Speaker Asylum: REVIEW: Jean-Marie Reynaud Twin Mark ll Speakers by Sean H General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

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I became familiar with Jean Marie Reynaud speakers after reading the Listener review of the Trente and subsequently of the Twin MK2. They received glowing reviews in each account and has caused what seems to be an explosion in interest, especially within the Asylum. As most know by now, Reynaud is a French company and has actually been around for years but only recently began entering the US market. As of October there are supposed to be nearly eight dealers within the US now. The main message I got from the Listener review and what attracted me the most in seeking out the Twins was their supposedly excellent musicality and involving sound, not to mention the Twins price point being so amazingly affordable. I am also a monitor fan and more musicality is what I was after. The Twins replaced a pair of B&W CDM1’s in my system, a very good speaker at $1100 and a class B Stereophile component. The Twins fell well within my budget but I admit I was a bit reluctant moving to a speaker costing about 30% less than the B&W’s, but we all know price doesn’t always dictate performance. So I decided to give them a shot.

I’ve been living with them for close to a month now and have well over 200 hours on them. Reynaud recommends at least 50 hours of initial break in followed by further break in up to about 200 hours. The Twins are very beautiful speakers, coming in a cherry beechwood finish. Build is excellent for this price range, very solid and rigid. The cabinet is strikingly beautiful to look at, craftsmanship is outstanding for the price. A few interesting things about the Twin’s. They use a 6.7" PVC filmed paper cone woofer and a 1.2" fabric dome tweeter with a "front wave guide" in front of the dome. Though there are only two driver’s the speaker is a three-way electrically, the woofer uses two voice coils and is crossed over twice using a first order filter, the crossover to the tweeter is a second order filter. This technique is used in just about all of Reynaud speakers. The Twins are rated at 4 ohms and a very good 90dB efficiency rating. The enclosure is a triangular transmission line design where a sloping board extends from just near the top of inside of the enclosure down the middle of the cabinet ending at a extremely well damped slot in the front of the baffle which acts somewhat as a port. This also acts as an internal brace for the cabinet. The driver array has the woofer above the tweeter. High quality binding posts allow single wiring. As the Listener review described the posts are effectively "upside down" (slanting at 45 degrees facing downward) which works just fine for my bananas and should be fine for most spades, but I can see it might put some unwanted stress on a spade termination. Contrary to the Listener review I find the grilles come on and off easily, they do attach snugly, but I found nothing annoying at all here.

Reynaud suggests using their 28" Magic Stand, I am using extremely rigid and high mass 24" stands. The dealer I bought these from suggested I try and get the woofer to about ear level as opposed to the tweeter being at ear level. He explained that with the dual voice coil of the woofer the sound emanates from farther within the cabinet, the tweeter’s voice coil right at the baffle. If your ear was right on line with the center of the woofer you would think that the tweeter would then be farther away, but again extending the line from your ear to the coils of the woofer well within the cabinet the distance becomes more equal. This was confirmed by a direct email to Jean Marie Reynaud who said that the phase of the drivers is such that the ear needs to be in line with the woofer’s center. This approach to address timing is opposite other manufacturers who use a standard driver array but modifying the baffle at a slope, tilting the tweeter back and usually then suggesting the tweeter be more near ear level. Sounded like a heck of a great way to address timing issues in my view. In my chair, my ear lands right about in the center of the woofer, so 28" stands would be too high for me. For reference, my ear height off the ground in my seat is about 35-36". I played around with temporarily modifying my stands a few inches to get the tweeter closer to my ear and I didn’t like the results, more on that later. I paired the Twins with my (French) Audio Refinement Complete integrated and CD Complete, with Harmonic Technology Truthlinks and Analysis Plus Oval 12’s. The Audio Refinement Complete does 90 w/ch into 4 ohms. I also use a powered sub.

I’ll start by saying that the Listener review hit it right on the head in briefly describing the sound of the Twins. And, in nearly every aspect the Twins are better (MUCH better in most respects) than the B&W CDM1’s. It was quite apparent to me the moment I heard them that they completely belie their $745 price tag. Tonally the Twins are extremely accurate and very natural. The whole picture is one of excellent tonal balance and coherency, slight warmth and a big sound. I actually would caution to describe them as slightly warm in tone, most would find them to be relatively neutral. The bass, and in particular the mid bass, is very much a part of the overall sound, in contrast to so many other monitors I have heard that all but forget about the bass. The mid bass is very communicative, which lays an excellent foundation for the whole musical picture adding scale and realism. And they go fairly low for their size, in my room I found they have good output well into the 40’s. You’ll need a sub for the extreme low bass of course. Pace and rhythm is excellent as well. The way the Twins resolve is amazing for their price, being able to work out the most intricate sounds to the most complex with great ease and fluidity, much more so than the B&W’s did. This may be partly due to the design and having the woofer more in line with the ear, I don’t know, but I’m hearing the mids and bass more naturally and well articulated than I ever have. The treble is very natural, and still very airy and detailed, but far from anal or mechanical sounding which was more the character of the B&W’s. And again it may be because of the driver array and the tweeter being slightly off axis of the ear that it seems so linear and unobtrusive. Overall they offer a very natural, comfortable, detailed and pleasing sound.

