SILENT POUND BLOOM LOUDSPEAKERS REVIEW
Silent Pound Bloom loudspeakers are a 15K Euro large “standmount” with integrated stand that manages to house a pair of 12″ drivers, an 8″ mid driver, and a tweeter. Stuart, who thoroughly enjoyed the brand’s Challenger II, takes a listen for HiFi PiG.
I don’t want to repeat what has been said previously about this Lithuanian company on these pages, but I have reviewed their excellent Challenger II speakers in the past, and you can read that review here. Much of what I said about “lifestyle” products can be said about the Bloom speakers; they are a product that blurs the line between what folk call “lifestyle” and high-end audio. I’m very much of the opinion that high-end audio products should look the part as well as sound the part, and the Blooms pull this off with aplomb.
BUILD AND FEATURES OF SILENT POUND BLOOM LOUDSPEAKERS
Silent Pound’s Bloom is a compact three-way, stand-mount design built around a constant-directivity architecture. The layout combines two 300 mm (12″) woofers in a dipole configuration with a 200 mm (8″) coaxial unit carrying the midrange and a 1.4″ compression driver for the highs. Now that seems to be a lot of drivers to pack into what is a fairly modest enclosure, but Silent Pound has managed this whilst losing nothing of the aesthetic appeal of the speakers. They are certainly a more manageable size than the Challenger II speakers.
Nominal impedance is 4 Ω, sensitivity 87 dB, with quoted bandwidth 31 Hz–20 kHz. The cabinet/stand assembly measures 110 × 31 × 31 cm and is listed at 40 kg per unit. Recommended amplifier power is 80–300 W, with a starting price of €14,999.
A patent-pending midrange enclosure is used for the mid/high section. The crossover is presented as a visible design element, mounted beneath a glass panel rather than hidden inside, and uses what Silent Pound describes as “audio-grade” components.
Driver selection is from the brand’s “Pro series” catalogue. The mid driver’s suspension is specified as a fabric-based, specially impregnated material, rather than rubber or polypropylene.
The enclosure/stand structure is steel, CNC-bent, powder-coat finished, with an 8 mm-thick steel base and a wood inlay bonded to the inner metal stand. I particularly like the way the stand and speaker are one and the same, though you do have to bolt on the metal baseplate. The design is exceptionally cool, and the large gap between the stand base and the speakers, allied with the fact that there is a large “void” makes the speakers fit in very nicely to the room they are place in; indeed, our cat, Clio, used the gap to walk through the speakers to and from her favourite hidey hole under a radiator. This gap also means you can put the speakers in place and still get to the speaker binding posts very easily.
Colour options include black and white, though you can contact the company if you fancy something a little more bespoke.
The finish on the speakers is superb, and I genuinely couldn’t find fault with this aspect of the speaker at all.
SET UP AND USE
Unpacking the speakers is really a two-person job, as they are heavy. Once out of the box, all you have to do is bolt the bottom plate onto the speaker frame, place them in position, and connect the wires. Robert’s your mother’s brother. A point on the packaging that only became apparent when repacking them in their box is that it is very well-thought-out, and despite the size and weight of the speakers, repacking was achieved very easily.
I had them set up 2.5m or so apart, with me sitting a similar distance away between the speakers in an equilateral triangle. I found them at their best with a toe-in towards the listening position, so that each speaker was pointing directly at my ears; to be fair, I find this the best starting position for pretty much all speakers we are sent.
I played mixed music through the speakers for a couple of weeks before sitting down with them to do any serious listening. An interesting point on this is that I tend to get a really good feel for a loudspeaker whilst mixing tunes, even though I spend a good deal of time with a headphone attached to one ear. Basically, good-sounding speakers tend to be very easy to mix on, whereas less good speakers are more of a challenge. I have no idea why this should be, but I thought I’d mention it, just in case anyone was interested.
A pair of Electrocompaniet AW800M amplifiers provided the juice for the Blooms for the duration of their time with us. The rest of the kit was a Music First preamplifier, Lampizator DAC, and cables from Tellurium Q, Chord, Atlas, and Esprit. Over and above the mixing bit, I did use vinyl via a Technics 1200G/Ortofon MC90X and a Music First phonostage and SUT.
