Aces

 

ACE™ – SMART™ – TOP-ACT™ – Intelli-Q™ – L PowR™

These breakthrough technologies are unique to Parallel Audio loudspeakers. True to our commitment to excellence, they’re what make the Parallel Audio Project special. These proprietary trailblazing methods are why the Project to sounds superior to any other loudspeaker at any price.

What are they all about? To start, L PowR stands for Linear Polar-omnidirectional-width Response. This is the key to the Parallel Project that creates whole room clarity and realistic sound. By filling your entire room with full range sound equally to all corners, you hear the recording in all its glory.

Intelli-Q, Intelligent Quality Quotient, is the key to tight, powerful bass. The kind of bass you get with live music performed by live musicians. From years of intense research the reality of a kick drum thud, or a crisp slap of a double bass pluck has now been made possible through our carefully calculated Q quotient. No other speaker has the precisely applied Q of the Parallel subwoofer.

Next is the TOP-ACT, Tri-Operation Professional Active Crossover Tools. The crossover is the heart of a speaker. These exclusive tools keep your bass un-muddled by midrange, the midrange free from grain, and your treble crisp and clear. Each range is separated from the others so they blend together in your room, not in the amp and wires.

Further refining the sound is SMART, Secured Musical Acoustic Rectification Technology, another Parallel exclusive. By securing and isolating driver backwave, the pure waves projected into your room are acoustically rectified from any interference.

Last, but not least, is our ACE in the hole, the Atmospheric Compression Equalization, which insures internal cabinet air is balanced with the external barometric pressure. Without this last step, the performance would be compromised. The number one priority, the hallmark of Parallel Audio, is uncompromising quality.

Impressive, no? All those cute acronyms are used to heighten the prosaic with high-tech sounding terminology suggesting years of concentrated research. They imply millions of dollars worth of trial & error, testing, and time spent on perfecting technology that has never even been thought of before now. Here to support big claims, they are a grotesque attempt to bamboozle the naive into thinking that Parallel Audio has proprietary technology no one else has.

Let’s look closer. The truth is worth investigating. Those adorable double entendres are there to make you go ooh and aah. They’re really circumlocutions, roundabout ways of saying something that could have been said directly without pretense.

For instance, L PowR is nothing more than a flat frequency response in all directions around the speaker, front, sides, and rear. Nothing new, although, it is uncommon. Yet it shouldn’t be, because it’s one of the keys for natural sounding speakers, neither bright, nor muddy.

Anything called intelligent or genius can, out of hand, be immediately dismissed. If it’s really intelligent or genius, it’ll be self evident. In this case, Intelli-Q is simply low Q. It’s the means for the reproduction of well controlled bass frequencies with good transient response and little overhang. Higher Qs produce louder bass from less amplifier power, but at the cost of ringing or booming. A low Q combined with proven acoustic suspension technology has been around for decades. Not only is it better, the big kicker is, it’s easier.

TOP-ACT is simply a three-way active crossover. Active crossovers are commonly used in professional applications and recording studios. It’s good practice, but again, for consumer speakers, it’s rare. For high-end speakers (those costing more than a few thousand USD), not using an active crossover is remiss. Passive crossovers have no place in any serious audio system.

SMART is stupid simple. It merely means a sealed cabinet that isolates the drivers’ inverse phase backwave from interfering with the sound from the front of the drivers, and just as importantly, doing it without using the crutch of a port to artificially boost the bass—a crutch that makes sloppy bass. Ports, or vented enclosures (a.k.a. bass reflex), are the norm, even in very expensive speakers. But sealed enclosures perform, measure, and sound better. Ports have no place in any serious audio system for home use.

ACE is even simpler. It’s a small hole drilled in to the speaker cabinet to allow the atmospheric pressure to equalize inside the enclosure.

None of these silly pseudonym technologies are new, unique, proprietary, nor in any way exceptional. They’ve all been known for over half a century. There are no breakthroughs, blazed trails, or years of grinding research. What is exceptional is that few speaker makers apply all of these techniques simultaneously. The takeaway is, all are basic, well established speaker design principles for producing clean, clear, realistic sound in ordinary rooms. Nothing mysterious, no genius required. They’re not high-tech. They’re just plain, simple, good physics.

Get the plain, boring facts at [Parallel Audio].
And from a disinterested party : [Enjoy the Music].

