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The Short Form
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| $3,850 (as tested) / SUNFIRE.COM / 425-335-4748 |
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Snapshot
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A system compact enough to fit into |
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Plus
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| • Vivid, vibrant, visceral performance • So small it fits almost anywhere • Sleek design and excellent build quality |
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Minus
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| • A little thin-sounding at times • Takes some work to get the subs and sats to blend |
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Key Features
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• HRS-SAT4 ($450 each): 1-in tweeter, 4½ woofer; 5½ x 8 x 6 in; 7 lb |
With the High Resolution Series system, Sunfire is trying to do much the same thing with speakers. At a distance, the HRS looks like an $800 surround sound system. The speakers measure 8 inches high and have tiny 4½-inch woofers, and the subwoofer fills less than a cubic foot of space. You’d think the HRS would be molded from plastic, stuffed with generic parts, and sold for a song.
But look closer at the HRS-SAT4 satellite speakers, and you’ll see how the HRS system got the “21” treatment. The tweeter is a ring radiator design also found in extraordinarily expensive speakers favored by serious audiophiles. The woofer boasts a triple-layer “Trifilar” voice coil (for added power handling) and a cone made from woven Kevlar fiber. The lacquered cabinet’s curved medium-density-fiberboard side panels stiffen the enclosure and minimize sonic resonance. Four bolts extend all the way through the speaker to secure the die-cast aluminum front baffle. Concealed magnets hold the grille in place. It’s the kind of craftsmanship and materials you’d expect to see in a $3,000-a-pair bookshelf speaker, not in a compact home-theater speaker system.
The HRS-SAT4 includes a keyhole mount and a threaded socket for an Omni-Mount-style bracket, so it’s easy to attach to a wall. Sunfire also offers stands; their $325-a-pair price will seem like a lot until you see how they’re constructed and how smoothly they blend with the HRS-SAT4’s curved side panels. And when you consider that each stand costs less than six hamburgers (well, six “21” hamburgers), they start to look affordable.
The HRS-SAT4C center speaker is a longer version of the HRS-SAT4 with an extra woofer. You can round out the system with your choice of three subwoofers: the HRS-8, HRS-10, or HRS-12. They’re all similar except for the size of the driver. Each combines a 1,000-watt amp, a cube-shaped cabinet, and an overbuilt woofer that looks like it was swiped from one of the cars you see on Rides.
Getting this system up and running is as easy as it could be — but getting optimum sound takes some tweaking. The stands and the HRS-SAT4 speakers fit together as precisely as the door of a Mercedes sedan fits its frame. Speaker cables snake easily up the stand tubes and secure firmly to the cabinets’ knurled metal binding posts. The HRS-SAT4C includes a handy, adjustable foot on its back, which makes it easy to aim this center speaker up, down, or straight ahead.
The subs have the usual features: line- and speaker-level inputs, line-level outputs, and crossover and volume controls. Sunfire equipped me with two HRS-10s. One was plenty powerful enough, even for my large listening room, although using two (one in each of the front corners of my room) did make it easier to get smooth bass response that I could hear from every seat on my couch.
With its small woofer cone and cabinet, the HRS-SAT4 can’t produce much bass, so achieving a seamless blend between the tiny speaker and a powerful subwoofer like the HRS-10 is tricky. The satellite has little response below 100 Hz, so if you use the industry-standard crossover setting of 80 Hz, you’ll get a gap between about 80 and 100 Hz. Fortunately, like most A/V
receivers and processors these days, the Outlaw processor that I used lets you adjust the subwoofer crossover point. I got the best results with a setting of 120 Hz, although 100 Hz worked okay, too.
The key issue in positioning the satellites — especially the front ones — is the distance between them and the wall. The closer they are to the wall, the more bass response you get from them; obviously, that’s a big help to the little HRS-SAT4. But moving them closer to the wall also detracts a bit from the lush ambience this speaker can deliver. I got the best compromise with the backs of the satellites about 6 inches from the wall.
Sunfire bills the High Resolution Series primarily as a home theater system, so let’s start with DVDs. But not the usual action flicks. I want to talk about Soccer Dog: European Cup, which chronicles the journey of an American boy who, after his mother’s untimely death, is left in the care of his father, a fun-loving Scot he never knew. It’s a story about facing your responsibilities. It’s a story about learning to love. It’s also a story about a genetically enhanced, soccer-playing superdog being chased by a mad scientist. The fact that you can buy a used copy on Amazon.com for 1¢ tells you everything else you need to know about this movie. (Why did I watch it? Because my ex-wife thought it might provide an evening of emotional bonding for me and our Labrador retrievers.)
To my surprise, the HRS system almost magically extracted the best from this dreck-on-DVD. The movie’s ska soundtrack slammed through the speakers, keeping my interest through the turgid dialogue. Both my nerve endings and my room pulsed along with the subwoofer during the climactic, bouncy theme “Canis Lupus (The Domestication of the Dog).” So, yeah, the movie sucked. But thanks to the HRS system, I found something in it to enjoy —
and I watched it all the way through.
This almost alchemical ability to turn any material into gold recurred again and again as I auditioned the HRS system. TV fare like HBO’s John Adams benefited from the speakers’ great dialogue clarity and crisp reproduction of musical scores. The sub’s 1,000-watt amp and the satellites’ 200-watt power handling lent heavy hitters like The Incredibles and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King a thrilling, forceful impact. The sound was a bit thin and bright at times, but overall I loved it. It sometimes seemed as if a high-end, custom-installed speaker system were hiding somewhere in the walls of my listening room.
In the same way the HRS system found a heartbeat in Soccer Dog: European Cup, it breathed new life into my CD collection. The Vifa tweeter delivered sound that bordered on holographic. Guiro, bells, and other percussion on singer Bebel Gilberto’s self-titled bossa/electronica CD zipped around my listening room like June bugs on crystal meth. Snare drums snapped with the precision and intensity of a military marching band. Horns took on an almost vocal level of expression.
Despite all my tweaking, I did sense an imperfect match between the subwoofer and the satellites. But the high quality of the HRS system’s drivers outweighed this downside. The gap between the sub and the other speakers made voices sound somewhat thin at times, but they were always clear. In a similar vein, I noticed that the treble sometimes sounded elevated in level, yet it was always smooth.
BOTTOM LINE
The last line of my listening notes — “These sound really good with everything” — nicely sums up my feelings about Sunfire’s HRS speaker system. Putting so much expense into such a small system must have given Sunfire’s accounting team an ulcer or two, but the HRS’s versatile, visceral performance will make it popular among home theater enthusiasts with deep pockets and modest living spaces.