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Burwell & Sons Homage Loudspeaker Review

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Listening

As I listened to them certain words came to mind, and I think those words would help you understand the sound of the Burwell & Sons Homage. The first thing that hit me when listening to the Homage was the scale of the sound they produced. The Burwell’s website talks a lot about “big sound” and with these speakers they certainly have reached their goal. Rock music, Big Band music, organ music, and live recordings all sound realistically big. Not only is the scale big, but it is very powerful and forceful.

Yet, when I played “Songs My Mother Taught Me,” a recording of classical violin accompanied by a piano, the sound still had appropriate scale. There was nothing bloated about the size of the violin or the piano. This recording and many other leads me to next words that came to mind as I listened to these speakers: They played music with beautiful tonal colors. I don’t remember hearing this when played with the Pass Labs amps at the show, but with the Wavac EC-300B they most assuredly did.

As I have mentioned before, one of my favorite audio writers and reviewers is Art Dudley; I still have all my issues of  his now-defunct magazine, Listener. He sometimes refers to a  piece of equipment as sounding juicy. I think with these speaker this is a better word to describe how violins, saxophones, guitars, and many other instruments sounded than saying they had a sweet sound. They play music with an amazingly organic sound. They are also very tuneful, I promise you will tap your feet.

One last word that cluttered my notes throughout all the listening sessions: fun, and the Homages most certainly are fun to listen to. I promise you that listening to ruckus, fun music through these speakers is simply about as good as it gets.

I’ve now reviewed two speakers in a row that use 15-inch drivers with really heavy magnets, and while their bass is big and quite romantic I have been surprised they don’t go any deeper than they do. Don’t get me wrong, the Burwell speakers move a lot of air and that in itself provides a very special listening experience. Still, compared to real life the bass is slightly veiled and just a little bit boxy sounding. Now, when I say this, their bass is much better than I have heard from any vintage Altec systems and not nearly as boxy. Still, compared to my Teresonic Ingenium speakers with Lowther DX4 drivers, they are just not as open and they don’t disappear in the same way.

It is amazing how visceral the music is played on these speakers, you can feel the music flow over your body in a very tangible way, even more than my reference speakers. This visceral experience is not limited to the bass; it’s that way across the full frequency range.  On the other hand, while they play with such power and they move so much air, they don’t start to come alive at very low volumes. On a recording that goes from really low volumes to really loud I found they didn’t get quite as quiet nor as loud as my Teresonics do.

So what I’m saying is while they are powerful and will play really loud they aren’t as dynamic from soft to loud as I’m used to. Neither do they have the micro-dynamics from the bass horn that I’m used to in that area, although the high-frequency horn has great micro-dynamics by the way. Unlike the LAL Athenaeum, male voices sounded really great as long as you didn’t turn the horn up too much, and that was true of female voices as well. I think it might be good to talk about three of the same recordings I used for the Linn review, so here goes.

Rob Wasserman’s Duets

I carried this recording all around the California Audio Show using it to evaluate systems. Very few of the systems at any price could hold it all together when I played the cut “Angel Eyes.”On this cut, Cheryl Bentyne’s voice goes from very soft to very loud, then back down to almost a whisper, and then explodes to end the cut. It is a real test of a system’s dynamics, harmonics, and ability to sound as good when played very softly as very loudly. At the show more than one exhibitor, some with systems topping the $100,000 price tag, commented that the recording just wasn’t fair. Still, others like the Acapella room or even the very reasonably priced Fritz Speakers room played it wonderfully. One of the reasons I said yes to reviewing these speakers was how well they played this track at the show.

Still, I wondered how will the Burwell & Sons play it with just 10 watts? The answer is pretty darn good. Bentyne’s voice was as pure and never broke up. Wasserman’s bass also sounded incredibly visceral, but not quite as fast as the LALs and nowhere as fast as the Teresonics. Which one you like will be a matter of taste.

Miles Davis’ Someday My Prince Will Come

I’m a big Miles Davis fan, and this LP is one of my favorites. I listen to both the mono original and the Analogue Productions 45-RPM version. With the Burwell, Miles’ trumpet is portrayed with nice and realistic bite, with that full juicy sound I talked about above. Jimmy Cobb’s cymbals had nice attack, really nice tonal color, but without quite the shimmer of the Teresonics. The scale of the instruments and the power of the performance was simply life size.

Joni Mitchell’s Blue

In 1971, I was a freshman at Baylor and discovered Joni Mitchell and the album Blue was my first exposure to her beautiful music. Now it’s 42 years later and I’m 59, and I love this album just as much as I did at 17 and any year in between. I listened to this album on KLH 17, on Double Advents, and then on Quad 57 for years. The last few years it has been on my Teresonic Ingenium XR Silver. I know this LP inside and out and I’ve not been as emotionally moved by it in years as I was listening to it over the Homage.

Mitchell’s voice was right there in the room, juicy and full of different tonal colors. The piano sounded good, but ever so slightly boxy. The guitar of Dulcimer sounded as good as I’ve ever heard them. Overall, they brought the emotion of this album alive in my room in a really moving way.

5 Responses to Burwell & Sons Homage Loudspeaker Review


  1. Jay Valancy says:

    Great review! Loved the Art Dudley reference…I hope he (and, for that matter, me) gets to hear, and see, these one day.

  2. David K. says:

    Interesting review of interesting speakers, thank you!

    Please don’t take the following as criticism of your review, I’m just sharing experiences. The negatives that you described about the looseness of bass are somewhat characteristic of Altec bass drivers when driven by SETs and for this speaker your 300B Wavac aren’t the best choice. Large Altecs woofers need more power and current to take hold of the 15″ driver , then you’ll hear how detailed and full bodied they are without sounding fat. As far as the depth goes, the criteria for theater speakers pre THX was 15kz-50hz and that’s how they were all designed including the fantastic Klangfilm horns. For quality musical reproduction of lower frequencies you need to match the VOTT with a good pair of passive subs, that’s just how it is. Not having heard these speakers I can’t comment on manufacturer’s claims of 30hz and what that really means.

  3. David K. says:

    PS. In addition to my comments above, I’m not recommending solid state electronics for these speakers, but quality push/pull tubes amps with sufficient power to handle the 15″ woofers.

  4. Jack Roberts says:

    David you maybe right; at the California Audio show I preferred them with the Raven Spirit 3ooB
    Reference Stereo Amplifier to the Pass Labs Stereo amp. The Raven does put out 36 watts per channel but it was not available for the review. Still I was able to get better bass in my room than with either amp at the show. That’s no surprise though, the show as in a hotel room.

  5. dominic tavoni says:

    is it possible to use your speakers outdoors ; are they waterproof or can they be coated to make them work outside

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