Some speaker’s appearance telegraphs their sound more than others, or so I say in a kind of surface way.
The Piega Coax Gen2 411 with their super solid and thick extruded black aluminum body, C112+ coax ribbon midrange and tweeter mated with a 6” UHQD (Ultra High Quality Definition) woofer said a number of things (to me) before sending music through ‘em—fast, precise, and airy. As I said, in a kind of surface way but after spending 4 months with the Coax Gen2 411’s, 411s from now on, I can tell you that fast, precise, and airy are words I’d also use to describe their actual sound.
The 411s are made in Switzerland as are all of the speakers from Piega. According to the company, the Gen2 version bring a number of improvements including:
- Perfected PIEGA sound quality for a unique music experience
- New C112+ and C212+ coaxial ribbons for even finer detail and wider frequency ranges
- Larger extruded aluminum cabinets of superior craftsmanship for increased volume
- Resonance-free thanks to new TIM2 modules and viscoelastic damping foils
- Timeless, modern design by Stephan Hürlemann
Each speaker weighs in at a solid 55 lbs. and Piega rates their frequency response at 35 Hz – 50 kHz with a 90 db/W/m efficiency and 4 Ohm impedance.
The 411s offer two sets of binding posts for bi-wiring or bi-amping that site below the rear firing port. The company refers to the internal bracing found in the 411s as TIM (Tension Improve Module) and TIM2.
From Piega:
The Coax series also stands out for its innovative cabinet bracing technologies, TIM and TIM2. These modules are a testament to PIEGA’s dedication to eliminating resonances and enhancing sound clarity. TIM2, the latest iteration, applies tensile stress to the cabinet’s inner walls, significantly increasing the construction’s rigidity. This advancement in cabinet design ensures the elimination of the slightest vibrations, leading to a remarkably pure and uncolored sound.
I would go out on hardly a limb and suggest that the materials and construction used in the 411s go a long way in explaining their superb clarity and control, even when put under my most aggressive torture test tracks. In addition, that coax ribbon has a very open presentation, lacking the kind of beaming found in some dome tweeters. And I do mean some dome tweeters, i.e. not every soft dome tweeter, because we all know that making sweeping generalizations sweep real world performance under the rug and there’s no such thing as the perfect driver. That said, there is such a thing as perfectly balancing strengths and weaknesses.
The Peiga 411s got to play on both sides of the Barn with a number of different amplification partners including the Barn resident Leben CS600X, the ModWright stack (review), the Vinnie Rossi Brama Integrated (more info), and the Unison Research Unico 90 Integrated Amp (more info). Once again, my favorite Piega partner was the (overachieving) Unico 90 ($5499) for performance and price which add up to good system building practices, imo. Digital front ends included the Barn resident Mola Mola Tambaqui (review), totaldac d1-unity (review), and the LTA Aero DAC (more info) which spent the most time converting digital to analog for the 411s for similar system building reasons, i.e. price and performance. The Auralic ARIES G1.1 (review) served the totaldac and LTA using lengths of AudioQuest Diamond AES and Carbon USB cables respectively (see full Barn and system details).
To my eyes, the Piega 411s have a distinctly modern, near minimal, super clean style and the mix of materials makes for an understated yet interesting visual conversation. As you might imagine, they are also super solid and moving them around took “lift with your legs” care adding to the overall sense of refined Swiss quality.
Still House Plants If I don’t make it, I love u gets more intriguing over time and what I once found a bit off-putting is something I now find captivating. Funny how that works. The three piece—Finlay Clark on guitar, Jess Hickie-Kallenbach on vocals, and David Kennedy on drums—from London rely on broken rhythm stutter step sound that lives and breathes by the fractured beat and the Piega 411’s speed and clarity proved to be the perfect combined strengths to dig into If I don’t make it deep. Clark’s tremolo-heavy guitar, Kennedy’s timing defying percussion, and Hickie-Kallenbach’s unique nearly free jazz vocal style offer a relatively simple set of voices so you have to get ‘em right otherwise this challenging music becomes too challenging. And the 411s were right in the mix, so to speak, leaving only the physicality of a larger floor standing speaker up to the imagination.
Knoxville, Tennessee’s The Midnight Ensemble latest, Let the Night In, is 41 minutes of e-thereal beauty. Classified as dark / doom jazz and ambient, I always find genres more about words than meaning, this self-released record from March of this year is heavy on mood and atmosphere with very careful attention paid to the sounds of electronics, drums, acoustic bass, and more—in space—which the Peiga’s dissolved into, creating a wonderful sense of the recorded event in Barn. Cymbals sparkled with live-like golden shimmer, piano rang out true, bass was nicely formed and richly colored, while the electronic soundscape created the work within which these elements played.
Another appropriate word for the Piega’s overall performance is refinement, as they are masterful with micro movements, the kind of fragile nuances that make this kind of music convey deeper meaning. Listening in in the dark, I could sense every subtle shift, every micro-movement, and every voice distinctly laid out in the space of the Barn as if this music was being made right here. And now. Nice.
