There’s something nice, something intimate, about a good two way.
“But wait—isn’t that kind of a smallish speaker for that kinda biggish space?” I know, I thought the same thing until music came out of the Bach Ultimates. Then I stopped thinking and started listening.
The two drivers in use per side of the two-way rear vented bass reflex Bach Ultimates consist of a proprietary hand coated silk dome tweeter, as found in the Vienna Acoustics Liszt and Beethoven References models, paired with interesting 7” mid/bass drivers. Interesting in that the cones are made from a thermoplastic/polypropylene based material that is perfectly clear. Transparent. See through, right through to the spider inside.
Here’s Vienna for more on the those mid/bass drivers:
BACH Ultimate features our exclusive 7” X3P cone mid/bass driver. The material formulation “X3P” is a mixture of Vienna Acoustics’ proprietary TPX, the unique thermoplastic used in all XPP cones, and three polypropylene based synthetics (hence X3P), resulting very high inner damping, while providing hugely increased stability and rigidity, which made the large cone dimension achievable. Combined with a new inverted rubber surround design that constitutes a breakthrough in no loss damping of cone edge resonances, this cone material allows the driver to provide an extraordinarily wide bandwidth, while possessing a level of inner detail, quietness, and control that is truly remarkable. The result is a midrange with greatest clarity and warmth combined with bass extension, speed and power.
Speaking of bandwidth, the company rates the Bach Ultimate’s frequency response as reaching from 35Hz up to 20kHz, fairly full range for a modestly sized two-way with a single 7” mid/woofer per side, with a 90dB sensitivity and 4 Ohm impedance.
The Premium Rosewood veneer on the cabinets, which measure 9.5” wide x 36.5” high (with the included spikes) x 11.8” deep, with their nicely curved edges look the part of premium in person and overall the Bach Ultimates are very nicely made and feel reassuringly solid.
The decorative shiny metal silver plate that sits below the port around back includes Bach’s likeness and a “Carefully handmade in Vienna, Austria” script inscription that add a bit of splash along with a single pair of gold binding posts. The company shares that “All decisions concerning individual components and the layout of the circuitry were as always made through extensive listening tests by Peter Gansterer,” Vienna Acoustics founder and chief designer who launched the company in 1989 in, you guessed it, Vienna, Austria.
Vienna Acoustics’ original Bach Classic loudspeaker arrived in 1995, 300 years after the birth of its namesake composer Johann Sebastian Bach, so the Limited Edition Bach Ultimate, limited to 100 pair in the US and Canada (only), are a celebration of composer Johann Sebastian Bach’s 300th anniversary and the Bach Classic’s 30th.
During their 2 month Barn stay, the Bach Ultimates resided on the Barn’s B-Side (21’ wide x 35’ deep x 12’ high) and saw a number of amplification partners including the recently reviewed Fern & Roby Amp No. 2 (review), the review Luxman L505Z (more info), Cambridge EX stack (more info), and even a spin with the Octave V 70 Class A Integrated Amplifier (more info). The Barn resident Mola Mola Tambaqui streaming DAC (review) as well as the Cambridge EXN 100 took care of converting the bits while cable from AudioQuest wired everything together (see full Barn and system details).
I will note up front that the Bach Ultimates enjoyed all of these fine integrated amp partners that range in output power from about 25 Watts to 100 Watts (into 8 Ohms). This makes them less picky, at least according to my tastes, than the Vienna Beethoven Baby Grand Reference I reviewed back in July of 2021, an eternity ago in reviewing years, that came to life most convincingly with the powerful 600 Watt (into 4 Ohms) Parasound JC 5 power amplifier. The Beethoven Baby Grand Reference are a 3-way design that I enjoyed but frankly not as much as I enjoyed the Bach Ultimates. While it’s been too long since the Beethovens left the Barn to do an in-depth AB comparison, re-reading my review reminded me that I didn’t go head over heels for the Beethovens because that last bit of emotional connection always seemed just out of reach.
