Neat, Orkestra Towers - Fine British Gentlemen

A new speaker from Bob Surgeoner at Neat s not an everyday occurrence. Unlike the increasing number of manufacturers who feel a marketing necessity to churn out new models with alacrity, this County Durham company spends hundreds of hours listening and honing new designs before releasing them. Each new concept must prove itself in a variety of different room acoustics and systems before being signed off for production. The result of these listening sessions govern the tuning and voicing stages, almost to the exclusion of other criteria, Neat don’t rely on computer modelling and measurement they rely on human ears.

Neat’s founder and designer is a musician, self-taught but a musician nonetheless. And this usually bodes well in loudspeaker development, often in stark contrast to brands begun by marketing dorks or entrepreneurs with little or no ‘feeling’ for audio reproduction. Bob has spent most of his life playing music in a variety of different styles from blues and jazz to rock, country and bluegrass. Since childhood, he’s also followed a parallel interest in electronics – probably the perfect combination for creating great-sounding speakers.

Technology: In essence, the Orkestra is a sealed two-way on top of a vented subwoofer in a 2.5-way design. That’s to simplify it too much though. The infinite baffle top box contains a true 75mm ribbon tweeter and Peerless 170mm drive unit handling bass and midrange. Below this compartment is a reflex ported enclosure containing a pair of those 170mm drive units in an isobaric configuration. These handle only the very low bass frequencies. Between the two sections is a minimalist crossover employing first- and second-order slopes. The network components are of ‘audiophile quality’ and all hard-wired, with point-to-point connection rather than a printed circuit board. The idea here is to maximize integrity. Neat use a mix of high-voltage polyprop capacitors and low-loss air-cored inductors. These are fed to a single pair of connection terminals, although a bi-wire/bi-amp option is available to order.

The first impression of the cabinet is that it has a small footprint for a 103cm high loudspeaker which is just 22cm wide: taking up less space, in fact, than my stand-mounted BBC-style monitors. The review sample is in a modern, even Scandinavian natural oak. Options include American walnut, black oak and a satin white. These are fairly easy to drive with an 8 ohm impedance and 88dB/2.38V sensitivity. The drive unit combination gives a quoted -3dB response of 20Hz to 40kHz and this was quite believable during extended audition. Having a low-Q port enables these boxes to work relatively close to the rear wall when required although I found greater refinement in a more free-space location.

The listening experience is that of a highly articulate well balanced speaker capable in every way. The bass response is clean and layered, midrange is liquid and "right." The high end, due to its ribbon driver is airy and with just the right amount of sizzle. A speaker system one can listen to all day and yeah, you will have a tough time tearing yourself away from these. Absolutely stunning zebra wood finish in flawless as-new condition. Don't miss these, they're rare speakers and certainly in this exotic finish.

Come have a listen here in Andover... 

Neat Orkestra, Tower Speaker System: $3,499.00 plus shipping and sales tax when applicable.

* These can't go by conventional shipping so please check with us for options. - HHA