Nucleus Micro speakers - Gramaphone review

Gallo Reviews

With larger spherical housings, the latest Gallo speakers sound even more persuasive, says Tony Williams.

When I reviewed the Anthony Gallo Nucleus Micro speakers, I enjoyed the sound they gave with the company's novel two-piece MPS150 subwoofer. The range has since expanded with the Dué and A'Diva models. The A'Diva has the Micro's 7.5cm drive unit, modified for greater extension and used in a larger sphere - five inches instead off four.

As in the Micro speakers, the enclosure is steel, in a choice of colours, or stainless steel for 10 per cent extra. The speakers connect to an amplifier, or via the subwoofer, with conventional terminals, and can be mounted on wall brackets, the optional 'Wallflower' stands, table mounts or using the isolation rings included.

The speakers are certainly easy to drive, thanks to 88dB/W/m sensitivity and 80ohm impedance, and can be used either in pairs, as here, or in surround systems. And there's the usual Anthony Gallo choice of subwoofers: the MPC1 Micro Passive Subwoofer can simply be connected between the amp and speakers, or you can opt for the powered MPS150.

This has a downward-firing drive unit in a drum-shaped enclosure, which connects to a power unit via a cable terminated with standard 6.3mm jacks. The powerpack houses a 150W amp, along with crossover and gain controls, and has both speaker-level and line-level stereo inputs and outputs. It can thus be used either between amp and speakers, using high-level connections, or at line-level from the sub output on a multichannel receiver.

Performance
I was genuinely surprised by the levels of performance available from the A'Diva/MPS150 combination. Alone, the A'Divas sound lightweight and rather thin, with an emphasis on the mid-band and treble, but they sound excellent with the little powered sub. True, they don't match the sound from a conventional £1000 pair of floor-standers, but they're not that far off, and anyway that's not quite the point: these speakers are smaller and much more stylish.

With solo piano, accompanied voice and orchestral works, the Gallos combine an attractive tonal balance with the coherence of stereo image that eludes many conventional designs, although some care is needed with the adjustment of the subwoofer's crossover and gain.

Get this right, with neither a gap nor over-emphasis around the 80-100Hz area, which can make the sound slightly lean or conversely thick and slow, and the package works well with both small-scale recordings at low level and a big orchestral piece with the system at full tilt. Indeed it's quite amazing how loud these speakers will go before signs of distress sets in - in the form of some hardening and compression - even when driven by a modest amp, they deliver more than enough to fill most normal sized rooms.

These speakers look neat, but that isn't their sole appeal: in fact, it could be seen as no more than a bonus, so good do they sound.

www.gramophone.co.uk

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