Today I had a chance to visit one of the local hi-fi retailers, which is more of an installer than a retailer, but they still have products and demos in their rather small store. They carry a very limited selection of speaker brands, but they seem to have almost all of B&W's speakers in stock aside from the Nautilus (snail speakers) and the Signature Diamond. They have Triad, which is great for in-wall, in-ceiling, hi-fi installs and most recently started carrying ERA.
ERA D4 Satellites
These gems, they could be easily mistaken for real gems, where sitting in the demo room with the speakers I came to addition. I had come to audition the B&W 705s, but we will get to that later. The dealer didn't even give me time to ask about the new speakers (and I was moments from doing so), he says, "you have to hear these new ERA speakers, they are amazing", well that is loosely what he said. I gave them the knocking test, dead as dead gets for a ported speaker.The dealer was right about the sound, they sounded great. This was a rather poorly setup system in a much less than perfect room, but that did not hold the ERA D4 speakers back. The bass was amazing for such small speakers, I can think of no better way to describe the sound other than amazing overall, but the bass from these speakers was eerily good. It wasn't good enough for me to ask "where's the sub", but it was good enough for me to feel all warm and fuzzy inside. If I had to briefly describe the sound of these speakers, I would say "warm and fuzzy". T
We listened to Fiona Apple's release Tidal. The tracks we primarily listened to where "Slow Like Honey", which has some good strong bass notes, and "Pale September" which as some lower xylophone notes. The D4s exhibit the best bass I have ever heard from a 4" driver in any speaker, which is strange to say, seeing how most higher end speakers don't use such small drivers, especially the better known manufacturers. I decided to toe them in for a test of center staging ability and they do center well as well as produce depth and width quite well. I found this to be impressive given the shoddy demo room and overall setup, speakers on shelves. These speakers would likely sound their best placed fairly close to a wall to strengthen the lower notes (ERA's website says the are tuned to 10hz so placing near a wall shouldn't produce boominess). The mid-bass performance was also excellent, xylophones in "Pale September flowed naturally and beautifully. The mid-range and uppers where quite smooth and maintained the grace of the recording without breaking up at higher levels. The dealer tells me the tweeter is way overbuilt for such a speaker, as well as the mid-bass which is high excursion with a very nice rubber surround, sturdy, but not to stiff.
We also tried Heart title from the 80's Little Queen. The track "Love Alive" is very dynamic and has very detailed strings that can be a good indicator how good a speaker really is. Switching between the ERA D4s and B&W 704s didn't reveal how different these speakers are. We all know they are going to be different, and as well they should, the 704s are much more expensive and a larger speaker and should reveal more detail. The ERAs did a good job with details considering their size and also conveyed the dynamics of the track quite well, again considering their small stature.
These speakers should hardly be called "satellites". Sure they are small, but they pack a wallop. The D4 is spec'd to get as low as 58 hz, impressive for a 4" driver. You pair these with a good subwoofer of equal quality and you could have a very nice looking and sounding system, so get out of the way Bose these babies have it all. The only thing they need now is a blessed marketing team and simple to use and setup components.
The ERA D4 retails somewhere from $500-600 for the pair, so if small, but graceful speakers is your thing this might be your bag. Each series (D3, D4, and D5) has a matching LCR speaker and they also offer matching subwoofers. They have a 200 watt class a/b 8" downfiring subwoofer as well as a 300 watt class a/b 10" downfiring subwoofer. All speakers are timbre matched aside from the D3 series, which appears to use a slightly different tweeter, but uses the same topology. The finishes I observed in the store (Sycamore and Cherry) where real wood veneer. Here is a word of warning for potential buyers of this product. The reason this manufacturer is able to put such big sound into these speakers is based on the drivers. There is always a sacrifice with any audio purchase, big or small. The dent you take here is an extremely inefficient and difficult loading speaker. If you want efficient speakers you are going to end up with a big cabinet.
ERA D3 Satellites
I am now considering the lower model D3, pictured directly above, because I like the looks and size of this model more, as well as the price. Those would pair off well with the Teac CD/Receiver I reviewed a month or so ago (review shown in signature).
