipe, Sig Sauer, Rolex, Omega, et al.). Ohh, and it sounds good too.
Let me get down to it.
Up until I heard the Piega C-10 Limited, I had not been able to hear a ribbon that I could live with. I had the good fortune to listen to some rare beasts in the ribbon stable. I listened to Maggie 3.6’s, which are pseudo ribbons I guess, but are not so limited. The Excelarray by Rick Craig is a rare speaker, and I know Rick is busy building all he can. Luckily, I was able to hear those a few times as well at Brad V’s.
My room is nowhere near the size that a Maggie requires, so off the list they go. Next, the Excelarray. This is one heck of a speaker, and an amazing value for the money. This somewhat furthered my misconceptions about ribbons, and neutral speakers. They just did nothing for me. They sounded great at every frequency, and perhaps lacked a little bass, but they were very detailed, and neutral. I just did not get that much emotion from them, and I assumed that was because of their neutrality.
A few weeks later, I heard the Wilson Sophia at my local dealer, and I liked them so much, I was ready to buy them on the spot! If I only had $12,000.
My misconceptions that a neutral speaker could not be emotional were fading fast. When I heard the C-10 Limited at my local dealer, my misconceptions were completely gone! I realized that a neutral speaker can be completely neutral, and linear, and still convey all the emotion I get from live music. The Piegas were much more linear than the Wilsons, and on top of that, they were cheaper. Win-win!
So, I worked through some other speaker choices, like the Revels and Talons, but I kept coming back again to the Piegas. I didn’t want to like the Piegas because of the earlier experience I had, but that was a completely different series, and this was a speaker I liked tremendously.
While none of this has anything to do with how this speaker sounds, I did want to give you background, and some other speakers that I have compared these with.
The Piega C-3 Limiteds arrived in somewhat large boxes, and weigh in at around 60 pounds each without packaging. When I got a whiff of that new speaker smell, I knew I was going to have to suffer through break-in like I have never experienced before with conventional cone drivers. Even so, right out of the box they were close to what I had remembered from the barely broken-in C-10 Limited I heard. My room is somewhat small at 12.5’ x 14.5’, and the C-3 Limited is perfect for that size. It actually would still work well in a larger room, according to Piega, but my room was too small to step up to the C-8 Limited.
I don’t miss much over the C-10 Limiteds because the C-3 Limiteds do go down to 32 Hz. This is about 10 Hz from the C-10 Limited, but 32 is plenty for me. The coaxial tweeter, and mid is the same from the C-10 Limited. The bass on these is better than the Wilson by far. It is tight, clean, and deep. The bass from these is very tonally accurate. It sounds like real bass. I heard speakers during my search that had more, or deeper bass, but not more natural bass. The Vandersteen 5’s had bass that would kill a small child, but it didn’t sound real.
Nevertheless, these are the deepest, most natural sounding speaker for bass that I have owned. They even surpass the Von Schweikert VR-4, and that’s one of the most highly reviewed speakers in the history of mankind!
I did notice the bass getting better over the break-in period. Right now, I have around 220 hours on these, and counting. The bass also got deeper, and more natural when I moved them away from the wall. I was not expecting this, but it worked for some reason. Pulling them out about 1/3 into the room is the right move for these if you can swing it. Not only do I get more bass, but I get more of everything. More definition, and way more soundstage.
These speakers have not only changed my preconceptions about neutrality, they have also made me forget about my system. In a few short weeks since I have had them, I have completely forgotten about my need for better cables, and other things I was concerned about before. I am able to enjoy the music like never before. These haven’t a hint of brightness, but they go to 50 kHz! People say we can’t hear very low, or very high, but there is something about the extra extension on these that just sweetens the highs, and makes everything sound more natural.
Moving right along, the vocals on this speaker are one of the things that drew me toward them in a big way. They are floaty, and real. There is such definition around the vocals. The vocalists are clearly outlined, and exactly where they are supposed to be. They are not miniature at all, nor are they like the Green Giant. They just sound right. Listening to Norah Jones on these is an experience I have had with no other speaker. I used that disc everywhere I went listening to speakers. This is the first time I have actually had to open my eyes during the listening session, just to make sure she wasn’t really there.
I listen to quite a bit of acoustic guitar. I also play a Martin, and for those who play acoustic guitar, it is hard to fool us into believing a reproduced acoustic. These speakers not only fool me, but this is the first speaker I have heard where I can tell beyond a doubt what guitar is being played. There’s a reason I play a Martin, and it’s all about the tone. When listening to Beppe Gambetta’s
Blu Di Genova, I have no doubt in my mind that Beppe is playing his Taylor. On the other hand, on
The Pizza Tapes, Tony Rice is obviously playing Clarence’s old Martin. There is very little sonic difference between that guitar, and his signature Santa Cruz, but these speakers are the best I have heard at distinguishing those differences.
Just last night, I was listening to a disc I have listened to almost as much over the past few years as
The Pizza Tapes. Pink Floyd’s
The Final Cut is not the favorite album of most die-hard Floyd fans, but it remains my favorite PF work to date. On that album, there is a track called “Paranoid Eyes”. The speakers I had were the first to convince me that the footsteps at the beginning were actually behind me. At first, it scared me, but then as I thought about the name of the song, it was profoundly clear. The Piegas not only do the footsteps behind me, but last night was the first time that I realized that those footsteps were walking just after a light rain. I could hear the little tiny bit of water being kicked up as the feet dragged the pavement. As a matter of fact, every couple of minutes on that disc last night, I heard something new. The retrieval of low-level detail is due much in part to my DAC, and transport, but they are the same DAC and transport combo I had with the old speakers as well.
I realize that some people will say that I am a detail freak because of that last paragraph, but if you are still with me, you will realize that I have never been interested in details before. But now I realize just how much those little tiny low level details add to the emotion of the music. Listening to track 20 on
The Pizza Tapes, and being able to clearly hear Tony’s chair squeak as he gets up and walks over to Jerry to hand him the Martin, it is quite an emotional event.
I will say one more thing, and this is a big, important one. These are the only speaker I have heard that will play linearly at all frequencies. . . . REGARDLESS of volume. The bass is there at any volume, and it is completely proportionate to everything else. That in itself may not seem like it would make that big a difference, but it does. On the soundtrack to
The Mission, there are many extremely dynamic tracks that start way low, explode, and go back to low. These absolutely nail that. That just brings more emotion out of it than a speaker that requires careful volume adjustments during a song to sound its best.
They will play very loud, and they will not break up. On Johnny Cash’s new disc
The Man Comes Around, track 2 is a Trent Reznor track that gets quite violent. The speakers I have now are the only ones I have heard besides the Excelarray that will not break up during this track. This track has lots of distortion, and intentional gain anomalies, but it is not jumbled up at all. On most speakers I have played it on, this track gets to the point where the instruments are no longer discernable from the vocals. Not the Piegas.
By the way, if you go hear them, take off the grills. These grills are very nice, and pretty, but they really change the sound for the worse.
I will probably think of more to add to this later, and as I listen more, but this is my first impression, and although I spent more than I wanted to on the Piegas, I have no regrets. This is a speaker I can easily live with for a long time, and my new reference. I am glad it has a six year warranty b/c by then, I’ll have a larger room, and step to the C-10 Limiteds, or the C-40!
Associated Equipment for this review:
- Kora Equinoxe pre-amp
- Aloia 13.01 amp w/ inductive power supply
- Sony DVP-7700S transport
- Scott Nixon Tube DAC
- Modded Scott Nixon digital cable
- Zu Cable Varial interconnect
- Bolder Cable M-80 interconnect
- 47 Laboratory speaker cable
