Imagine being in space. You are approaching the Earth, a cosy little place, the only one we know. Maybe we should treat it better. Look for a beautiful sea, neither too hot nor too cold. The Mediterranean seems to be right for you, also because it certainly is unique in the world. You want to touch the ground in its centre. Discover Italy, an ideal wharf in the middle of the sea, a walkway to dive, everywhere, right in the Mediterranean. In the centre of Italy is Umbria. In the centre of Umbria is Foligno. No, the one you are aiming for is my home, but everything around is, actually, Umbria, the centre of the centre of Italy.
Umbria is known for its greenery, an authentic lung of Italy. Mystic by tradition, think even of Assisi and Saint Francis, it is a region scarcely populated by strong and determined people. Here the music is at home. Just think of events known all over the world such as the Umbria Jazz Festival of Perugia and neighbouring cities or the Umbria Jazz Winter Festival of Spoleto. Without forgetting the rich tradition of gastronomy, wine and oil that characterize this rich cradle of Italy. You must know that, in an unexpected location, far from background noise and traffic, you can also find Diesis Audio, the world specialist in a type of speakers very dear to me. We are speaking of the dipoles which, in my opinion, are characterized by an open, uncompressed, more immediate and often less “filtered” sound than their brothers “inside a box”. Nothing truer, considering that there is no cabinet in the dipoles… In the Speakers section of ReMusic, that you can also find here, the examples reviewed, personally tested or even just mentioned, are wasted.
I just tested here, some time ago, the Diesis Audio Caput Mundi. The ones to follow are instead the update chronicle and description of the new Diesis Audio’s layout: a production area of excellence, this is the reality, with a dedicated showroom composed of three sounding rooms fully equipped for memorable listening sessions.
The audiophile, the dealer, the entrepreneur
Before updating the files of our knowledge of Diesis Audio, paying a visit to its seat, we want to make a clarification, by exploring the records of Mr. Gabbarini. No, not the criminal ones, even if, as audiophiles, we would all be put in prison. I am referring to the premises that led him to create and bring his brand to what it is today: a unique brand in the world for offering speakers with a bass section with dipole woofers and medium highs with compression drivers and horn. The Caput Mundi, which I mentioned before, were followed by the Ludos, the Aura and the superb Roma: the latter with a “customized” version for the best single ended tube amplifications. By the way, said incidentally, that of Diesis Audio is an articulation of catalogue products made as it used to be. Different speakers by size made for similarly sized environments. Speakers with the same sound research and, in proportion, the same results even if obtainable in different environments per total volumetric dimensions.
Giuseppe Gabbarini is, first of all, an audiophile like the others, like all of us. He listens to everything, he tests everything. Then, unsatisfied with what he has listened, he questions everything and begins to act on his own. Kind of like happened here to those illustrious pioneers of the Hi-Fi who answer the name of William Conrad and Lewis Johnson. Yesss… Just those of Conrad-Johnson’s. The two guys graduated in Economics and created their own company, precisely because they were dissatisfied with the amplifications then present on the market. In other words, like all real audiophiles, if the appliances or speakers on the market do not convince us for some reasons, at the end and at different levels of intervention, we roll up our sleeves and take action.
Giuseppe began to do all this, differently from many of us, since he was a teenager. And he never stopped. The audiophile passion has led him to test directly or indirectly, at home or around, hundreds of appliances and speakers, without counting those purchased, changed, resold, modified or forgotten. Always this bad thing – for the wallet – prompted him to buy thousands between LPs and CDs in times when both cost considerably for the individual’s finances. He also directed and led a Hi-Fi store in Perugia from 1992 to 1999, initially known as Effetto Suono, later renamed under his own management as Effetto Musica. But the story in which we venture today is that of thousands of hours of comparisons and listening, of tests, selection and modifications of materials, in order to be able to obtain the current Diesis Audio’ performances. In this regard, it is enough to say that the initial core of the Diesis “company” is even from 1993. Then became Diesis Audio in 2007, when Giuseppe decided to take it to a higher level as a result of considerable personal investments, both economic and of research. This is because – as explicitly emphasised by the subtitled of this review – this is his job. The Diesis Audio were… the speakers that did not exist yet.
Overcoming the previous ones
Here is the point. It is strange to say today, since we’ve been having them under our eyes for some time, but the type of speakers for which Diesis Audio is known in the world, before Diesis Audio did not exist yet. At least not at the level of authentic market offer. I mean, proposed with continuity, in a professional way, corroborated by pre and after-sales services. In short, here we are talking about a company, however contained in its size and production, not about amateurs animated by good intentions.