SOUND QUALITY
If you read my reviews regularly, you’ll be well aware that one of the first things I tend to pick up on when reviewing kit, particularly loudspeakers, is the bass response, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that I was a bit obsessive on this front. Yes, bass is important to me, but it’s only relevant in a positive sense if it is in harmony and balance with the rest of the frequency characteristics of a product. A bass that is too forward or too far back leads to an unbalanced speaker, and your earlugs would soon recognise that as being the case. So when I first sat down to listen to the Blooms, I was delighted to note that whilst they do go low (a quoted 31Hz), they are also exquisitely balanced on the bass front. Yes, I could feel the pulse of bass in the electronic tunes I was listening to, but that pulse wasn’t overwhelming, overbearing or heavy-handed. Of course, inside the Blooms, you get a pair of 12” bass drivers per side, and so you’d expect them to go low, but I was genuinely taken somewhat aback by just how much I enjoyed the bass response on these speakers. I’ll trot out the usual tropes that I overuse: tight, no overhang, and fast. However (and as I mentioned) tight and fast bass is only of any use in a loudspeaker if it is presented in harmony with everything else that is going off on a record; and the Blooms get this very right. Crank the volume up, and you can get the bass hitting in your chest, but dial it back a bit, and you still have a similar sonic experience, only lacking the physical aspect…if that makes sense. I made most of the notes on that bit of the review whilst listening to the live album by Kraftwerk (Minimum – Maximum), but it was as true on all the electronic music I listened to, as well as other tunes. On this latter point, I popped on Motorhead’s Overkill, where Lemmy’s bass and Philthy Phil’s double bass kick (particularly the latter) were palpable, but also not dominating the mix – well, they might have been a bit, but that’s how the Motorhead record is mixed.
The second thing that stood out with the Blooms was the soundstaging, and this was also highlighted during that Kraftwerk album and the track Metal on Metal. There was a sound amongst the panned percussion (that itself was flying all over the soundstage) that jumped out of the stage in a very three-dimensional kind of way; I love all that kind of psychoacoustic stuff, and when a speaker presents it well, it reminds me of why I followed the audio path, all those years ago.
Listening to something that is not my usual fodder, I popped on Bach’s Cantata 22 (for the choir) and enjoyed being able to visualise the soloist at a particular point on the stage, and, later, the rest of the choir spread out in an arc before me with the female “soloist” also taking a specific point in space. But this wasn’t just a left-to-right sensation of space; this stage also had height and depth, a three-dimensional space in which the instruments and vocalists occupied.
Whacking on Juno Reactor’s Pistolero had sounds coming from well beyond the speakers’ physical limits, and the music created a kind of sphere of sound, with me sitting at the far end of the sphere from the speakers. I had the same kind of bubble experience listening to Anna von Hausswolff’s latest recording, ICONOCLASTS, where I was drawn into the soundstaging to the point where I felt within the recording and amongst the sonic sculptures she creates.
I’ve mentioned this before, but when asked, one of the features folk look for in a loudspeaker is dynamics, and the Blooms really do excel in this aspect of their performance. They are fast to react and move from quiet passages to louder passages with ease. On albums like The Wall and that first track (In The Flesh), the first hit after the intro made me jump out of my seat a little.
But then there is the detail. Bass, dynamics, and great soundstaging are but nothing if that’s all there is, and I’ve heard many a folk moan about this speaker or that being all boom and tizz, but that’s really not the Blooms’ style at all. For example, the Tears For Fears tune Mad World (performed by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules from the soundtrack of Donnie Darko) has the vocal projected into the room, resonant and full. I listened closely to this record on the Blooms, though I’ve heard it a hundred times in the past, and found myself thoroughly drawn into small details I’d not really taken notice of before, particularly the drum track, which is a kind of slowed-down drum and bass style; the sound on the snare wires drew me in, particularly. I sat and listened to this track over and over whilst taking notes, and the word I struggled to get past was “harmonious”.
And I guess that harmonious is a pretty good way to describe the Blooms. Nothing dominates, but nothing seems to be missing. Nothing is enlarged or ever-egged, but by the same token, nothing is pushed to the back of the mix.
QUIBBLES
I’ve tried and I’ve tried to find fault with the Blooms, but try as I might, I can’t really find anything negative to say about them, and they may well be the best sub (by a euro) 15K Euro speaker we have had in the house.
I guess (if I’m being super picky) that the way the binding posts are positioned (I actually love the ease of access) meant that I could see the cables (I use spades, but you’d not have this issue with bananas) through the speakers’ “void”, but I really am clutching at straws here!
I also guess that the aesthetic of the Blooms isn’t going to be to everyone’s taste, but the truth is, they were right up my street in that department.
I also guess that it’s fair to say that the Blooms are pretty unsensitive at 87dB and you’d most likely want to partner them with a pretty beefy amp, but I had already read the specs and partnered them with our Electrocompaniet AW800M amplifiers, and so this point is pretty moot, too.
