The Polish company Divine Acoustics makes loudspeakers different than others around them. Instead of classic cuboid with narrow front and significant depth, we get flat, very shallow loudspeakers with a quite wide front baffle, similar to a construction with an open baffle. Some time ago it was a requirement, especially due to an open construction of most loudspeakers, today open baffle is used sporadically – it is worth to mention the model Reference R 909 from Jamo, the unusual Gradient Helsiniki 1.5, or – to some extent – my Harbeth M40.1. The model Electra 2 Divine Acoustics is different – this is a bass-reflex loudspeaker, with the drivers closed in a certain volume. With the mentioned models it shares the electric parameters, like the high and leveled impedance (8Ω), sensible sensitivity (88dB) and a general ease of driving them – it is not by coincidence, that the company tells in the technical data, that a 3W power amplifier is sufficient to drive the Electra 2. So we will see, how those loudspeakers sound with my 6W Leben CS-300 XS [Custom Version].

The constructor and owner of DA, Mr. Piotr Galkowski writes, that the set send for testing comes from the current production, but in the next production run new wire terminals will be used – they will be of higher quality. The change is due to a request of one of the distributors. And then he writes: “I am sending you also a picture of the cross-over, because the loudspeakers cannot be taken apart”.
It is known, that the loudspeakers are available in six colors of the finish. “I am finishing work on another three finishes – writes Mr. Piotr – that will be available at extra price:
- Black piano varnish with black leather
- White piano varnish with white leather
- Red wine with red leather.
As a set for the model Electra 2 the model Alya for hanging on the wall as back speakers and the central speaker Maia are being developed.”

From the construction side, beside the cabinet, the Electra 2 seem to be quite classic – those are floor standing loudspeakers, two-way with the bass-reflex port firing to the floor. We know the company already, because in 2008 we tested the first version of the model Proxima (No. 52, August 2008, test HERE). I liked the loudspeakers so much, that they received the Award of the Year 2008 of “High Fidelity”.
The Electra 2 are slightly smaller loudspeakers. Unpacking them from flat boxes you cannot miss, that they are truly professionally made – very nice veneer, nicely glued leather, nice small finish elements, etc – everything tells us: that’s class!

The loudspeaker is made using two drivers – the tweeter is a soft dome with 20mm diameter and a woofer with 130mm diameter and a very light (9g) diaphragm. Both drivers have the bolts masked with an MDF element covered with leather. There is a lot about leather, but this is a part of the concept of masking the resonances to a maximum extent – this is why the plinth is bolted via… leather and a layer of cork. The tweeter is mounted from the back with a long bolt – something used most prominently by Monitor Audio to make the cabinet more rigid (the name of this solution is “single bolt through”; please look at the test of the model Bronze BX6 HERE).

To date we tested:

• Floorstanding loudspeakers Divine Acoustics PROXIMA, test HERE).

SOUND

A selection of recordings used in the test:

• Audiofeels, Uncovered, Penguin Records, 5865033, CD (2009).
• Carol Sloane, Hush-A-Bye, Sinatra Society of Japan/Muzak, XQAM-1031, CD (2008).
• David Sylvian, Sleepwalkers, P-Vine Records, PVCP-8790, CD (2011).
• Eva Cassidy, Songbird, Blix Street Records/JVC, VICJ-010-0045, XRCD24 (2010).
• Jean Michel Jarre, Téo&Téa, Aero Productions/Warner Bros, 2564699766, CD+DVD (2007).
• Marc Copland&John Abercombie, Speak To Me, Pirouet Records, PIT3058, CD (2011).
• Pat Metheny, What’s It All About, Nonesuch Records/Warner Music Japan, WPCR-14176, CD (2011);
• Pieter Nooten & Michael Brook, Sleeps With The Fishes, 4AD, GAD 710 CD, CD (1987).
• Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here, Experience Edition, EMI/EMI Music Japan, TOCP-71169-90, 2 x CD (2011).
• Ralf Illenberger, Red Rock Journeys, Stockfisch, SFR 357.1020.2, CD (2011).
• Sonny Rollins, Plus 4, Prestige/Mobile Fidelity, UDSACD 2006, SACD/CD (2002).

Japanese versions of the discs are available at CD Japan.