Vidrio from Titanic (link) was released in 2022 featuring Mabe Fratti on cello and vocals, Jarrett Gilgore on saxophone, and Gibran Andrade on drums (another interesting and uncommon configuration). Here’s a secret—I often pick music that highlights standout qualities of the gear under review so I can talk about them. And Vidrio represents another wonderful carnival of sounds, moods, and movements that I suppose have some relation to jazz, contemporary classical, and theater. Interplay is where its at as is timing and tempo that veers off into tropical regions and the Piega’s worked as perfect transport once again offering a clear-as-glass view into the subtlest of shadings, the micro-est shifts in time, while presenting the big picture portrayed in speaker-as-source defying fashion.
The more I listened through the 411s, the more obvious it became that their near characterless clarity allowed for deep dive listening into every piece of music I asked them to portray. Of all their strengths, I would highlight this quality the most as the 411’s uncolored coherence proved to be truly captivating.
Getting back to physics, asking any stand mount speaker to fill the Barn is a very tall order and I found I enjoyed the 411s best when placed closer together than flooorstanding speakers that come in for a visit and a tad closer to the listening position. In terms of comparisons, the Perlisten R7t Tower Speakers (review) I spent time with back in 2022 are nearly the same price as the 411s so in that sense make for a relevant foil. But, and it’s a big but, the Perlistens are not well suited for small rooms while I’d imagine the 411s are. Or to say that in reverse, the Perlistens are better suited for a Barn-sized room (the A-Side is 18’ x 35’, the B-Side is 21’ x 35’ with 12’ ceilings).
The Perlisten’s DPC-Array (Directivity Pattern Control) for the midrange and tweeter does a great job at dispersion but without the benefit of a direct comparison I cannot speak to the nitty gritty differences between that and the 411’s coax ribbon. As you can guess, the large floor standing R7ts with their quad of 6” woofers move more air than the 411’s single 6” woofer and I feel nearly silly pointing out differences that are obvious to the eye as well as to the ear and admit that a comparison to a similarly priced stand mount would have made much more sense. Mea culpa. But, and it’s an important but, going forward I don’t see the point in reviewing stand mount speakers in the Barn for obvious reasons—they’re too small or the Barn’s too big. Your choice.
Valentina Goncharova’s Ocean – Symphony for Electric Violin and other instruments in 10+ parts was composed and performed by Goncharova in her apartment in Tallinn, Estonia in 1988 with the help of her husband and his home-brew electronics. Monumental in scale, complexity, and otherness, Ocean is a unique and enchanting work that demands complete attention for its near 90-minute duration. Today, giving something our undivided attention for 5 minutes seems to be a challenge so I think its becoming more than important to leave the e-world behind for the duration of an album, movie, book, or museum visit.
From the liner notes:
Ocean is the source of all forms that can receive their life within time and space. Here it is. It has everything: beautiful and terrible, good and evil, self-sacrifice and betrayal. Boundless love and inspired creativity. But contact does not happen immediately. The memory of a bygone civilization is still fresh, and of the dearest things left with it.
Which gets me to scale. This music, a lot of music, uses scale to convey meaning as well as drama and the Piega’s allow scale/drama to unfold in space with site specific clarity—they have a very deft touch. While those liner notes may seem overly dramatic, they’re not if you can get lost in this Ocean, in this sonic wonderland of stunning creative scope. Every odd cavernous blip, every heartstring violin sway—Goncharova studied concert violin and composition in Kyiv (Kiev), Hungary (Ukraine today)—amid synth landscapes and sonic otherness all add up to a Tarkovsky’s Stalker level intensity and the 411s allowed me to take that trip without distraction, delighting in the sounds and movements in this strangest of strange lands.
4 months is a lot of time to get to know a speaker and during their 4-month Barn stay the 411s moved from side-to-side between the Barn’s two listening spaces mixed and matched with a lot of different gear while being asked to play a sweeping vista of musical genres. And I grew to be more and more delighted with the Piega’s finely balanced strengths that nearly had me forget about their size.
The Piega Coax Gen2 411s have a lot to offer the careful listener with their entrancing balance of characterless clarity, uncolored coherence, superb sense of scale, and speaker defying presentation with bass response that I imagine would satisfy in a more moderately-sized room. If you value truly transparent sound that leaves you and your music alone together, the 411s are worth a look and listen.
Piega Coax Gen2 411 Standmount Speakers
Price: $9,995/pair
Company Website: Piega
US Distributor Website: MoFi Distribution
Technical Data
Finishes: White, Black, Aluminum
Recommended Amplifier Output: 20 – 200 watts
Sensitivity: 90 db/W/m
Impedance: 4 ohms
Frequency Range: 35 Hz – 50 kHz
Dimensions: H 17.72″ x W 8.27″ x D 12.20″
Weight: 55 lbs
Technology: 1 × 160 mm UHQD woofer 1 × C112+ coaxial ribbon
