Alta Audio quickly earned a place in my heart as an extremely special speaker manufacturer. This stems from more than just sound quality. The passion from the brand, and the experience they try to bring in to your home is on another level. Picture having a jazz club or music hall next door. You attend a live performance, with magical notes filling the room, your ears, and body. Then you immediately run home to listen to music, often finding some of that “soul” missing. Alta Audio tries to bring that jazz club or music hall into your home, a challenging feat that seems very difficult to pull off.
Fortunately, this is something that I’ve already experienced with both my Alyssa bookshelf, and Alec tower reviews. The Alec was my first experience with Alta Audio, and it’s something I’ll never forget. The Alec changed what I thought was possible from a 2-way floor standing system. They not only managed to fill a large room at high SPL levels, but they did so in such a rich and confident way. The bass extended deep thanks to some magical port tuning (XTL Bass), with a crossover matrix so seamless, you would think it’s a single driver system.
The Alyssa took the same prowess, and condensed it all into a bookshelf system, all without sacrificing that deep luscious bass and clarity I found and loved in the Alec. At both a lower cost and size, the Alyssa allows more people to enjoy the signature Alta Audio sound.
So that brings me to today’s announcement of the new Titanium Hestia II. With a suggested retail price of $37,500 in piano black, it’s almost four times the launch price of the Alec towers that I loved so dearly. Make no mistake, the Hestia II is not just a more expensive and more powerful Alec. The Hestia is from Alta Audio’s Reference series. This represents Alta Audio’s crème de la crème speakers and brings in rather unworldly performance into your home.
The Titanium Hestia II improves on the prior version by updating the crossover with a design similar to the recently announced Adam speaker. The Hestia II features new 7″ midrange drivers, updates to the core transformer in the tweeter, new cabling, updates crossover components, and more.
The Hestia II is indeed a spiritual successor to the original, a critically acclaimed masterpiece of a speaker. The new version simply utilizes improved materials and design knowledge that would satisfy even the most critical of listeners, all without losing that special sauce or presence that the original Hestia provided.
These speakers demand space in your home. So it’s also important to call out design aesthetic, in addition to performance. Thankfully, Alta Audio has also paid close attention to this. The Hestia II proves that you can have a beautiful speaker in your room, while also producing captivating and immensely powerful sound. It represents the pinnacle of two channel listening, and audible Picasso, if you will.
I’ve been fortunate enough to have Alta Audio speakers in my home over the past few years and I still haven’t found something that compares. I hope I am fortunate enough to have extended listening time with the new Hestia II in the future, an experience I will surely share with you all. Until that time comes, take a look at their site to learn more…
Be the first to comment