It turned out, that in short period of time I tested three, completely different loudspeakers, belonging to a quite – in the end – similar price level: Castle Howard 3, DLS M60 and now the Divine Acoustics Electra 2. Each of those loudspeakers is completely different and using them as an example we can follow strategies of manufacturers and their effects.
Castle are most expensive from the pack, the biggest ones and most imposing. At the same time this is the most known brand. Those are large loudspeakers with a quite elaborate way of reproducing low frequencies by using two different mid-woofers working in two different frequency areas, loaded with a kind of labyrinth (quarter wave). DLS are on the other hand classic, although quite large stand mount loudspeakers with a bass-reflex cabinet. And the Electra 2 – this is also a bass-reflex speaker, but with a completely untypical enclosure, a floor standing one.
Do such different cabinets influence the sound? Of course! The Castle sound with the biggest sound, reach lowest bass, show the most saturated sound. Second in the row are the DLS, which, while being stand mount speakers, are quite big and the volume of the cabinet allows for setting a quite low (respectively) resonance of the bass-reflex. And finally the Divine – not reaching as far down as the DLS, not as saturated, slightly drier in reproducing sound, and at the same time most “accurate”, so to say, cleanest from the three. How is this possible?
And how is this possible, that the cheapest, not so spectacular sounding Electra 2 are the best from the loudspeakers quoted above, its drivers are best integrated with each other. The Castle are equipped with nice, but not outstanding with anything, drivers made by the company themselves. The DLS have very nice drivers, but their own mid-woofer is clearly better than the dome tweeter bought from Peerless. Finally the Divine use a worse mid-woofer than the DLS, a better tweeter, but those drivers are of the same class are a clearly better integrated.

OK, first things said. As you can see, the Electra 2 do not play with a saturated, massive sound. Their bass quickly stops reaching us. But it has something, that most other loudspeakers do not have – it sounds as if it would work in a closed cabinet, without its flaws. I did not take the Castle and DLS for comparison by coincidence – in both constructions the problems of loading the woofer were circumvented, and the boom of the bass reflex port is not audible in them. But only the Electra 2 show, that there is still something there, that this volume, this “massaging” – all this is a result of coloring a part of the sound spectrum. This is audible more in the Castle, less in the DLS, but still. The Polish loudspeakers are much more clean – this is really high quality of the sound, somewhat limited, I will tell about that in a moment, but allowing for comfortable listening to all kinds of music and enjoy lots of details and flavors, lost elsewhere.

One of the most important characteristics of the Electra 2 is very high resolution. It makes the biggest impression with discs, which are seemingly not related to each other: recordings with an acoustic guitar in the main role, like Red Rock Journeys Ralf Illenberger and What’s it All About Pat Metheny, electronics recordings like Téo&Téa Jarre, and old recordings with vocal – for example Hush-A-Bye Carol Sloane. In all those examples the sound was very natural, it did not annoy with anything, attention was concentrated on the music, and not on the medium, and the way of reproduction involved us in the event rather than leaving us aside. Not by saturation, those loudspeakers cannot do that the way more expensive ones do, but by the lack of coloring, very good integration of the drivers and the fact, that the cabinet was not audible.
Treble is reproduced quite strongly, but because they dominate, but because there is a lot of energy and information in this subrange. In a similarly clear and nice way work the tweeters from Dynaudio and the metal SEAS. Despite that the tweeter in the Electra 2 does it job, even the quite ethereal recordings from Sloan was shown as it deserves to be shown – with melancholy in the voice, with a brilliantly shaped stage, with very good acoustics. Even more – the quite hard recording of the, already mentioned, Jarre disc, was not unpleasant, the treble was not exposed. I would even say, that the upper part of it was slightly warmed, at least compared to my Harbeth.
I am sure, that the good integration of drivers and very good treble resulted in splendid reproduction of the space. Localization, size, breath – everything comes easily to the Divine Acoustics loudspeakers. The thing is, that we do not het a solid base – like I said, the loudspeakers do not reach too low with the bass.

