Gallo hi-fi system - A'Diva, Due and Micro speakers with MPS 150 powered subwoofer

Review of Nucleus Micro and MPS150

The answer is spherical, and in the plural
Feb 2003 by Tony Williams

They look too small to have anything but design appeal, but these little speakers find a fan in Tony Williams

To tell the truth, I'm not exactly the biggest fan of what I refer to as 'gimmicky' hi-fi, especially where loudspeakers are concerned. In general, the tried and tested rectangular box takes some beating.

Yes, I understand that there are many compromises involved in the usual 'infinite baffle' designs, most often seen in the form of a rectangular cabinet. However short of the old way of mounting your speaker drive unit in an infinitely huge board - or at least a very large one! - there's no real way round using an enclosure of some kind. At least that's true when using conventional magnet and cone/dome drivers - things are a little different when considering technology such as electrostatic drivers (as in Quad's world-famous speakers) or indeed even NXT - type flat panels.

Just as radical is the adoption of unusual cabinet shapes to avoid these problems: the curved rear panels of B&W's Nautilus 800 range, or similar designs from KEF, Tannoy and many others. California company Anthony Gallo Acoustics has taken this to the limit: its speakers use drive units housed in spherical enclosures, the company having been working on this kind of design for well over a decade.

In fact its Nucleus speakers, which use much larger spheres, have been attracting interest at hi-fi shows in the States for many years, with its Reference system using the company's original Solo speaker plus a second ball housing a bass driver, topped with the in-house Cylindrical Diaphragm Transducer tweeter.

However, production of all those speakers was put on hold when the company developed its smallest speaker to date, the Nucleus Micro we have here. This is truly a tiny version of the design, with a 7.5cm full-range drive unit in a 10cm diameter steel sphere, and yet delivering a frequency response claimed to be 80Hz-18kHz. This is helped by the use of the company's Roundsound 2 decoupling between the rear of the drive unit and the air inside the enclosure, improving efficiency, while the absence of a crossover should aid clarity and phase behavior.

Weighing less than a kilo apiece - or about a pound and half in real money - the little spheres are finished to a very high standard in a range of colours: black or white at £300 a pair; gloss black, stainless steel, wine red, bronze, canary yellow or cobalt blue at £350 a pair. Three-packs can also be bought at 50 per cent premium on these prices, so that surround sound systems can be built.

Partnering the speakers is the MPS150 subwoofer, which combines a 240W amplifier module with a speaker unit housing a downward-firing 25 cm bass unit. The amp module is designed to be connected between the output from your amplifier and the Micros, or can be used between a preamp and power amp, with the micros driver directly from the latter. Gain, crossover and phase controls are provided, along with a selector for power mode - on, off or signal sensing automatic power switching - and a socket on the speaker module allows an extra bass speaker to be connected - for example, for use in larger rooms. The amp unit can be stacked on top of the speaker, or the two can be used separately to hide away in smaller spaces. The complete MPS150 is £500, with extra bass units available for £250, and Gallo also make a completely passive bass module, the MPC 1 for £350.

Talking of accessories, the company also make a range of supports for speakers, although as standard the Nucleus Micro comes with a simple but effective rubber ring which allows it to be positioned on a shelf or table. The slim curved 'Wallflower Stand' is £125 a pair, wall brackets are £50 a pair and a table/shelf mount is £25 apiece.

Performance

For this test the Nucleus Micros were used on their rubber ring stands on shelves, as I thought this would replicate the way most users would be likely to employ them. The subwoofer was connected at speaker level to the Rotel RA-01 amplifier, and Gallo's own thin speaker cable was used to hook up the micros to the subwoofer.

If you've read this far, you might expect that I was less than entirely whelmed by the Gallo package: certainly I came to it expecting very little. Yes, it looks smart and is really rather clever in principle, but there's no way they'll give anything approaching hi-fi sound quality, is there?

Well, I'm here to tell you that the Gallo speakers do so much more than one would expect from their styling, which isn't really gimmicky but instead based on sound acoustic thinking. And I just love the way you can park the little balls - there, I finally said it - on the rubber supports, plonk them on some suitable shelves and they perform.

'Suitable shelves' means they should be roughly at ear level if possible, and the speakers should be positioned at the front of the shelf to avoid diffraction effects, but beyond this the Gallos really are 'fit and forget' hi-fi.

And it sounds so natural: during its tenure in my listening room it was auditioned by me, my wife , the neighbours and the local pest exterminators - it's a long story - and all agreed that they were listening to my big floor-standing speakers, and not the little Gallo spheres (I'd hidden the subwoofer away to enhance the effect).

That's some testament to just what the minute Gallos can do, but more to the point is that the Nucleus Micro speakers and subwoofer integrate so well that everything from solo recitals to big orchestral works sound natural and involving. Yes, if you push the system hard it takes on a rough, compressed tonality, but at sensible levels the Gallo system has a rightness that's hard not to like, along with excellent imaging and fine presence.

That's what I really like about this system: its ability to present a coherent stereo picture without filling the room with huge speakers is deeply impressive, and should win this system very many followers. Yes I freely admit I came to reviewing these speakers with some prejudice: that the Gallo Nucleus Micro and MPS150 won me over is a tribute to its achievement.

www.gramophone.co.uk

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