ACELEC MODEL ONE SPEAKERS - REVIEW
Acelec Model One Speakers
Two way, high performance monitors seem to be quite abundant in this day and age, but few actually stand apart from the crowd. One such monitor, to our ears, that does pull ahead of the pack, is the Acelec Model One speaker, designed and made in The Netherlands, by none other than Sonnet Digital Audio. We reviewed their wonderful digital streamer and DAC combo here: https://www.audiokeyreviews.com/the-reviews/sonnet-morpheus-and-hermes.
Acelec is the brand under which Sonnet markets their speaker designs. Aside from the Model One, designed for “domestic” use, they also produce a professional monitor called the Model Two. According to Acelec, the Model One is designed with very specific goals in mind: extreme transparency, enclosure inertia, and life like scale in a small footprint.
The cabinet is made of bituminized aluminum, for ultimate rigidity, with specialized internal damping. Each speaker is a beast, weighing in at 35 lbs. The Model One makes use of a Mundorf tweeter, a 6 inch Scanspeak driver, with a rear port, and two way, extremely high quality binding posts. The speaker is deep, and luckily we had a solid, sand filled Atacama stands to accommodate the pair.
The speaker is rated at a nominal 8 Ohm impedance, 84 db sensitivity, and produces bass down to 45 Hz. We received our review pair in black, but silver is available upon request. The workmanship of the cabinet is stunning, on par with much, much more expensive products. The Model One retails for $6495 a pair. The US distributor is none other than Rob Fritz, of Audio Art Cable, who also handles Sonnet Digital Audio, as well as many other excellent brands.
We have heard many speakers with enclosures made of highly rigid materials, including aluminum, but we have never had a pair in our own system. With that in mind, we approached his review with great curiosity. We also had high expectations based on our experience with Sonnet’s digital stack, and also considering we have reviewed several excellent monitors over the past year.
Set Up & Listening:
The Acelec Model One was set up on sturdy Atacama stands as noted above, in a medium sized room. We drove them with the wonderful Parasound Halo Hint 6 integrated amplifier (review link when available), with built in phono stage, and DAC. A Roon connected Sonore microRendu fed the USB input of the Parasound, and a Rega Planar 3 was used for vinyl duties. Cables were both Audio Art, and Transparent.
The pair I received had plenty of hours on them, so it did not take long at all for them to settle in. During the period we had the Model One, we were listening to quite a lot of early heavy rock, including Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Rainbow, Dio, and many more. The Model One was clearly not teetotaler, in fact it was up to the task of making Black Sabbath sound downright sinister, as they should sound. The recent Deluxe 96 Khz remaster of their “comeback” album, Heaven And Hell, from1980, is a sonic tour de force. Ronnie James Dio joined the band on vocals at this point, and proved to me a magnificent fit. The title track, an epic mid tempo statement of purpose for the band, indeed sounded epic. Toni Iommi’s guitars had a menacing crunch, and Dio’s vocals called out like a clarion. Impressive start for the Model One!
We also enjoyed, perhaps, too much, the debut self titled album by Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, which also features Dio on vocals. The album is masterwork of classically influenced hard rock. The Japanese SACD reissue is superb, and the Model One not only brought every detail of the recording, but it also put you right at the mixing desk. The flip side of that is that the Model One also let the listener hear the somewhat dated production. However the tone of Blackmore’s stratocaster, and the earthy Mellotron (!) flourishes, and Dio’s powerful vocals came through with flying colors.
After Dio’s departure from Rainbow, the band went into a more streamlined, radio friendly direction with Graham Bonnet on lead vocals. The album Down To Earth, from 1979, hit hard, with two huge singles, “Since You Been Gone” and “All Night Long”. Blackmore still managed to sneak in some classical prog references. The Model One was along for the ride here, with Blackmore’s mesmerizing guitar riffs, late 70’s synthesizer sounds, and thunderous drumming having not only focus, but weight and drive. We also spun vinyl pressings of later Rainbow albums, including, Straight Between The Eyes, and Street Of Dreams, and the analog goodness came shining through, with superb focus and clarity.
