High End 2022 • Hot Product

Zellaton’s distinctly different open-backed loudspeakers have always been something of a curate’s egg. Their proprietary foil-faced drivers and limited resistive loading have always delivered exceptional speed and detail at the expense of deep bass. It’s a balance or design choice that has tended to sacrifice musical weight, presence and authority in favor of sheer, startling, musical immediacy.

But this Munich show signaled a possible change of direction, in the extremely attractive shape of the new Plural Evo (larger speaker above, $69,950 per pair).

This speaker combines Zellaton’s, resistive venting on the mid and treble with an otherwise solid rear baffle. The low frequencies are loaded by a horizontal slot port, critically damped with a foam insert and invisibly located between the speaker’s feet to fire into the soundstage. The musical results were the most satisfying and best balanced I’ve experienced from a Zellaton design, sacrificing little of the detail and immediacy that are the brand’s hallmarks, but fleshing out the bottom end and soundstage with some beautifully articulate bass. This is definitely an evolution to watch.

Alongside the larger Plural Evo model, Zellaton was showing (but not playing) a smaller, two-way, sealed-cabinet design named the Emotion Evo. Its price and availability remain to be fixed, but the cost is expected to be "below $40,000."