PAP Q15 w/Voxativ AC-X during assembly. Sound Lab Majestic 945PX on the side.
Although the system sensitivity is rated at 96 dB, and that on the Voxativ AC-X field coil driver alone is listed as 95 dB at 60 Hz and 101 dB at 4K Hz, the additional pull of the four 15-inch Eminence woofers per channel seemingly means no single-digit output SET amplifiers need apply, but the $21,495 SW1X Audio Design AMP V Titan SP Direct-heated Triode 300B integrated amplifier’s eight watts per channel drove the speakers to insane levels. Consequently, the AMP V Titan SP sounded like the most buffed eight-watts amplifier ever, and the four Eminence A15SEN 15-inch woofers per channel on the Quintet15 Voxativ AC-X rumbled absolutely with nil excursion.
Digital playback was via the $6,300 Aurender N200 Network Transport in conjunction with the $16,000 Bricasti Design M21 DSD dual-mono DAC outputting analog signal through the $5,000 Audience AV frontROW RCA interconnects that fitted into the very tightly spaced input jacks of the SW1X, and a $70,000 pair of Audio Reference Technology Sensor Haute Couture spade Italian-manufactured, Taiwanese-owned speaker cables.
Analog playback for this review was via the $19,000 Audio Note UK IO Ltd field-coil cartridge, mounted on the company’s custom, six-wire AN-1S six-wire tonearm, fitted to a Technics SP-10 Mk2A turntable. An Audio Note UK AN-9L SUT in tandem with an M6 Phono preamplifier fed the DIRECT-IN RCA inputs of the SW1X, which bypassed the SELECTOR and VOLUME switches, rendering the integrated amplifier a stereo power amplifier instead.
As such, playing Sir Georg Solti’s 1984 Decca digital recording of the Mahler Fourth Symphony LP, the PureAudioProject delivered a very uniform and coherent top- to the bottom-end from the Q15, with dynamics renditioning almost as pure as that of the Sound Lab panels. There were days when I would submerse myself in the world of the Solti Mahler Fourth, and the forty-five minutes spent with the Quintet 15 AC-X was among the most immersive amidst the highly conversational procession and the superbly insightful pacing of the music. The secretive high-value capacitor in the crossover network that relieves the AC-X field-coil driver from ultrasonic duties has to be some kind of wonder part, for it rendered the single driver dynamically powerful in recreating foreboding crescendos and devastating fortissimos, uttering waves of utterly coherent instrument presence into the listening space. From the most fragile of woodwinds to the most dominant brasses and the sweeping strings in between, the AC-X produced such sound pressure as to adorn realism of the highest order.
To appreciate classical music, one needs to cultivate a love and sensibility for the pureness of a piano note, or that of a violin, trumpet, oboe, cello and et cetera. Piano solo recordings from classical label Deutsche Grammophon, particularly of the sixties through the eighties were standard-bearing testaments to the vinyl format both in terms of quality of vinyl pressing and music, and the sheer sparkle and purity of the piano tone from these music as realized through the field-coil driver-enriched speaker system was unreal. It produced a sonority and depth of tone not heard from others, although memory recalls how seductive the Tannoy dual-concentric was in the Westminster Royal SE, but as good as the Tannoy was, the energy loss from crossover split was ever present, and its transients were not as fast. To ascertain the Q15’s efficiency, I rotated the First Watt SIT-2 10-watts-per-channel solid-state stereo amplifier into the mix and the PureAudioProject sailed just as smoothly and powerfully.
In fact, regardless of it being driven by SET or SIT, the Q15 with the lone seven-inch field-coil full-range cone and the four fifteen-inch woofers per channel was thunderous when needed and unbelievably nuanced and frail-sounding in appropriate passages. And it was immediately apparent that the custom Eminence woofers played a huge role. Gliding in sync with the lone but ever powerful Voxativ, the four massive woofers rendered information at 350 Hz and downward downright fast, detailed and solid, yielding extraordinary musical cues from otherwise ordinary classical recordings. I stood next to the woofers on many occasions to bear witness to their workings and the cones barely stirred. The nil cone excursions explains the linearity of the bottom-end renditioning.
