EXCERPTS FROM HI-FI WORLD - U.K. - MAY 1999

GROUP TEST
VARIETY IS THE SPICE


(....) The purpose was to find out just what diverse technologies and aesthetics are available to a prospective buyer with up to, say, £ 1500 to spend. (...) If the Klipsches are on the chunky side, Diapason's Karis will better fit the bill. Specially designed for small rooms, the £ 1250 Karis is a rear-ported reflex design, a sort of little brother to the company's Adamantes III series.

DIAPASON KARIS

The Technology

Once the price of a loudspeaker has risen above a couple of hundred pounds, you're fully justified in expecting bi-wire terminals. And when the price in question is £ 1250, binding posts as chunky as industrial fasteners are the norm. So I was surprised to find just a single pair of slim ( albeit gold-plated) inputs in the recess on the Karis' rear.
Taking a leaf out of Epos' book, Diapason have engineered a 110 mm mid/bass which requires no crossover as its natural upper roll-off allows it to match directly with the 20 mm silk-dome tweeter. Because of its tiny cone size, the mid/bass reaches up a long way into the treble, the tweeter kicking in a at a high 4.5 kHz via a crossover hard-wired with silver-plated copper cable from Van del Hul.
The coveted Quote of the Month was awarded to Diapason for their description of the Karis' internal wadding: " A special, patented fibre is used like dumping material". According to the brochure, the interior of the solid Walnut cabinet is also shaped to limit resonance, while its 'diamond' external profile improves imaging by reducing diffraction.

Sound quality

There's theme which links the characters of many an Italian loudspeaker, whether it be in build or sound. If it's the former the common thread is the use of solid hardwood in the cabinets and heavy, gold-plated binding posts. If it's the latter, they all share a rich, organic approach to music making where the central tenet is to glean as much of the emotional content from the signal as possible. The Diapasons are a case in point, as I discovered when I played any predominantly acoustic music through them.
Take Joe Beard and Ronnie Earl's Blues Union as an example. Whatever the track, the performance was always smooth, open and involving as the Karises' tiny and light mid/bass drivers belted back and forth in response to the demands of the kick drum. The small, heavily-radiused cabinets meant imaging and sound staging were top-notch. The Diapasons avoided the pitfall of sounding as small as they looked, so giving plenty of space to guitar and vocals that were grippingly expressive. This ability to hunt out and display nuances is another Italian strong point, one that allows music free reign to communicate the artists' intentions unalloyed.
From a nitty-gritty viewpoint, the Karises pulled sweet but transparent treble and midrange out of their trick bag with ease. Upper bass had the speed and impact you'd expect from a dinky monitor but, in accordance with the immutable laws of physics, of lower bass there was not much. The Blues didn't mind this shortfall. Iain Simcock and Great Works for Organ ( Bach is Back) felt their loss a little more.
When instrument known mainly for its output below 60 Hz is fed into ' speakers with a mid/bass which is more mid than bass, some of the lower octaves are bound to go missing. The Diapasons redeemed themselves with their natural, musical way with everything else, the higher registers of the Koenig organ free from 'shout'. The venue of the Chapel of the Community of the Good Shepherd was also deftly transferred, as the Karises turned their diminutive stature to their advantage.
Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherezade had obviously been slimmed down slightly as well, but I had no trouble dismissing this as my ears stayed glued to a performance of real emotional impact. By not disgracing themselves with brittle, dry strings and rough brass, the Diapasons despatched a large chunk of the competition to second-rate status as a means of listening to music of a non-electronic type.
As you might have guessed, it was on electronic music that the Karises began to lose ground to other designs, as Garbage, The Chemical Brothers and Grace Jones proved. Put through the Diapasons an instrument which doesn't have to be kooked up to the mains and you can almost see them smiling in response. If 240 V is involved, though, the story isn't quite so rosy.
With albums such as Grace Jones' Slave to the Rhythm in the Teac P-30, the Karises still sounded fairly happy. The clarity and control of this CD were helping matters, as was the fast bass. It was at the frequency extremes that these speakers revealed their misgivings in their treatment of the bright percussion and bottom-end acrobatics, sounding a touch fizzy on the one and blurred on the other.
Things got worse as the production quality deteriorated through Garbage's Version 2.0 to that nadir of the singles world, The Chemical Brothers' Setting Sun, where it was sand paper at the top and mush down below.
You might reasonably argue that any good speaker is a revealing speaker , and you'd be right, mostly. Letting through the warts as well as the music is fine, but come transducers are kinder to bad recordings than others. The Diapasons mix their transparency with a preference for acoustic instrumentation, so Rock, Dance and Pop ( most of which is poorly produced) loses out. On the other hand, if your taste embraces Classical, Folk or Blues, the Karises have considerable strengths.

Conclusion

(...) From the 'small is beautiful' school of thought come the Diapasons. Obviously it is not possible to plumb the Pacific depths with boxes of this size but their controlled attemp to go as low as musically possible gave generally pleasing results in conjunction with a sweet treble. As is to be expected from such a tiny box with radiussed cabinet edges, imaging was spot on, the main disappointed at £ 1250 being no provision for bi-wiring.