The Bach Ultimates, with their immediacy, coherence, and energy made it easier to make that connection. Contrary to popular belief, at least among some men who comment about hifi online, making an emotional connection to music played on a hifi is a personal thing that lives well outside of spec sheets and price tags. And I will share that the Luxman and Fern & Roby amps made perfect partners for the Bach Ultimates, each in their own way with the Luxman pairing offering more richness and overall weight, while the Fern & Roby emphasized delicacy and speed while both integrated amps offered excellent bass control.
In many ways, singer-songwriter music is the meat and potatoes of my playlist. Simple, mainly acoustic vocals-driven music can tell us a lot about what our hifi is doing and one of very favorite recent finds is from the Cardinals At The Window compilation that amounts to over 6 hours/136 tracks of previously unreleased music from nearly as many musicians to raise money for people in need in Asheville, NC after their recent and devastating flood.
The track that has me hitting repeat more than most is Track 4 from S.G. Goodman with Bonnie “Prince” Billy titled “Nature’s Child,” a perfect 3:25 slice of heaven in song. I’m a big fan of both singers as they each have a very distinctive voice that they put to great use telling stories in song. Goodman opens this number with her slight rasp that can nonetheless ring out with effortless power. Bonnie “Prince” Billy joins in at about the 1:30 mark with his deeper raspy voice and when the duet begins, all beauty breaks out. The interplay of such distinct voices was thrown out into the Barn with wonderful clarity and precision by the Bach Ultimates, highlighting not only the differences in the sound of each voice but the way each singer subtly twists and turns words. A Dialectologist’s delight.
While it may seem like a simple thing, recreating two people singing together in a convincingly distinct physical space while their voices blend into one while retaining the quality of each is not as simple as it sounds. The Bach Ultimates pulled this off with convincing clarity and ease.
Turning up the complexity a bit and the volume a bit more, another recent favorite album comes from British indie rock band Porridge Radio titled, Clouds In The Sky They Will Always Be There For Me released on Secretly Canadian earlier this month. Fronted by vocalist, songwriter, and lead guitarist Dana Margolin, Clouds… is a beautiful blast of a record that ups the ante on production over the band’s previous releases, very much like the new Fontaines D.C. record and the latest from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. Drama is in the air. The opening track is the calm before the storm of the rest and “A Hole In The Ground” burns with a ferociousness fueled by drummer Sam Yardley’s opening flourishes joined by Margolin’s vocals and then its build build build. Layers of sound propel the story and the Bach Ultimates driven by the equally sumptuous and powerful Luxman L505Z did a fine job painting this dense sound image across the Barn, lighting up the space and me with pure energy.
I’m loving the abandon of Clouds… that’s present in vocals, words, and band and the Bach Ultimates showed off their skills in unraveling even the densest bits of crashing cymbals, carnival organ, throbbing bass, searing guitar with Margolin riding the wave to emotionally spent heights. Whew!
Raphael Rogiński Plays John Coltrane and Langston Hughes finds the Polish guitarist weaving meditative meanderings inspired by Coltrane and Hughes leaving nearly invisible traces of the originals. This music, just one acoustic guitar that admittedly sounds like more than 4 hands at times, with occasional vocals by Natalia Przybysz filled the Barn with natural light in sound with the Bach Ultimates offering up Rogiński’s complex fingerpicking that at times sounds as if he’s tying six strings into new configurations to produce new sounds. Tones, overtones, harmonics, and resounding body were reproduced in Barn feeling very much like the real thing. Of course the Mola Mola DAC, Fern & Roby Amp No. 2 and AudioQuest cables all took part in this performance but the Bach Ultimates very much held their own with excellent dynamic snap, speed, and body. Again, for a small, two way floorstander, the Bach Ultimates showed no signs of strain or thinness as they faded away into this spiritual journey of a record.
