I first heard the prototypes of the almost-all-glass Arabesque from Dutch wire manufacturer Crystal Cable at the
2009 CES, where they produced sound in the Audio Basics room that belied my negative expectations. Demmed at SSI with Simaudio 5.3 series CD player and amplification, the Arabesques, now in full production, again produced a promising sound. With my my recording of "The Mooche," from
Editor's Choice, the Arabesques put me squarely in the church acoustic of Chad Kassem's Blue Heaven Studio in Kansas, where the recording was made.
The ribbon tweeter is married to three Scan Speak Illuminator woofers and the crossover is contained within the machined-from-aluminum base. The glass panels are joined with UV-cured adhesive and make up a truncated spiral or elongated comma (as viewed from above), with the reflex port at the end of the spiral. 20 pairs have already been sold workwide, Crystal's Gabi van der Kley told me. Crystal (and sister company Siltech) are distributed in Canada by Audio Basics, though Crystal doesn't yet have US distribution for the speaker.