The anecdote told to me by Gabbarini himself is worth here: the Diesis Audio, as a whole, are the “speakers that did not exist yet” to the point that, at different times and occasions, some foreign distributors have candidly confessed to Giuseppe that they had discovered them as if they had been made for themselves, so much they “had them in their head”, so much they had them clear in their desires. In fact, before, it was impossible finding similar ones on the market! Just to name some of the famous, the spectacular Jadis Eurythmie had the medium high range with a horn driver but the bass range was “in the speaker”, the blazoned Jamo R909, previous to the Diesis Audio Caput Mundi, is a dipole with mid-high ways with pistonic drivers and also marketed for a relatively short period. Finally, the Supravox, that you can see in general here, have always been dipole designs, well sounding and timeless, available for self-construction. Actually, the French house offers them free of charge to those who want to use their own drivers, while for itself reserves a production of only speakers – of which you can find here – but not open baffle.
We must also admit that the dipoles were affected by some prejudices that led them to be linked to the experiments of the rookie audiophiles, to the tests of the technicians who wanted to make some quick measure or to the incorrigible nostalgic of their “sound” objectively contained at range extremes in the more traditional projects. The preconceptions towards the dipoles are still many and I list only a few without pretension of completeness. Certainly, the more significant are as follows: from those dictated by superficiality, like “they are a couple of boards with holes”, to those on the supposed full performances, like “they have no bass” or “they have no dynamics”.
Let’s focus for now on these last points: the extension and power of the bass and the real dynamics. Criticisms that move to dipoles can be partially true for the isodynamic loudspeakers or pure electrostatics. For example, Magnepan or MartinLogan. Our champions of the two types of dipole are intrinsically limited in achieving sound pressure and extension on bass and absolute dynamic capacity. Low sensitivity and scheme values confirm this. In fact, to overcome their limits, the former normally increase the area of the vibrating surface and the latter rely on simple woofers in the cabinet with some kind of acoustic agreement with the environment.
Motivation, route, results
Giuseppe Gabbarini has given concrete, verifiable, incontestable answers to the perplexities that accompanied the listening of the most classical if not “basic” dipoles since his first Diesis Audio model. He answered precisely point by point, word for word, to all criticisms, prejudices, preconceptions and objections that the bad audiophile common sense had accumulated, by addressing and solving them. If normally the most common dipoles show little dynamics and everything is relative, these have it. They have as well low range, extension included. And don’t be fooled by their “simple” appearance because here we can report some gluttony details.
The horns, for example, are made exclusively on their own designs, machined from solid Corion or obtained by padouk or makassar veneers, coupled and artfully curved. After testing the most varied wood essences, aluminium and other assorted minerals, the supporting structure in Clad 58, a proprietary Dieses’ conglomerate, composed of mineral powders and resins, does justice to the velocity, dynamics and extension of the bass without those subtractions or colours normally attributable to almost wooden cabinets. In addition, the selection, identification, coupling and optimization of the speakers, have been achieved in a careful way by evaluating dozens of them and adopting few and never of close mass production. Each speaker or driver used on Diesis Audio is the result of specific request to the manufacturers and changes in progress according to long-considered “recipes”. And of the latter something personally I know, not everything, but I was understandably asked to keep quiet about the detail and beauty of the solutions…
Diesis Audio manufacturing detail, specifically the mid-high crossover unit of the Roma loudspeakers
This dedication to listening has led to distinctly audible results. This is because Giuseppe had a sound in his head. Better to say “the sound” because, at the end of the day, is one and only one. However, having a precise reference in mind, that, as usual, is that of natural instruments, and knowing how to report it in appliances or loudspeakers, are not two things that always go hand in hand. They are not for many audiophiles but not even for many manufacturers. Just attend some event at Hi-Fi shows to realise it. How many sounds do we hear? How many different interpretations of the reproduced sounds are we exposed to? Why do the audio systems play differently and in such different ways? Know it, many years ago it wasn’t like that. Once, and mine is not nostalgia, it is a chronicle, most manufacturers/producers tended to a sound, perhaps by different means, but tended to the same sound: undistorted dynamics, perceived naturalness, ease of emission, general sense of involvement, As you can see, I have not mentioned parameters such as absolute abstention in frequency, the supposed tone correctness and total instrumental linearity. In short, in my opinion, the global trend of the last twenty/thirty years to drastically reduce the bulk of the speakers and to bring everything back to adequacy to instrumental measures has caused a kind of regurgitation in the Hi-End, where everyone today “sings his own praises” offering very different sounds, if not questionable. In recent years the Hi-End drift has produced monsters as well as, even just for a statistical issue, alternative and, only sometimes, innovative realisations.
This did not happen to Diesis Audio that kept the bar straight in the centre of its sound objectives. Over time the sound paste of its speakers has always remained recognizable, unique, from the “small” Ludos to the “big”, even in an economic sense, Roma Triode. This signs that the setting is the same for the different levels of cost and performance and also for the result you want to obtain. In short, this made the Diesis models the first commercially available in the world with dipole bass range and horn medium highs. And this would be enough to push you to go and listen to them, to discover and to appreciate. Just know that we haven’t talked yet of what you can find in Diesis Audio showroom. And this is the next part of the story...
End part one | To next part
For further info: to Diesis Audio website