To my mind the most interesting and relevant comparisons I can offer are with the Living Voice Auditorium R25A Loudspeakers which start at $6350/pair (review) and the GoldenEar T66 Tower Speakers that start at $6900/pair (review). The Living Voice speakers use a pair of 17cm doped paper-coned bass/mid drivers in a D’Appolito configuration over and under a Scan-Speak 26mm dome tweeter, MTM, while the GoldenEar employ a high-velocity folded ribbon AMT tweeter, two 4.5″ high-definition cast-basket mid/bass drivers, two 5″ x 9″ long-throw quadratic subwoofers, and two 8″ x 12″ quadratic planar back-wave-driven radiators which are powered by internal 1000W peak/500W RMS, DSP-Controlled amplifiers. I would say we’re looking at three very different speakers in every way that all come in around the same price with the Bach Ultimates being the least expensive at $5999/pair.
So, which is best? As you can imagine, each speaker here offers its own set of strengths and I would say that the Living Voice have the most natural voice of the three and they offer a very easy 6 Ohm, 94dB load so they can work with low power amps while offering an understated grace that makes music easy to relax into. The GoldenEar dig deepest with those onboard powered subwoofers and they also offer a very resolving presentation, a level of refinement that makes music exciting and vibrant. The Bach Ultimates slot somewhere in between in that they are not as highly resolving as the GoldenEar, nor do they go as low, yet they are not as laid back as the Living Voice. The Living Voice offer a weightier presentation from their MTM driver array while the Bach Ultimates feel a bit faster and lighter on their feet, able to stop and start with greater precision as compared to the Living Voice. And the Bach Ultimates’ standout qualities— immediacy, coherence, and energy—take the excitement factor up a notch or two as compared to the Living Voice. All to say, pick your favorite balance of strengths.
Two months is a long time and I asked the Bach Ultimates to play a lot of music during that time including my favorite Bach, of course. Over time my sense of their sound kept getting back to a seamless coherence that made them dissolve into the music, a trait I value in any loudspeaker as the last thing I want to be conscious of when listening to music is the speaker. While a relatively small two way has theoretical limitations in terms of range and ultimate decibels, the Bach Ultimates did a fine job of making those theoretical concerns disappear, replacing them with convincingly fully voiced music.
The Vienna Acoustics Limited Edition Bach Ultimates are, in the end, a very easy speaker to live with and love in many ways. They are small floorstanders that easily disappear into the room and into the music while offering an engaging level of immediacy, coherence, and energy coupled with convincing physicality even in the Barn’s rather large listening area. I imagine the Bach Ultimates would be even happier in a smaller room and if they’re happier, the listener will smile even more. And in today’s world of six figure DACs, the Bach Ultimates strike me as being sensibly priced to boot.
Vienna Acoustics Limited Edition Bach Ultimate Loudspeakers
Price: $5999/pair limited to 100 pair in the US & Canada
Company Website: Vienna Acoustics
US Distributor Website: Playback Distribution
Technical Data
Impedance: 4 Ohms
Frequency Response: 35 – 20000 Hz
Sensitivity: 90 dB
Recommended Amplifiers: 30 – 200 Watts
Drive Units:
7” Mid-Woofer 6.5 inch X3P Cone, transparent
1″ Dome-Tweeter Hand-coated Vienna Acoustics Silk Dome
Bass System: Rear Vented Bass Reflex
Bass Function: Impulse Optimizing QB 3 (Quasi-Butterworth)
Crossover Components:
MKP Capacitors 1% Tolerance, Coils 0,7% tol., Air Coils
Metal Film Resistors, 1% tol., Inductance Free
Crossover Function: 2-way 6 dB and 12 dB Bessel
Weight per Pair: 80 Ibs
Dimension (Wx H x D) inches: 7,4 x 34,6 x 9,8 (without spike assembly) | 9,5 x 36,5 x 11,8 (with spike assembly)
