This first session proved beyond doubt that the Dupuy Acoustique Bongo have excellent tonality and are remarkably low in any type of distortion that would disturb the overall listening experience. In fact the Bongo acquitted itself quite well when it comes to linearity. The melding of midrange units to tweeter was essentially seamless. This is no minor feat and it attests to Rudy Dupuy’s commitment to the design. The cloth dome tweeter did not have the extended range nor speed of the ribbon units employed in the Eficion F300M, but still provided a clean, engaging, and stable view of the stage and performance. Soundstage height, width, and depth, are first rate as one would expect from a stand mounted mini monitor such as these. However, it seemed the farther back the stage went, the darker it also got. This is where the superlative high frequency extension of the Air Motion Transformer and aluminum ribbon drivers of the Eficion come into play, albeit at much dearer cost.
Following this listening session were a series of sessions where I further explored the capabilities Dupuy Acoustique Bongo prior to introducing the Sub-300 subwoofer to the sonic equation.
Boom Chick-a-Boom Boom…
After quite a bit of listening to the Dupuy Acoustique Bongo and learning its attributes, both good and not so good, I figured it was high time to throw in the accompanying Dupuy Acoustique Sub-300 subwoofer. The Sub-300 is an active unit containing a 300 watt power amplifier. It is fully laden with connectivity and adjustment features including a continuously variable LEVEL CONTROL, continuously variable crossover point between 50HZ and 100HZ, PHASE INVERSION, LOW PASS DEFEAT switch, two different types of on-off triggers (12v and signal), LINE INPUT and OUTPUT, SPEAKER IN and OUT, and a MASTER ON-OFF switch. At a $1,500 price point, these sort of features actually make this an attractive standalone subwoofer offering that can be mated with any satellite system, not necessarily just the Dupuy Acoustique Bongo.
Setting up the Dupuy Acoustique Sub-300 in my room and configuring with the pair of Bongo was amazingly straightforward. Dialing in the level and crossover point proved to be much more simple that having pre-set crossover points as is the case of my reference Martin Logan Depthi subs. In a typical home environment where system configurations do not change month to month, this is obviously a good thing.
On the acoustic materials I mentioned earlier in this article the subwoofer rarely made its presence known with the exception of that all important rumble of the room whenever it was present in the live recordings. This alone added an important element to the sound and musical satisfaction of the Dupuy Acoustique Bongo.
When switching to more dynamic material with challenging bass notes, the Sub-300 proved to be the ideal match in speed to the Bongo. In fact the Dupuy Acoustique Sub-300 did nothing but augment, enhance, and improve the overall musical satisfaction of the Bongo. This observation held true in both situations, my reference 2-channel system as well as in my home theatre system downstairs.
In Summary
I have now had the Dupuy Acoustique Bongo in house quite a few months and over that period of time, whether inserted in my system downstairs or inserted into my reference system upstairs, this speaker system along with the augmentation of the Sub-300 acquitted themselves remarkably well. As chance would have it I had the pleasure of meeting Rudy and his associates at this past Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. As I stood there taking pictures of the system being presented and then sitting in the sweet spot, I could not help but smile from ear to ear. Indeed, there in the system sat a Conrad Johnson ART preamplifier and an early top line Sony SACD player. Yes, I instantly knew what sound he was after and indeed in that sense, he and his associates absolutely nailed it. The Bongo is not the most detailed speaker on the planet, but it acquits itself quite well. What is does do very very well is capture the essence of a musical performance and present it in an honest and richly satisfying way. At a price point $5,500 MSRP per pair for the Bongo and another $1,500 for the Sub-300, there are few full range systems that offer this kind of musical satisfaction with such an unobtrusive footprint. Recommended.
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Call me crazy but it looks like the speaker stands are upside down in the picture from your room on the last page of the review, as opposed to what looks like a mfg picture on page one of the review?
Sheldon,
That’s a sharp eyed observation. Yes, in fact the stands are indeed upsde down in my system picture. The reason for this was simple. My room has very thickly padded berber carpeting and the stands received for this review did not come drilled for spikes. I therefore had to stand them on the aluminum platforms that I normally use on my Eficion F300’s. Due to the footprint limitations of doing so, I found that the speaker and stamds were more stable at the optimal placement of these stands within the aluminum platforms if I simply inverted the stands.
Obviously under normal conditions, this would not have been necessary.