Reviewer: David Neiger
They say that good things come in small packages and Anthony Gallo speakers are a good illustration of this. This US-based company specialises in producing some of the world’s finest small speaker systems that are both pleasant to the eye and the ear, and which fill the room with sound rather than equipment. The speakers are also available in a variety of colours to blend in with most decors.
Setting up
Setting up the Micro Ti speakers is a simple matter of plugging the speakers into the speaker terminals of your surround amplifier and positioning the speakers for your listening room. There are a variety of mounting options, including rubber rings for mounting on shelves, beautiful matching stands or roof mounts. The subwoofer plugs into the LFE (Low Frequency Effects) output of the AV receiver or, in the absence of this, the individual speaker terminals of the amplifier.
Features
The Micro Ti speakers are spherical, a design that Anthony Gallo claims provides the strongest possible shape for the speaker enclosure and minimises internal resonance and external diffraction. The spherical design also significantly reduces distortion and provides for clear sound across a wide range of frequencies, while a single driver eliminates the need for crossover circuitry. This, according to Anthony Gallo, improves the spatial characteristics of the speaker.
The TR-1 100 watt subwoofer is sealed rather than ported and is forward firing. The 25 cm driver is packed into a cylindrical enclosure rather than a box-type cabinet, which Anthony Gallo claims to effectively eliminate resonance while still providing a very big sound from what looks like a brushed stainless steel can. The TR-1 comes with the usual controls: level, continuously variable phase and continuously variable high frequency cut-off. Speaker-level inputs allow the TR-1 to be connected to older-model AV receivers that do not have a line-level (or LFE) subwoofer output.
Performance
Although looks are important, a speaker is only as good as it sounds. In this regard the Anthony Gallo speakers performed admirably. The sound field was very distinct, allowing the listener to easily identify the source of the sound. This is very important for home theatre systems as you want the voices and sounds to appear to come from the images on the screen. With these speakers you could literally point to where the voices were coming from, even in crowd and concert scenes.
To our ears, the sound was well balanced, with crisp clear treble (without being over emphasised), adequate midrange performance and strong, clear bass without a trace of muddiness. Paired to a high quality amplifier, the Ti’s were easily able to fill our moderately sized audition room with high quality sound to spare, although larger rooms would benefit from the the 250 watt TR-2 subwoofer.
The speakers performed well across a wide range of music genres – from classical choral works, through to jazz and rock music – with a clarity that surpassed some larger, equivalently priced speaker systems we have experienced. Although the Micro Ti speakers are rated as being able to go as low as 100Hz we found we had to set the sub’s cut-off higher than this so as to avoid placing undue stress on the satellites.
Conclusion
Those who expect a lot of audio ‘furniture’ for $3,200 will be confronted by how little ‘physical’ speaker they get with the Ti system. Get past this and you’ll appreciate the Titanium for its aesthetic good looks, discrete positioning options (some buyers conceal the sub in a pot plant or waste paper basket) and ability to produce good sound – in the complete absence of a chunky box.
