This is a cut and post of a review l wrote for another forum, l thought there may be a few Aussies here who would be interested in these awesome Oz made speakers. l placed my order last week
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l have been keenly following Mr Aslan aka Andrews development progress on his planned new flagship model the "ASLAN Acoustics Austral" since he first made the design public mid 2005. The use of a powered sub bass section that is Transmission Line (TL) loaded combined with a high end ribbon Tweeter and exhaustive cabinet design work and massive construction using the principle that no two sides were parallel (to eliminate standing waves) piqued my interest. Exclusive use of Mundorf crossover components, bass flat to 20hz and high frequency extension to 40khz all had my mouth (and ears) watering. Andrews offer of a road trip down to Mexico and the opportunity to hear them in my own listening room was too much of a temptation to refuse.
Andrew arrived at home late one afternoon with a van stuffed full of subs and his demo pair of Austral's. l wasted no time in helping him unload them into my living room and commence hooking them up. This proved to be quite a process as my passive pre lacks twin pre outs and Andrew did not have the leads needed to run high gain input into the inbuilt Austral subbies. Ratting though some boxes of old accumulated HiFi junk soon solved that slight setback and before long the Austral's were powered up and he went about the business of optimally positioning the speakers and my listening spot. He played a couple of tracks to confirm all was well and promptly left me to it for the remainder of the day.
Even though these are the original prototypes, the speakers were pleasing to the eye and looked attractive in my room with their slightly angled sides and rear. Standing around 1.6m high on aluminium feet they were substantial without being overbearing. The driver compliment consists of a Ribbon tweeter and a pair of midrange domes all made by Visaton, a pair of 170mm woofers exclusive to ASLAN and a TL loaded 12" in-house sub driver made specifically to ASLAN's specifications. All crossover components are Mundorf. In this particular pair one speaker featured a 250wpc stereo sub plate amp which was used to drive the subs for both speakers. Andrew offers various configurations here including larger a wattage amp, an amp in each speaker or even a 4 way passive option. All cabling is included with the speakers. Impedance varies in the 6-8 range and efficiency quoted at 89db/1w/1m so they are an easy load on amps offering flexibility on amp choice provided its of modest (>25wpc) output. Each box comes in at around 120kg.
From the outset l was extremely impressed with what l was hearing, l was immediately struck by the effortless and deeeep bass and beautifully detailed and extended midrange and highs. It was love at first hear! It took several hours of tinkering with the crossover and level settings of the Austral's built in 12" subs before l settled on optimal settings that gave seamless bass integration with zero boom. The temptation is always there to overcook the bass level which on some tracks proves satisfying, but on others is found to be overdone. Once you find the correct settings you find yourself no longer focussing on the bass but the overall sound, its then you know you have it right.
Kasey Chambers album "Barricades & Brickwalls" is great music recorded to a standard that sadly few commercial artists ever approach and is a long time favourite. Track 6, The Nullarbor Song" on the Austral's was utter magic. Never before have l heard her voice sound so pure and conveyed with all the emotion and rawness which makes her ballads so powerful. All the bite in her voice was there as it should be as was all the decay that is simply masked by most other speakers. Various other songs from that album especially track 13 "l pray", a duet with Paul Kelly, had me glued to my chair and smiling like a mad idiot. It was too good to be true, a pair of speakers this good, Aussie made and to top it off, l could afford them without robbing a bank or selling a kidney! Next in was Basement Jaxx's "Get me Off" from their album Rooty. Bloody hell, the bass was unbelievably deep, controlled and visceral. l have listened to this track on many systems and never have l felt it hitting me in the chest and energising the air in the room quite like the Austral's. At one point in the song a series of keyboard rhythms progresses down and down to subsonic frequencies, its an excellent piece of music to test the usable low frequency response from a speaker. The Austral's followed that note right down to its conclusion unlike all others speakers l have had in my room (Vaf I-93's excluded) that simply leave off the bottom and sometimes even the two bottom rhythms. Wow, l was not only smiling like an idiot but feeling pumped after that.
Next day a good mate of mine who is a drummer and has played on and off in pub bands for the last 15yrs came around. He had no choice after l told him how great these speakers were and how he must hear them whilst they were in my possession. Its worth noting he has heard most of the speakers l have over the years and is very familiar with all speakers l have owned prior to the Austral's. l value his "good ears" and a second opinion from someone who knows how to make music and what it should sound like. He too was equally impressed, commenting especially on the deep and articulate bass which allowed him to hear various drumming cues in songs that he had listened to many times previously and missed. We spent a good part of the day going through new and old favourites and marvelling at just how much fun the Austral's made music. Dynamic as hell, beautiful detailed midrange, extended and sweet highs, huge bass blah blah.......insert other HiFi adjective <here>
The Austral's are without a doubt the best speakers l have ever heard in my system, and one of the best speakers l have ever had the privilege of listening to. l have a long trail of previously owned* (or heard) speakers in my HiFi which include in no particular order Tannoy D700*, D900 & Westminster's, VAF I-93*, Magneplanar IIb*, stacked Quad ESL-57's* with Whatmough subs, Equinox Solstice, Osborn Epitome, and my current speakers, Equinox Jupiter's. In addition in recent times l have had a listen to Zu Definition 1.5's, Osborn Grand Monuments, Ambience Ribbons and Whatmough's Paragon. None have made listening to music so much fun and made me want to play until all hours of the morning like the Austral's. And for me, that's what its all about.
Music used for Auditioning
Snow Patrol
Dead can Dance
Kasey Chambers
Concrete Blonde
Bernard Fanning
Norah Jones
Audioslave
Basement Jaxx
Living End
Rage against the Machine
Richard Ashcroft
Adiemus
Metallica
Eva Cassidy
My gear
Audiomeca Mephisto II CD Transport
AudioNote DAC 3 Signature (with many many upgrades)
Bent Audio Transformer based Passive Pre Amp
Plinius SA-250mk2 250wpc Pure Class A Power Amp
Garden variety interconnects and Speaker wire
