David Freeman

Verified Purchase

June 26, 2015

I haven't posted in a while. Really not much since late 2013 and this is not a soundbar, but would probably be laughed at in the speaker thread.


If any of you read CNET you may have seen Steve Guttenberg's article on the Kvart & Bolge Sound Sommeliers. These are very interesting full range, single 3-1/2" driver speakers that sound better, much better, than they have any right to sound. These are not self powered like most of the soundbars listed in these pages are, but K&B also sells an inexpensive 50 watt amplifier designed especially for the speakers that can solve your problems for amplification.


As to sound. If you are old enough to remember the sound of the planar loudspeakers of the 1960's or 1970's such as the Quad Electrostatic or original Magnaplanar four panel loudspeaker, these are very similar. Quite open with no speaker sound whatsoever. When playing good source material, the units actually vanish and give no spatial clues as to where they are located. At about 15 degrees off angle, an extremely flat frequency response from about 50hz to a little above 15khz. For bass skeptics, a woofer that goes down to 50hz is more than enough to give you adequate bass for music and for most movies. I have not attempted to add any of the sub-woofers (3) or true woofers (1) that I have at my disposal as I use these (the Sound Sommeliers) strictly for music and I fear the addition of a woofer to cover just over an octave of sound would muddy things up and take away from the openness.


These are definitely not for the crowd that is looking to blow the windows out of their sound room as they are not designed to play at 110db. I really don't know maximum SPL and have not measured it as I am too busy enjoying old acoustic recordings and rock music from the sixties and seventies.


However, for someone who wishes to experiment at a very inexpensive price. And someone like me that typically has an old receiver, an old integrated amp or pre-amp sitting around gathering dust, these could be an extremely intriguing purchase. If the cabinet housing my ZT-60 Panasonic Plasma was a little taller, I would definitely consider replacing my Andrew Jones soundbar with these. They offer some very intriguing possibilities.  


By the way, each of these are about 33" tall but only about 4" wide. About 6" deep with a single 3-1/2" driver. You can go to the company's web site and read an excellent paper on quarter wave sound and see what they have to offer.


Also, I am not a shill for Kvart & Bolge or anyone else. I was a software designed for 25 years and an IT manager for the past sixteen. I enjoy sharing inexpensive sound with my friends at AVS when I find something interesting. I usually don't go to the speaker forums as inexpensive is usually relegated to crap there and I have no plans on defending the design or comparing a $ 300 speaker to something costing ten times (or more) the price. But, if anyone is interested, I do have speakers currently residing in a closet that cost approximately seven times the price. The K&B speakers do some things better than the more expensive speakers, some things not as well. The K&B are definitely the more interesting speakers and the ones I would recommend to friends.