PIO SOUND Eagle

MJ19.07.2013

Floorstanding loudspeakers

The mids are perfect, beguilingly tonally rich and very neutral if I may say so. The speakers were not pushing the sound to me, rather they were inviting me through an open door to take a part in the performance. For the Eagles it was easy to create a link between the audio system and the listener. In the end I listened because I wanted to, not because I had to.

Function and form

60%
Ease of use
60%
Sound
87%
Appearance

The Eagles provide an uncluttered modern and clean look. A brushed aluminum frame is combined with a black fabric grille (other colours available) in a very flat design (5cm is the thickness of the panel) that is very chic.

The Pio Sound Eagles must be plugged in. If they do not detect any signal on their inputs they switch off into a stand-by mode. This saves some costs for you and stops the electrostatic field attracting dust.

I have also big criticism for the Eagle: it uses WBT binding posts that can be found in the flat plinth. The posts are in a recession very close to each other and very close to the floor. To connect banana terminated cables is not an issue but when I tried to use my own thick cables terminated with lugs I was not able to manipulate them into the posts. The Eagles just refused to accept them.

Bass management

Weight
50
Slam
45
Articulation
83

There was not much difference between the Pio Sound Eagles and good monitors as far as their bass was concernedd. With Stereophile's Test CD3 (STPH 006-2) I could hear the last bass note at around 50Hz, with steep roll-off below this frequency. However, there was a difference.

Even the best monitors need to face inevitable floor bounce that is dictated by the distance of a woofer (or a midrange driver) from the floor. The direct and reflected sounds interact with each other which can be heard as a rather severe peak or a null, depending on the acoustic environment. The electrostatic panel eliminates the floor bounce so, though the bass is not deep, it is more even across octaves. Thus with the Eagles I could enjoy very balanced mid and upper bass without usual loudness fluctuations.

Clarity & delicacy

Detail
81
Air
78
Transparency
82

With the Eagles I felt like behind a window in a control room: they succeeded to replace all the visual stimuli by sound clues so I was always perfectly informed where the instruments and interprets were in the given moment, what was ambiance and what added reverberation... The same way they could readily differentiate between a CD and its copy.

Tonal accuracy

Timbre
68
Dynamics
58
Temporal resolution
70

The mids are beautiful with correct timbres and neutral voicing. Tranzients are maybe not as dynamic as they are through the best dynamic speakers but they are as good as the best dynamic speakers in their price category. The Eagles are not merciless fingers pointing to imperfections on recordings, rather they convey beautiful music with certain tolerance to not so successfull mixes. This is not to say they are obscuring subtle differences - when Tom Petty puts his Gibson aside and reaches for the Fender Stratocaster you immediately detect the difference in timbres.

Spatial resolution

Holography
80
Soundstage width
76
Soundstage depth
80

The Eagles are electrostatic speakers so any discussion about imaging is useless. They do not have to try hard to create a perfect illusion of a stage in front of you. The music just exists with you in the room, wall to wall and way beyond. It is a highly absorbing experience.

Price as reviewed:209 000,- Kč

Recommended resellers

High-End Audio Studio, Praha, tel. +420 224 256 844

Associated components

  • Sources:  Primare CD32
  • Amplifiers: Primare i32 integrated, Primare A34.2, Pathos Logos
  • Interconnects and speaker cables: Kubala Sosna Expression a Fascination
  • Power conditioning: IsoTek Orion|Gemini

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