System Audio 5.2 Silverback
Contents
That such small speakers can make such a big sound! The scale and quality is what you expect with larger sized speakers, it doesn’t sound forced at all. The sound is at some distance from you, about the height of the speakers. The speakers do disappear very well in the image. A room-filling image, only the depth is a bit limited.
Warm bath
The greatest strength of this system, is that you forget they are there. They deliver the music effortlessly, without any stress in the sound. It’s like when you lower yourself into a warm bath. After a while, your muscles relax and you feel the stress being drained from your body. The System Audio speakers do the same thing, only with sound instead of water. It sounds almost careless and natural, with the result that you are drawn into the music.
The dynamics are fluid. From soft passages to loud and back again, like swaying reeds in the wind they bend and spring back. It all sounds so organic that you are not at all concerned with how they sound. Classical chamber music sounds like it should, your author has listened to “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis” by Vaughan Williams, a piece for string orchestra, more than once because you are completely carried away on the music.
Rhythmic & relaxed
System Audio seems to unite something impossible and contrasting: rhythmic, but also very relaxed in playback. The pulse and tempo in Foreigner’s “Waiting for a girl like you” remains palpable, while the spun-out synth parts float around it like a cloud.
Another contrast: these speakers are detailed without imposing the details. The big picture is more important than highlighting anything. The detail richness is partly because they have a very quiet background. Silences in the music are also really quiet. What is noticeable is that the details you hear are most evident in the voice area. Laura Marling’s voice is in front of the music and you follow the lyrics without having to strain yourself. As a result, in instruments, which are in the same frequency range, other details stand out than you are used to.
The saxophone of Mammal Hands is a good example. You can clearly hear a saxophone being blown through a reed, bringing the instrument close rather than the shiny glow of metal dominating and ripping.
With a large orchestra, it’s like you’re watching a movie in a large auditorium, but you’re at the top of the hall. You see everything from the movie, but the experience is not as if you were in it. The Budapest Festival Orchestra’s Mahler 3 is a breathtaking recording. The System Audio lets you hear everything, including the whisper-quiet passages on the timpani where you hear a soft rumble. Timpani are big instruments and you do get that weight.
There’s nothing wrong with the precision, the speakers don’t fly off the handle anywhere. They just can’t project the sound of the orchestra grandly into your room. The bass is solid and well proportioned to the midrange and treble, but not always tightly defined. It’s a small speaker, with a bass port on the back, and that design choice limits what you can get out of bass. The closer you put them to the wall, the firmer the bass, but also the messier. I set them free in the room. The kick of Underworld’s deep electronic bass is audible, but not tangible.
Nevertheless, sitting still is difficult with the rousing sounds.
late at night…
For those who listen late at night and don’t want to disturb sleeping roommates or neighbors, even at low volume they sound good. The analog electronics of Tangerine Dream’s “Rubycon” continue to sound organic and the different sounds are easy to tell apart. Despite the fact that the amplifiers in the speakers are digitally driven, these System Audio’s highlight the color of acoustic instruments and voices. They are certainly not neutral speakers, but I don’t immediately stick the label warm on them. Organic is a better description.
The design of these 5.2 speakers, with rounded sides that slope back, makes them visually small. They will therefore easily disappear into a room. The paint used detracts from the appearance of the speakers, it comes across as a bit cheap. Those who have a fear of smudging had better not choose the black speaker, it is a magnet for fingerprints.