Ultimately, everything is just molecules – emotions are highly complex but mathematically reconstructable pile-ups among myriads of quantum particles. The airplain phli* WEISS edition impressively demonstrates how you shoot straight to a music lovers’ heart with meticulous calculation.
We’re all familiar with the cliché: Switzerland means clockworks, and clockworks symbolize incorruptible precision. I don’t want to get too caught up in stereotypes here, but to a certain extent, the airplain phli does seem to confirm the expectation. For instance, the stated design goal was not particularly good sound; what the developer first and foremost aimed for was reproducing the music signal without the slightest error. And that’s a sensible approach – if the recording is right, its flawless reproduction will almost inevitably result in good sound as a logical consequence. It’s really just putting the cart before the horse. The fact that developer Thomas Flammer takes a perfectionist approach becomes clear to us from the very first encounter: the speakers aren’t even out of the box yet when he already starts making himself at home in our listening room armed with a measuring microphone and a laptop. We don’t get to listen to a single note until the speaker’s frequency and time response have been linearized to perfectly suit the listening position.
Now, this is far from the first time we’ve heard about technically flawless music reproduction, and there are some manufacturers who come pretty close to this ideal. DSP-controlled active loudspeakers are definitely state of the art, but by no means unprecedented. So, if that were all there was to it, we would be looking at an impressive, but ultimately somewhat interchangeable speaker. Fortunately, however, you can tell at first glance that reducing the phli to its technical perfection alone would mean doing it great injustice. Let’s put the technology aside for the moment, then, and take a closer look at these Swiss gems.
Art installation
With their dimensions, the phli just about pass as standmount loudspeakers, albeit with the apparent density of two massive blocks of marble. If I now describe them as “cuboidal cabinets with four drivers each”, you might assume that the speakers look pretty normal – but far from it! Rarely have we had something so striking in our listening room. The finish alone – instead of the usual lacquers or wood veneers, it sports a completely seamless, burnished brass surface. If you prefer a classic look, you can of course also order them in a lacquered finish – or realize more unusual ideas: If the customer so desires, the phli can also come gold-plated. To our skeptical question whether this would integrate well into a tastefully furnished living room, Flammer diplomatically answers, “There is a market for it”.
In any case, we think the version in our listening room looks sensational. The artificially aged metal surface gives the compact speakers a sculptural look. A stylish piece of furniture that also happens to make music – not entirely unlike a Devialet Phantom in its approach, but much more spectacular and made to a much higher standard. The design literally appears to have been cast from a single mold: as we walk around the speakers (and trust me, you will also marvel at them from all sides when you have them in front of you), we discover no joints or screws along the edges; the housing is completely welded. The same finish can be seen on the streaming unit, which can be connected to a whole range of possible sources and can be either proudly displayed on the rack or discreetly placed in the background as desired: As an HD display would look out of place on the monolithic little box, the display has simply been designed as a separate unit; a kind of umbilical cord provides the contact and thus gives the user a decent amount of freedom when placing the streamer. I, for one, leave the streaming hub on the rack, not only because of the matching finish, but also because the two rows of Swiss cross-shaped ventilation holes on the surface look so cute. The display comfortably fits right in front of the hub and is a sight in itself with its black fabric covering, through which the large red dot-matrix display shines.
Hard facts
Of course, the solid construction is not just for looks: The four drivers take up a considerable amount of the surface area. Two side-mounted 22-cm bass drivers with a maximum excursion of 12 millimeters manhandle the internal volume; bass reflex ports are sought in vain – Flammer has designed his phli for realistic living environments, and in his mind, nothing beats the gentle, controlled bass roll-off of a sealed box system. Of course, the cabinet has to be able to handle the pressure built up in this way – and it remains as quiet as a church mouse. And this is where we need to pause for a moment: If you bear in mind that the tweeter and midrange drivers each have their own enclosed cabinet compartment with a volume of 3.5 liters, there is surprisingly little room for the two long-throw bass drivers. Luckily, Flammer worked in aircraft maintenance in a previous life. The metal housing, reinforced on the inside with a special honeycomb structure, is a design borrowed from this area – trickle-down from the airliner into the living room, so to speak. However, the odd detail has been optimized specifically for audio applications: The crossbars for additional reinforcement, for instance, would be considered rather impractical in an airplane cabin, but in the phli they effectively counteract the elemental forces unleashed by the woofers. For the housing material, a chrome steel