FinkTeam Kim stand-mount loudspeaker

And involving it is. The Kims seem to specialise in preserving the spatial and temporal relationships within the music. Everything happens when, and where it should, so as a listener you have less work to do and can just get on with the business of enjoying the performance. And, interestingly, you don’t need to drive them hard to get satisfaction. Some loudspeakers impress most when delivering realistic concert-style levels; the Kims can do that, too, and will go very loud indeed without getting hard, shouty or overblown. Just for old times’ sake I dug out some of the old warhorses, ‘Telegraph Road’ from Love Over Gold [Vertigo] kept its composure even in the loudest, busiest bits, retaining the structure sufficiently intact that you could easily appreciate the phrasing and technique behind all the bombast. But they’ll also deliver the goods at modest volume settings, giving a coherent, dynamic and engaging performance even at late-night levels: Agnes Obel ‘Familiar’ from Citizen of Glass [PIAS] was revealing. Played at, ahem, robust levels around these parts, this now has all the multi-layered complexity, dynamics and tonal colour I could wish for, even when played quietly. Other aspects of the music come to the fore, too; there’s a coherence, a ‘rightness’ to the performance that just engages the musical brain with little obvious effort. Roberto Fonseca, ‘Llegó Cachaíto’ from Zamazu [Enja] was subtle, delicate and affecting, the connection between Fonseca’s piano and Cachaito Lopez’ bass all the better for being rendered at a gentler volume. Who knew? In contrast ‘Ishmael’ from the same album drives relentlessly on and, turned up loud, the Kims will rock with the best of them, while still digging deep into the fast, tactile, complex percussion. There’s an ability to portray the layers within a performance, to retain the structure of the music and the way the parts blend, collide and interact, regardless of volume setting. The Kims were totally unfazed by the energy and complexity in Gogo Penguin’s ‘Raven’ from A Humdrum Star [Blue Note], keeping all the polythythms intact while also giving me all the shading of tones, and the sheer energy of the performance.

It’s clearly a very accomplished design. The unconventional approaches must present a myriad of ways to royally screw things up, so the fact that I haven’t found the slightest evidence of up-screwing, royal or otherwise, tells me that the FinkTeam clearly know their business. The crossover is largely undetectable, partly perhaps because the passband is lower than usual, at 2200Hz; bass is deep, tuneful and agile, the better to underpin one of the most natural-sounding treble units I’ve heard. I’ve used a few loudspeakers with ribbon tweeters over the years, notably from Elac and Raidho, and there’s usually a moment when you hear a discontinuity between treble and bass/midrange units and, once heard, you can’t un-hear it. The AMT operates differently to a ribbon design despite looking superficially similar and I have to say, that moment hasn’t yet happened with the Kims. I’ve been trying to catch them out so I’m reasonably confident in saying that this is the best-integrated pairing of two dissimilar driver technologies I’ve yet had the pleasure of using.

The tweeter seems to have quite wide horizontal dispersion, too, as there’s some latitude in the sweet spot, and off-axis listening doesn’t destroy the imaging. And imaging is one of the strengths here; it goes to that overall coherence thing, but staging, ambience and positioning of performers and instruments is solid, stable and not tidally-locked to one crucial listening position. Vertically, though, a bit of experimentation with the adjustment of the angle the cabinets lean back will pay dividends. The integral open frame stand sets the speaker at a slightly disconcerting, laid-back angle, the better to project the sound up and into the room based on typical listening heights and distances; fiddling with the height of the spikes front to back gives a degree of fine adjustment if you listen outside that notional range. The canted-back arrangement reminds me of those cheap and cheerful IKEA speaker stands all my friends had in the 1980s, but rather more effective in its implementation here; it also, happily, prevents the cabinets becoming resting places for teacups, plant pots, and cats.