To me, the crust of listening to classical music lies in the unveiling of the genre’s unique expressive force when a music is performed with the optimal touch and recorded accordingly. There is always one supreme performance of any given piece, whether it is the solemn yet serene “Funeral March,” 2nd movement of the Beethoven Symphony No. 3, carried with a most refined momentum as performed by the Berlin Philharmonic in the 1983 digital recording as conducted by Herbert on Karajan, and recorded most sonorously and miraculously by Deutsche Grammophon and never again, or the 1979 Philips analog recording of the Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade as conducted by Kirill Kondrashin and performed by the Concertgebouw Orchestra in an atypically frenzy but precision performance of the widely recorded piece that renders the recording supreme in evocation and conveyance, plus many more.
But these recordings were made by DG and Philips in ways unlike the rest, and the Q15 AC-X fully demonstrated the coherent suite of brilliance and richness of tone from these recordings the likes of which not found elsewhere. When compared to the $55,000, 89 dB Sound Lab Majestic 945PX as driven by the powerful Bricasti Design M28 monoblocks, the Q15 AC-X unearthed the unmistakable 300B glow of the SW1X that though not as fragrant as with other 300B designs, atop a seemingly bottomless dynamic contrasting, was nonetheless perfection for conveying the spectacular tonalities of the Berlin Philharmonic.
Audio systems can be eerily similar in what they offer to respective owners. Speaking for myself, the Sound Lab method of a vast canvas of meticulous electrostatic soundwave generation for music playback continues to be definitive, and my list of designs that can compete is only getting shorter. The PureAudioProject Quintet 15 is rare as being a purist’s sub-$30,000 design that mimics the Sound Lab line source with a highly uniform floor-to-ceiling bass output, and the field-coil full-range seven-inch driver is a bona fide audio gem.
The contrast and similarity couldn’t be more striking between the PureAudioProject and the Sound Lab, in which one system uses just one lone albeit powerful driver for full-range sound reproduction versus one that employs a large canvas of radiating area of a panel. And yet, both systems have no magnets and operate on externally energized principles. The wonders of such systems boggle the mind each time I play music through them.
Ultimate dynamic expression has always been the justification for many speaker manufacturers’ adoption of multi-driver dynamic designs, but the ultimate goal has always been to replicate the phasic and tonal characteristics of a single point-source. The Voxativ field-coil operation in full-range sans crossover intrusion as implemented in the Quintet15 is the most consummate and powerful realization of the single-driver principle. While it still has to delegate lower frequencies to the four woofers, my ears tell me that no other $21,000 multi-driver design has attained the heights that the PureAudioProject method scaled.
As of this moment in the audio industry, the Quintet15 w/ Voxativ AC-X is the highest expression of the high-efficiency, single-driver based full-range speaker system under $50,000.
Review System:
Acoustic Sciences Corporation TubeTraps
Audience AV frontROW RCA cables
Audio Reference Technology Sensor Haute Couture spade speaker cables
Audio Reference Technology Analysts EVO RCA
Audio Reference Technology Analysts SE interconnects, power cables
Audio Reference Technology Super SE interconnects, power cables
Stage III Concepts Ckahron XLR interconnects
Audio Note IO Ltd field-coil cartridge system
Audio Note UK AN-1S six-wire tonearm for IO Ltd
Audio Note UK AN-9L stepped-up transformer
Audio Note M6 Phono preamplifier
Technics SP-10 MK2A turntable
Audio Desk Systeme Ultrasonic Vinyl Cleaner
Aurender N200 high-performance digital output network transport
Bricasti Design M21 DSD dual-mono DAC
SW1X Audio Design AMP V “Titan” SP 300B DHT SET integrated amplifier
Bricasti Design M20 Preamplifier
PureAudioProect Quintet15 Voxativ AC-X open-baffle field-coil speaker system
First Watt SIT-1 monoblocks
First Watt SIT-2 stereo amplifier
Pass Laboratories Xs Phono
Pass Laboratories XA200.8 pure class A monoblocks
Bricasti Design M28 class A/AB monoblocks
Sound Lab Majestic 645 electrostatic panels
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