by Rafe Arnott
For those not in the know, Goldmund is a Swiss high-end audio manufacturer with a long history of designing, and building incredibly musical, and transparent gear. At AXPONA they seemed to be staying the course as their latest iteration of powered, DSP-enabled loudspeakers – The Logos Sukha ($95,000 USD) – was creating a sound field of such clarity, space, and engaging musicality that I quickly forgot about all the technology they had shoehorned into the Sukha, and simply let the music wash over me. No coincidence I guess since Sukha means “the wisdom that allows us to see the world as it is, without veils or distortions… it is the joy of moving toward inner freedom.” A lot of weight to translate for one word, but that’s a worthy goal to strive for, especially in a loudspeaker’s namesake.
Technology is playing an important part with Goldmund’s loudspeaker designs as the Sukha proved with it’s uncanny ability to disappear into the hotel room at the Westin O’Hare. The Sukha’s appearance is not for everyone, but I think they look fantastic. With a 26 Hz – 25 Hz specification (+/- 6dB) they also pressurize a room very handily. Featuring a built-in 600 watt Telos amplifier per side (2×175 watts for midrange/tweeter assembly, 250 dedicated watts for the woofer enclosure) the sound the Sukhas were putting out was deep, authoritative, with a juicy midrange, and real air on the top-end without any of the glare some used to associate with digital amplification. The unit consists of a one-inch, soft-dome tweeter, a 6.5-inch midrange driver, and a 12-inch bass driver with vent loading. These are not light speakers either, so get help if you’re moving them around as they come in at over 200 lbs each.
Goldmund calls the Sukha a product of the “Proteus Mathematical model” which is an intelligent, active-speaker that features the company’s proprietary time-alignment correction algorithm. Translation: these babies are a standalone system, just add a source. They can be used wirelessly with a laptop by taking advantage of the included USB dongle, or use the SPDIF input for CD, or SACD players. In the configuration I heard the system did have an EIDOS 17 SACD-player ($10,000 USD) based on an unspecified, and specially-modified Oppo unit, along with Goldmund’s Talisman wireless hub ($10,000 USD) for multiple sources. A cool treat for those inlined to go all multimedia, and get the 70-inch LED TV into play. The thing I like about the Goldmund set-up in particular is that it’s lifestyle-oriented. It’s all about being able to achieve great sound out of any room dimension or size thanks to it’s DSP processors, and with one power cable for each speaker the footprint is quite negligible, and turns the look of the Sukha more into a work of art than loudspeakers.
Highly recommended.