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Pretzels

BaladaArtLongBaroque music used to intrigue me. Classical used to entertain me. Romantic used to excite me. And to some degree they still do. But if I want to listen to something that twists my expectations into crusty knots, I need more than the counterpoint of Scarlatti, more than the saccharin of Corelli, more than bombast of Tchaikovsky. I need the some briny contemporary compositions that place demands on my ears.

Leonardo does it. His name conjures a Renaissance artist from Vinci, however, this Leonardo is from Barcelona. He was born during Europe’s sour atmosphere still recovering from the first big one, and leading up to the second big one. It was a time of fermenting tensions. The music of the day reflected their anxiety. Dissonance and atonality rising from the Second Viennese School, lead by Schoenberg and his followers, Berg and Webern, took hold and spread internationally. It’s consequences continue to be felt. Barcelona’s Leonardo Balada may have been born in the throws of atonality, and his music may reveal some reminders of that era, he wasn’t bound by the past, or hindered by its closed minded rules. His dissonance is tempered, his tonality not lost. Although, it’s not always accurate to call it tonality in the conventional sense. It’s there. He teases us with it, then he snatches it away. He takes it the hinterlands of quasi-tonality, or perhaps more aptly, ambi-tonality. Bits, here and there, of “do” keep our ears trained on chewy bites of lye dipped themes—challenging, but not impossible—sometimes twice-baked to a crispy satisfaction. Listen—

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Capricho #2, Jarabe

Capricho #2, Tango

Capricho #2 is a set of three dances, a samba, a tango, and a jarabe. The samba doesn’t feel all that danceable, but the basic samba rhythm is discernible, if you listen hard. Balada also refers to other popular forms in Caprichos 3 and 4. Number 4 is subtitled “Quasi Jazz.” Really? Jazz? Even quasi is questionable. There are tidbits of jazzish elements, but the rhythm is stilted, militaristic—not even close to the laid back ease and flowing drive of jazz. It’s embarrassing when academic composers and classically trained musicians make blundering attempts at jazz. Okay, it’s not supposed to be Jazz, but get real. When jazz musicians borrow from classical, they don’t call it quasi-classical. They don’t try to pretend it’s “classic.” They aren’t bragging about how sophisticated they are by co-opting classical phrases in their jazz. They take it as inspiration, play with it, bounce it around, make it their own. It’s fun—it’s creative. I never get pretense from jazz musicians’ borrowing, however, when “legit” musicians take popular music and try to mould it into “serious” styles, there’s something false about it. If only they’d cease making a point of, “Look at how giggywiddit I am. I’m putting jazz in my music.” Let listeners discover the borrowed influences on their own. Have a little respect that the audience can figure it out all by themselves. Play with the borrowed material, knead it, add seasonings to it, twist it into genuinely new shapes. Make it fun and creative. After that harangue, you might think I’m bashing Capricho #4—not at all. The music with its hint of popular influences is engaging, and possibly its saving grace. As for influences, jazz barely makes a ding. I hear Stravinsky, Coplan, Herrman (music for Psycho), and a little shot of the blues, more than I hear jazz.

The most tonal and creative Capricho on the CD is number 3. It’s titled “Homenaje a las Brigadas Internacionales” (Homage to the International Brigades), dedicated to the international volunteers who fought in the Spanish Civil War. Here folk tune references are unmistakable with no pointing it out. He takes these themes, contorts them with ambi- and poly-tonal novelty. He adds puckering dissonance to contrast with the savory tunes. Two of the five movements are slow, thoughtful pieces, suitably named, “In memoriam,” and “Lamento.” Each serving up mustardy bitterness against the salty tenderness of the folk melodies. All five are excellent examples of making creative fun. Listen—

Capricho #3, “Si me quieres escribir”

Capricho #3, “Lamento”

Capricho #3, “Jota”

BaladaBalada’s music reminds me of my first John Coltrane album. Initial listening left me thinking, “Eh, okay.” Next listening, “Yea, this is pretty good.” Another listening, “Wow. Now I’m getting it.” And each subsequent listening disclosed more of its piquancy. I’m finding these Caprichos doing the same. This is the sign of something better than good. Something lasting, something that will continue to fascinate. Something I’ll go back to for the familiar flavors and the crunchy fresh.

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(||) Rating — Music : A- ║ Performance : A ║ Recording : A ║
 Leonardo Balada, Caprichos, Naxos, 2011

 

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