And those are probably the most important elements of this sound. The midrange – like I wrote by Sloan – is clear and very even, so we get a good insight in what was recorded. This was confirmed by the listening to the disc UnCovered of the group Audiofeels. Like I said, the lowest bass is not the domain of the Electra 2 and it would be best to support them by a good subwoofer. We would then get everything what is bet there, and also some flesh. But also in the range of human voice the loudspeakers handle everything without problems. Because when the lowest vocal enters in the piece Sound of silence, something that always impresses, the Polish loudspeakers did not cut anything, they did not convert the bass to a baritone. On the other hand, in Nobody Home Pink Floyd (The Wall), with this low, punctual bass, moving from one loudspeaker to the other we could only hear its upper part and harmonics. Coherence, precision, dynamics – everything was very nice, but there was no talking about a low passage. It seems, that here it is all about even reproduction of the whole frequency range handled by the loudspeaker, not pretending that they can do something they can’t.
Those are very precise loudspeakers. But not ruthless and difficult to live with, so to say. We will listen to weaker, but musically interesting recordings with pleasure, like to the disc Speak to me of the duo Marco Copland and John Abercrombie. This is a recording with low resolution, and this can be heard – despite that the Polish constructions do not make a problem with that. Taking into account the price of the tested loudspeakers it is not hard to smile with content. The used construction choices are audible, but rather in a way Mr. Piotr Galkowski wanted them to, than as a side effect. There is no lower bass. And there will be none. The sound is a bit dry and punctual due to that, and there is no dense sound stage. But for this we get an uncolored, quick (splendid impulse response!) sound, which will fare best with tube amplifiers and which can be easily supported by a subwoofer – smooth, not very sharp fall-off the bass allows for an easy integration of a sub with the loudspeakers.
Yes – a tube amplifier. It is so, that sometimes loudspeakers sound significantly better with such kind of amplifier than with a solid state one, although it is difficult to explain (see the case of the loudspeakers JAF Bombard). This is also the case here. Even with the inexpensive, brilliantly uncomplicated amplifier Xindak MT-2 it sounded really nice, because the midrange was filled slightly more. There was still no strong bass, but this is something we will not get, and that is it. This is why I would rather go in this direction. An unusual shape, very precise, good craftsmanship, clear sound – those are the Electra 2. And the reasonable price. It is a loudspeaker not without flaws, with a rather dry and quite light sound. But at the same time with a very big potential, which is not there with many other loudspeakers, showing everything they can already at first glance. Congratulations!

CONDITIONS OF THE REVIEW

The loudspeakers were placed in the place of my Harbeth M40.1, so about 80cm from the back wall (calculating from the back panel). They were placed on anti-vibration platforms Acoustic Revive RST-38. Beside the amplifier Soulution 710 (solid state, 2 x 210W/8Ω, 2 x 240W/4Ω, 2 x 480W/2Ω), the Leben CS-300 XS [Custom Version] (tube, 2 x 6W) and the Xindak MT-2 tested to “Audio” were used.

DESCRIPTION

Electra 2 from Divine Acoustics is a two-way floor standing loudspeaker with a bass-reflex cabinet. It is vented with two ports firing to the floor. To keep equal distance to the floor the loudspeaker is mounted on a plinth, which stabilizes the speaker and on spikes. Like I mentioned before, this is not a standard cabinet, but rather a wide baffle, on which, not symmetrical, two drivers were mounted: a 20mm soft, dome tweeter with a double neodymium magnet and a 130mm woofer. The diaphragm of the tweeter was made from soft material and is protected by a mesh. The second speaker has a diaphragm from cellulose and also a protective mesh. The carcass was treated in a way, which was called BAD (Basket Accurate Dampening), which is about dampening its resonances.
The signal is split in a 2nd order cross-over, in which high quality passive elements were used, like OFC copper coils. We will find two technologies there, which were designed by DA: SGP and RFpath. Mr Piotr writes about them as follows: “The first one concentrates all the ground of the circuit in one point, shortens the sound path and allows for proper and quick discharge of the capacitors. […] The system RFpath allowed for complete resignation of a parallel and series resistors in the tweeter path.” And this means less heat losses and quicker reaction to the signal.
The drivers were mounted in such a way, that they are additionally pressed to the cabinet with an additional, leather covered MDF elements. Leather is also on top and sides of the cabinet. The front and back are covered with a nice veneer. There are colors available of exotic wood finish.
The panels are interconnected using additional elements from HDF. The speaker is supported on a plinth, which also has the function of absorbing vibration. It has a layered setup – two MDF plates are connected with a plastic mass. The plinth has a shape of an ellipse with untypical placement of the spikes: two on the side and one in the front and one in the back. The signal is provided to a single wire terminal. Those were not mounted directly on the back wall of the cabinet, but to an acryl plate, which covers the name plate. This is mounted to the back of the cabinet. It is worth mentioning, that the manufacturer recommends a long burn-in period – from 70 up to 100 hours. The loudspeakers have no grilles.

Technical data (according to manufacturer):

• construction: two-way, bass-reflex
• nominal impedance: 8Ω
• efficiency: 88dB
• maximum power: 60W
• suggested amplifier power: 3-60W
• recommended size of the listening room: 9-20m2
• frequency response: 45Hz-22kHz
• external dimensions (without plinth): 990 x 260 x 100mm
• weight (piece): 10kg (without plinth)