CONCLUSION
I think it’s fair to say that I really enjoyed my time with the Blooms from Silent Pound. Whether I was mixing tunes where the speakers could really party (in a detailed and refined way), or sat listening more intently to my records, where they are detailed and dynamic, I never found myself able to identify any major flaw with these speakers. I spent a lot of time playing a lot of different styles and genres through the blooms, and I genuinely struggled to find fault with them.
My major takeaways from my time with them were that they are a dynamically enthralling speaker that major on being able to present whatever is on the file or record and project it into the room in as lifelike a manner as I’ve heard for a speaker at this price point. They don’t have an AMT tweeter in them, but they somehow still manage to capture and present the air in a recording at the top end. They do have two 12-inch drivers a side, and so you’d expect them to do bass, but even though they do “do” bass, they don’t push it to the point where they collapse into being bass-heavy. The midrange 8-inch coaxial never seems taxed, and sounds natural and uncoloured through this all-important band of frequencies.
One of the standouts of the Blooms was the superlative soundstage they threw into our listening space. I read the Silent Pound marketing fluff on this, and they do mention this as being a priority feature, but to sit in that bubble of sound and feel surrounded by the instruments and sounds is a great experience to pay witness to.
Fifteen grand is still a lot of money, but that’s how much stuff costs these days, and I think that the guys at Silent Pound have managed to create a product that will be very hard for any brand to better at this sub 15K point. I actually think I preferred their presentation to the Challenger II, but that review was a good while ago, and I might well be getting ahead of myself here. When compared to our Ø Audio ICON 12, they are perhaps a little more refined and polite through the mid-band and perhaps have a more engulfing soundstage, but they also cost 5 grand less and look very different; some will prefer each of these points, some will go a different way.
Anyway, given what I’ve said about these speakers and the praise I’ve heaped on them in this review, I can’t give them anything other than the Editor’s Choice award.
With all that Ive said, if you are I the market to spunk 15K on speakers, I would urge you to listen to the Blooms along with a selection of other speakers around this price and make your own mind up. Yes, these are superb loudspeakers, but, like always, you shouldn’t take a reviewer’s word for it, and you really should trust your own lugholes; though I strongly suspect you will find yourself agreeing with me on the points I’ve made with regard to the Blooms. Also, make sure your amplifiers are up to the job, as I suspect these speakers will highlight any deficiencies your amp might have in regard to power, grip, and sonic clarity.
AT A GLANCE
Build Quality And Features:
Cool looking and modern – some will like them, some won’t
Can’t fault the build quality
One pair of binding posts – I don’t see an issue, but some might
The “void” makes them open and unobtrusive, though they are a fairly hefty speaker
They are kind of like a big stand-mounted speaker with an integrated stand
The window on the back that allows you to see the crossover is a nice touch
Sound Quality:
Amazing Soundstaging
Balanced through all the frequencies
Real bass hit, but not out of keeping with the rest of the presentation
Value For Money:
15K is a chunk of money, but you could spend a lot more and get nowhere near the performance of these speakers
We Loved:
The looks
The fast and dynamic nature of the speakers
Nothing in the frequency response stands out as being pushed to the fore
Soundstaging is like being sat at the far end of a bubble with the music spread out before you and filling that bubble
Not having to fiddle around the back to attach the speaker cables
We Didn’t Love So Much:
The speaker cables do stick up and are visible when using spades
Make sure to use a properly high-fidelity amp with a decent amount of grip
Elevator Pitch Review: The Bloom loudspeakers by Silent Pound are a 15K floorstander, though I think it’s better to describe them as a speaker with an integrated stand. They throw a wonderful soundstage that envelops the listener in a bubble of sound. No one frequency range dominates the Blooms’ character, but in the same breath, nothing is lacking. They are dynamic and detailed, but I suspect you do need a reasonably powerful amplifier to really do them justice!
Price: 14,900 Euros
Stuart Smith
SUPPLIED SPECIFICATIONS
Impedance:
4 Ohm
Minimum Impedance:
3.4 Ohm
Sensitivity:
87 dB
Dimensions:
110 x 31 x 31 cm
Frequency Range:
31 Hz to 20 kHz
Weight:
40 kg per unit
Speaker Drivers:
Two 300 mm woofers in dipole configuration
One 200 mm coaxial driver with an 8 inch midrange and a 1.4 inch compression driver
Three way speaker system
Recommended Amplifier Power:
80 to 300 watts