Switching gears completely, we called up Carnival Fantasy, a classical album by Salut Salon, a small German ensemble. The 88.2 Khz download sounds immaculate. The music is an adaptation of Saint-Saens’s Carnival Of The Animals for piano and strings, as well as a few other shorter pieces by various composers, and it is spectacular. The Model One made it appear as if the musicians were surrounding the listener, with the tone and timbre of the piano and violins incredibly life like and rich in texture. Breathtaking, actually. It was hard not to marvel at the tonal richness, even while enjoying the music!
The Model One handled jazz music with both delicacy and rhythmic precision, it was hard not to get lost in hours of both modern and classic recordings. Three new 24 bit, 192 Khz remasters of three Miles Davis recordings just recently released, were the perfect illustration of the Model One’s way with tonal correctness. Quiet Nights, E.S.P. and ‘Four’ And More: Live In Concert, were all transportive. Davis’ trumpet spat, and purred, and his iconic backing band from the period all got their just due via the Model One. The musicians were laid out across the soundstage so wonderfully, one could actually visualize their perceived positions on stage or in the studio.
A recent recording we have been enamored with, Within This Stone by guitarist extraordinaire Lionel Louke and musical cohort Ziv Ravits, is a must hear for lovers of modern creative jazz music. The album offers meditative, hypnotic, trance inducing duets for guitar and percussion. Yet the music seems almost orchestral. The Model One was able to track the syncopated rhythms and the interesting tonal variations. Louke’s guitar is buttery smooth, and takes the listener on many twists and turns. Played at high volume through the Model One, a number of listeners were astounded at the realism. Some noted, quite rightly, the utterly black backgrounds during quieter passages.
We concluded our time with the Model One with old favorites, the early albums of the great John Denver. His catalog received a very nice 24 bit remastering a number of years ago, and the beautiful, panoramic production of these records has been beautifully preserved. On Take Me To Tomorrow, from 1970, Denver dazzles with a mix of originals and well chosen covers of songs by James Taylor, Jacques Brel, and Tom Paxton. His voice soars with sympathetic accompaniment from his own acoustic guitar, and a magnificent studio band. His own song, “Aspenglow” is majestic, and the depth and beauty of this song really highlighted what the Model One does best, which is to provide a very direct connection to the music. And how.
A John Denver listening session would not be complete without the iconic Rocky Mountain High, with the soaring title track, a cover of Lennon McCartney’s “Mother Nature’s Son” and multi part “Season Suite”. The purity of Denver’s vocal, his earnest delivery, and the pastoral backing arrangements was served on a silver platter through the Model One. It’s ability to provide real depth, back to front, really shone through.
Conclusion:
The Acelec Model One monitors are high performance in the truest sense of the word. Their incredible accuracy, over the top build quality, impressive musical focus make it difficult to find any fault. We really could not pick anything in particular we would want more or less of, except perhaps wishing they were affordable for us!
The Acelec Model One will pair with any high quality amplifier, regardless of topology, and it will expose weakness in lesser gear, that is a fact. If I were building a pro studio, I would run, not walk, to purchase a pair of their “professional” version of the One. There are other speakers, far, more expensive, that use aluminum enclosures, but to our ears, they miss the mark in musical satisfaction, bringing a certain sterility. Quite the opposite here.
Every listening session was a window into the playback system, and recording, with very little, if any, room interaction. We highly recommend an audition with your favorite music, which may sound more lifelike than usual, which allow you to suspend disbelief. The Acelec Model One, in our opinion, is a major breakthrough for under $10,000 speakers.
Acelec Model One Speakers: $6495
https://acelec.nl/Model_One_.html
Us Distributor:
Rob Fritz, Audio Art Cable
https://audioartcable.com/collections/acelec-speakers
Associated Equipment:
Amplifier/DAC/Phonostage: Parasound Halo Hint6
Streamer: Roon / Sonore microRendu
Turntable: Rega Planar 3
Cables: Audio Art, Transparent