ProAc Studio 125 Floor standing speakers
ProAc is one of the rare manufactories, hallowing the traditions of foggy Albion: no move of production to China or other Asian countries. All production cycle starts and ends in the Great Britain - from the development of speaker systems, selection and order of dynamic heads to finishing of acoustic bodies exceptionally with natural veneer. Herewith only 10 people work in this world-famous company. How do they manage to saturate the market with products? It remains a puzzle. However, it is worth mentioning that overall production were deliberately sacrificed to the quality - the company prefers to keep a high price for its acoustics and is not going to reduce expenses (inevitably affecting the quality, no matter what who says). It is good that there are enough connoisseurs in the world, who are ready to pay an additional reward for the qualified manual assembly.
ProAc Studio 125 is the junior floor speaker system in the company's line and gives an impression of an extremely well-made thing. First of all, the perfect finishing of the body with yew veneer draws attention - natural wood pattern looks very attractive. The construction is two-way, acoustic design is a bass reflex. Tweeter with silk dome of 19 mm in the diameter is responsible for high frequencies, when the only speaker with polypropylene diffuser, covered in both sides with special damping composition, operates in MF/LF range. The bass reflex is made in interesting way - the main speaker is loaded on two ports of different diameter, locating on the back panel. Acoustic connectors allow two-cable connection. Traditionally for Slim body of the speaker system, traditionally for ProAc, is fixed on a wider pedestal in which the supplied spikes are threaded. In General, the speaker systems look more like expensive piece of furniture than a tool for audio playback.
The first thing that strikes ears is extremely comfortable sounding. No matter how you screw volume level handle you can't achieve the appearance of disharmony. Put "Living Loving Maid" of Led Zeppelin - the rhythm and drive are on the top, there is just a little miss of the lowest bass. The vocal is the strongest side of this pair. So, for example, the Norwegian singer Kari Bremnesjust went in the listening room and sang for the audience - her voice sounded so naturally. There is lots of "air" in ProAc Studio 125, all the instruments are well divided in the space and in addition the speakers reproduce perfectly the record atmosphere. The scene, drawn by the acoustics, can be considered as exemplary - it is easily read in depth. Excellent integration of frequency bands of heads makes the sound unusually harmonious, there is no any desire to describe "tops and roots" but just enjoy the music.
However, small sizes of the body and the main speaker could not affect the depth of the bass - Deep Purple sounds awesomely accurate, but still not enough saturated. But we know that the cost for extending of the range "down" is often a decrease of LF quality especially at the use of bass reflex design. The situation here is different - finesse and tonal fidelity counters with raw power.
