NEAT ACOUSTICS ORKESTRA > The EAR review

Combining elements from the EKSTRA and the prestige ULTIMATUM XL6 Model, the Orkestra is a 2.5 way design incorporating a 75mm true ribbon tweeter, and three 170mm main drive units.

For a full range loudspeaker, the ORKESTRA has a very small footprint and can be easily accommodated in compact spaces. Combining stunning bass power with delicacy, it delivers a comprehensive depiction of all types of music.

A new speaker from Bob Surgeoner at Neat is not an everyday occurrence. Unlike the increasing number of manufacturers who feel a marketing necessity to churn out new models with alacrity, this County Durham company spends hundreds of hours listening and honing new designs before releasing them. Each new concept must prove itself in a variety of different room acoustics and systems before being signed off for production. The result of these listening sessions govern the tuning and voicing stages, almost to the exclusion of other criteria, Neat don’t rely on computer modelling and measurement they rely on human ears.

Conclusion
The ribbon tweeter, combined with the isobaric bass loading, makes the Orkestra a speaker of supreme ability. This level of engineering prowess comes at a price, and more so because it is both designed and built in the UK rather than in some Far Eastern shed. Both these techniques have to be not only understood by the designer but also masterfully executed, as they are here to the enormous benefit of the listener. I have always felt an isobaric approach preferable to a transmission line design and Neat have confirmed this in the Orkestra.

We have a lot of enclosure in the design but yet it manages to be free of cabinet coloration and boxiness. It also produces a wonderfully detailed bass response without becoming overblown when fairly near the wall, as can be the case with poorly engineered standalone subwoofers. Here we have decent levels of good old-fashioned bass slam when it’s needed, to add to the overall presentation and not swamp it. There is speed and agility in the LF response which is rarely heard from a box of these proportions. The high frequencies are to die for, thanks to that not inexpensive pure ribbon tweeter, with exemplary treble response without a hint of sibilance. This is not, nor does it pretend to be, a studio monitor: it does not strip down the performance to reveal it layer by layer for analysis. Instead, what the Orkestra does is produce a wonderfully involving sound conveying the emotions of the recording and sucking the listener in to the whole with a homogenous, three-dimensional presentation from a wide range of sources across a variety of repertoire to bring the recording alive in your home.

– Trevor Butler | Mar 24, 2021

Link to product: Neat Acoustics Orkestra
Link to review: The Ear