Tinkling the ivories

Viking Acoustics Briton Studio Monitor

Speakers have an incredibly difficult job. We ask them to perfectly replicate the sound of a double bass played in a reverberant room, and then we turn around and ask them to crank Brothers In Arms at pants-flapping volumes.

We want them to faithfully recreate the nuances of Leonard Cohen’s voice, and also to blow our hair back when the canons fire in the 1812 Overture.

Piano needs body, but also bite and articulation. Strings must have air but not be shrill.

The more you know about many types of instruments and their sound profiles and unique harmonics you realize that their physical makeup allows them to do what they do.

If a trumpet is made from brass and a violin bow is made from horsehair, how can a speaker made of paper recreate both convincingly?

Well of course, speaker science is not just about materials. And the physics of a speaker’s motor allows it to mimic these things.

But as audiophiles we still hear clear differences between driver and cabinet materials, just like we can with different metals in our wires.

The above sentiments really have to do with the goals of a speaker. There’s no free lunch in audio, so only with painstaking science and hefty budgets are some speaker companies able to make products that bring all music to life.

Apologies for the long preamble, but this is all leading to my thoughts about these lovely Viking Acoustics Briton Studio Monitors.

When I played Royksopp’s “Vision One” from their album Junior, I was instantly disappointed in the mid bass. And my first steps to do something about it proved the monitors to be very picky about boundaries and coupling.

On the floor they had more heft - in their stands they had more mid and high definition and 100Hz seemed to vanish. We’re in a big warehouse here, so that’s not surprising to me.

But when I placed them up on the giant testing bench, they really started to come alive, having been coupled to a large desk-like surface. And when I switched the music to something more up their alley, they exploded with emotion and feeling.

Piano. These speakers are made for piano. I grew up playing the piano, and one of my main complaints about most piano recordings or replications by speakers is that the real weight of the instrument when you’re sitting at it is rarely there.

But these lovely, lovely Viking Acoustics monitors are allowing me to take in Bill Evans’ amazing performance in Some Other Time (The Lost Session from the Black Forest) and feel for the first time an intimacy that reminds me of sitting at the keys.

They may not be for everyone, and they may not do everything you want them to, but these plucky and admittedly large bookshelf speakers are insane in the near field, especially when given well-recorded piano to reproduce. Snag ‘em for your home studio and don’t think twice is my advice!