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REVIEW: Cabasse Farella 400 Speakers Review by Mister Pig at Audio Asylum

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There is only one thing that can be said about the appearance of the Farella's, and that is classy. These are a small floorstander with approximate dimensions of 36 inches tall, 10 inces wide, and 12 inches deep. Mine are finished in bubinga wood, which looks like a cross between maple and oak. All I can say is that these speakers appearance will never go out of style, they are kind of like an audio equivalent of Kim Bassinger...and if we cant have Kim in our listening room flipping the lp's or cd's, well the Farellas are my second choice. The Farella's are a 2 way, vented design. There is an 8 inch bass driver, and a 1 1/4 inch tweeter. Speaker efficiency is 94 db at 1 watt at 1 meter. Cabasse lists the speakers nominal impedance at 4 0hms. After exchanging a few emails with the factory, I was told that the lowest the impedance dips is 4.3 ohms at 750 hetz and 2.3k. While the rest of the impedance curve is up around the 6 ohm range. With this being said, I still prefer to drive the Farella's off the 4 ohm tap of my amplifiers. The amplification I have used to run these spaeakers have been a set of Quicksilver Silver Monos and Full Function pre amp. And more recently, an AES se-811 amps, and an Audio Innovations L2 pre amp. Both sets of amplification are very different, and really do prefer different types of speakers. The Farella's were never able to showcase the strengths of the Quicksilvers, but however came into their own with the AES amps.
Let me apreface this section by saying that the Farella's are the best speaker I have owned. So my comments must be taken in this light, and while I have listened to many more expensive speakers, I have not lived with them, and therefore cannot give any long term judgements about how they may compare against the Farellas. My speaker of choice for many years have been Spica TC-50's and the matching Servo Sub. When my Spicas finally needed to be replaced, I had a difficult time finding a speaker that could match the Spica's famous midrange. I can safely say that the Farellas do everything right the Spicas did, but at a much higher level of performance. I find the midrange to be the strength of the Farellas, it is very fast and transparent. There are no obvious deficiencies, but the overall tonal balance is a bit forward. There are some colorations in the overall tonal balance, these aren't a completely nuetral speaker. But these colorations never seem to interfere with the enjoyment of the music. And lets be honest a sub 2k speaker isn't going to be perfect. But when listening to music from Diane Schurr, Holly Cole, John Gorka, or Ellis Paul, it is easy to slip into the content of these performances. The Farella's have that elusive magic in the midrange that cements a long term relationship between me and a speaker. One way to describe this speaker is fast, and this is very noticable in the bass. It is never overly warm, woolly, or plodding. The detail that is found in the lower registers is fascinating. Distinguishing between different bass instruments is very easy, and really really fun, because too often speaker systems tend to blur the differences that can be found in the lower registers. On Dave Gruisens "Homage to Duke" the song C Jam Blues is fabulous. It's almost impossible to stop the right foot from tapping along with the bass line. The treble on the Farella's is the one reason that people seem to dislike this speaker. In short it is relentless and all revealing. This speaker is not polite or laid back. But when mated with amplification and a source that has a honest treble, then the resulting sound is transparent and delicate. This speaker doesn't have an over emphasized top end like the original ProAc tabletts I remeber hearing. But if you hook up amplification that has a few high end nasties, such as a...ahem....solid state amp...you will get a hard brash, and grainy sound. And this isn't really the fault of the speaker, the Farellas just require a dance partner that knows a few fancy steps.
What could be better about this speaker? Well the bass extension could be deeper, and the tonal balance can be improved somewhat. And the soundstage could be taller and a bit deeper. But again, I know that I haven't reached the full potential of these speakers. The cabling in my system needs to be improved.But the one thing that I have found about the Farellas are that as components are improved upstream from them, they just keep sounding better. I can tell that I have a long way to go before these speakers become the weak link in the system. In conclusion I can safely say that the ghosts of my Spicas can finally rest in peace because the Cabasse's have taken care of the sonic needs of this house.

Mister Pig


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Topic - REVIEW: Cabasse Farella 400 Speakers Review by Mister Pig at Audio Asylum - Mister Pig 18:23:39 10/5/99 ( 1)