Listener described the sound of Twins as being very involving and emotional speakers, I concur and that’s what’s the most striking thing about the Twins. The dynamic range of the Twins is excellent. There is just something about the way sounds begin, build and decay that is so captivating, it just draws you right in. The Twins have great ability to convey soft and subtle sounds with such delicacy, and the ability to transcend the listener through large swings in the music to louder and complex sounds that is very inspiring. During soft passages the Twins can sound so quiet, then bloom and sound grand during louder passages. That’s one of the emotional aspects of these speakers. The ability of the Twins to convey these swings in the music is outstanding, it makes them highly involving. A good example of this is a track from Dianne Reeves - "Like a Lover" - off of "I Remember." Reeve’s is singing solo and accompanied by an acoustic guitar, the loud and soft inflections in her voice is so captivating, you feel so connected to the music. Vocals are quite exceptional, no sibilance to speak of. The midrange is quite open and transparent, very neutral, yet full and very detailed. Harmonically the Twins are right on, smooth, liquid, natural and deadly accurate decay. In particular cymbals are amazingly natural sounding and very realistic.

In terms of resolution I am hearing things I had not heard before, especially in the mid bass where I am able follow bass lines with ease compared the B&W’s. This has amazingly improved the presentation of piano over the B&W’s, much more body and weight and the sense of piano being an instrument occupying space. The sense of air is again very natural, but slightly warmer and very "large." There’s no sense of darkness in anyway, but the air and details are rendered very naturally and delicately. The B&W’s liked to highlight delicate details with the treble, and I was always left with a more electronic and less natural feeling. The B&W’s sometimes gave me clues to the farthest reaches of the back of the stage but I was left hearing the recording and not the music. There may have been more top end sizzle with the B&W’s metal domes, but again more mechanical sounding. The sense of space and air with the Twin’s is equally as good but you are more focused on the instruments and the performers, the air around them and not so much the room. There is definitely a higher level of intimacy and an enhanced feeling of presence, a very non-fatiguing sound. I’m left feeling the performance and not the recording, just as the Listener review said. And just in case you are wondering, soundstaging and imaging are exceptional, with excellent specificity and layering in space. They play very loudly by the way and like I said hold together and resolve extremely well for a monitor in this price range. The Twins have moved me up a few rows, closer to the music, the B&W’s had a slightly more distant perspective. For fun I have been trying out a pair of Bob Crump’s silver interconnects and the inclusion of these interconnects has rendered a more lively, more open and focused presentation compared to the Truthlinks. With Bob’s IC’s I can more easily hear the recording venue, more top end, more air and sparkle. Whether or not I prefer silver in my system now I haven’t yet determined, the copper Truthlinks are satisfyingly full bodied, rich, robust and quiet. The Twins reacted well to the inclusion of this refined silver cable.

The sum of the parts here is this speaker is very musical, yet airy, vivid, natural, very involving and highly resolving for this price. They are very easy to drive and my inclination is they would work QUITE well with tubes too. There’s another Inmate here (Pete Whitley) that is using a Decware Zen Triode amp at 3 w/ch with excellent results, and the dealer I bought these from has had very good results with low powered tube amps. The Twins obviously do demand quality components. Though they are very musical speakers they do not necessarily mask bright or dull recordings and I would imagine wouldn’t mask sub-par components. The extremely transparent midrange will demand quality components and cabling. I’d love to try other refined sounding amps like my Audio Refinement Complete with the Twins, not to mention tube gear and cabling. But as of now I’m quite content (and too poor). They work well with all kinds of music, but like any high end speaker they excel with exceptional recordings. The Twins can boogie with rock too. I listen to a lot of Jazz, up beat contemporary and more traditional, acoustic and vocal music, which the Twins are well suited to.

A quick note on break in. In my experience they do take at least the full recommended 200 hour break in, I noted several changes they went through. Out of the box it was obvious they needed some time to break in, but by about 40-50 hours their character was emerging. The bass really came out first, then the sound seemed to have smoothed out quite a bit and was a little dark. Then the treble opened up well over 100 hours and they now are very tight, coherent and have a firm grip on the music. So they do take some time to run in. I would take some consideration in stand height, these speakers work best with your ear near the center of the woofer. As I said I tried experimenting with raising the speaker to get the tweeter closer to my ear but the results were not as good, the treble became too dominant in the balance and some liquidity, ease and naturalness was lost.

Are there any negatives? They will not play to ear bleeding levels without sounding slightly boxy or giving in to some compression, but still they hold up as good as any in I’ve head in this price range and well above the price. They play quite loud for their size, as loud as I’d care for. I can’t really think of much more to complain about, honestly. If you are used to $3-4-5,000 monitors then you may find more things they do wrong, in contrast I am sure you’d be surprised at what they would do better in some areas.

These are the real deal, sounding far better than you might expect a $745 monitor to sound, and I would highly recommend them to anyone looking for an exceptional monitor at and well above this price point. Of course there are several other monitors out there that can do what the Twins do so well and some better, but given the price or even anywhere near their price, they would be very hard to beat. Quite an achievement and definitely an outright steal. Try them and you’ll see they just might save you a few bucks.

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