August 2007 Reviewed by Jeff Van Dyne	Aperion Audio Intimus 533-T / 533-VAC / 532-LR / S-10 Home-Theater Speaker System

Description Model: Intimus 533-T floorstanding speaker Price: $375 USD each Dimensions: 38.5"H x 9.25"W x 10.75"D Weight: 38 pounds each Model: Intimus 533-VAC center-channel speaker Price: $280 USD Dimensions: 19"W x 7.33"H x 8"D Weight: 20 pounds Model: Intimus 532-LR surround speaker Price: $180 USD each Dimensions: 11.5"H x 7.33"W x 8"D Weight: 13 pounds each Model: Intimus S-10 powered subwoofer Price: $499 USD Dimensions: 17.5"H x 13.25"W x 19"D Weight: 56 pounds Warranty: Ten years on speakers, three years on subwoofer amplifier System Price: $1889 USD

Features 1" silk-dome tweeters 4" mineral-filled polycone midrange (Intimus 533-VAC) 5.25" mineral-filled polycone woofers 10" PVA-treated paper-cone woofer (Intimus S-10) HD-X3 impedance-leveling crossover network 2.5-way crossover design (Intimus 533-T) 1"-thick HDF cabinets Furniture-grade real-cherry veneer or piano-black lacquer finish 200W (manufacturer rated) class-A/B amplifier (Intimus S-10) Speaker- and line-level inputs, outputs (Intimus S-10) Brass floor spikes and footers (Intimus S-10)

Aperion is one of a short list of Internet-based companies that has built a well-deserved reputation of selling high-quality loudspeakers at affordable prices. This is the tough end of an already tough business in which margins are slim and customers’ loyalties to individual brands are fickle. To make it in this segment, a company must work every day to grow and maintain its reputation, provide excellent customer service, and sell high-quality products at prices that make bricks-and-mortar store owners cringe. Let any of these factors slide for long, and your business is dead. Aperion is one of the few speaker companies in the market that has been able to do this consistently for several years, which should tell you a thing or two.

The speakers

The subject of this review is the Intimus 533 Cinema HD system ($1889): the smallish 533-T tower ($375 each), 533-VAC center ($280), 532-LR surround ($180 each), and S-10 subwoofer ($499). The system price is chicken feed compared to the prices of some of the systems that have passed through these doors, but the Intimuses’ build quality is much greater than you’d expect for $1889. While the Aperions’ cabinets look like the simplest of box designs, the walls are 1"-thick high-density fiberboard, as opposed to the more usual 0.50" to 0.75" MDF or particleboard used by most of the competition. Aperion states that these thicker, heavier cabinets generate fewer resonances, and who am I to argue? Considering the price, the towers reacted pretty solidly to the standard knuckle-rap test.

The Intimuses are the nicest-looking budget speakers I’ve had in the house in a long while. First, the 533-T tower’s 38.5" height and 9.25"W x 10.75"D footprint make it visually unobtrusive. Second, the simple, clean lines create a contemporary elegance that’s missing from many more expensive and visually complex designs. Finally, there’s the cherry finish. While it’s a relatively inexpensive, rotary-cut veneer (flat cut gives a tighter, more distinctive grain), it’s expertly applied, then flawlessly finished in a low-sheen lacquer. The overall impact is of a much more costly speaker. (The Intimuses are also available in piano-black lacquer at the same price.)

Otherwise, the Aperion line looks pretty conventional -- all models use a 1" silk-dome tweeter and mineral-filled polycone woofers set in aluminum or ABS baskets -- with a few twists. The 533-T is rated at 89dB/W/m sensitivity with a frequency response of 42Hz-22kHz, +/-6dB. It’s a two-and-a-half-way design: the crossover frequency between the upper woofer and tweeter is basically that of a conventional two-way loudspeaker, but the crossover to the lower woofer is such that it augments the bass of the first woofer without running higher into the midrange.

The 533-VAC center-channel has a claimed sensitivity of 88dB/W/m and a frequency response of 80Hz-20kHz. It’s a genuine three-way design with a 4" midrange cone in the center, under the tweeter; one of its two woofers is a passive radiator. The passive-radiator design improves bass response much like a ported cabinet, but in a smaller package. Aperion claims that not using a second active woofer eliminates off-axis frequency-response lobing, a problem common among the many midrange-tweeter-midrange (MTM) center-channel designs on the market today.

The 532-LR surround speaker, a two-way design with a 5.25" mid-woofer, is also rated at 88dB/W/m sensitivity and a frequency response of 80Hz-20kHz. Another departure from the norm is the inclusion in the crossover of an impedance-compensating network -- highly unusual at this price. This reportedly produces very predictable performance and frequency response with most amplifiers and/or with longer runs of speaker cable.

The S-10 powered subwoofer features a 10" "high-excursion PVA-damped woofer" powered by an amplifier rated at 200W. The cabinet is the same 1" HDF used in the speaker cabinets, and is further braced to avoid cabinet resonance.

The Intimuses get what has become known as one of the best packing jobs in the industry. Double-boxed, with foam between the inner and outer boxes, the speakers have an outer wrap of plastic, and an inner wrap of plush purple velvet. It’s highly unlikely anything will be damaged during shipping (which is free both ways). I got the feeling that somebody on the packing end actually cares. Cool.

Tube friendly

As has become my custom, I first set up the 533-Ts in my family room to break them in while they awaited a spot in my home theater. This is a bit of a torture test -- the family room has not been acoustically optimized, and my Cayin TA-30 integrated tube amp can be a bit challenging for some speakers. I don’t expect budget speakers to do all that well under these conditions, but the Aperion 533-Ts were astoundingly satisfying. The sound was a little more forward and "in your face" than my normal Silverline Sonatinas, but the Aperions projected a wonderfully deep and enveloping soundstage. They were, in a word, fun. While they didn’t play ear-crushingly loud with my 35W tube amp, they didn’t do bad, and there were no frequency-response anomalies. That last part, I believe, was due in large part to the impedance-compensating network mentioned above. The only thing I could knock them for was that the low end was a little light -- not surprising for a small tower.

So I unpacked the Intimus S-10 powered subwoofer and folded it into the system, using the subwoofer output I’d added to the Cayin amp a while back. The result was a full, rich sound that belied the Intimus system’s affordable price. As I sat there listening to the system and looking at these elegant little towers, I found myself smiling as I realized that I could be very happy with these as my primary speakers.

I then moved the 533-Ts and S-10 into my small home theater, where they were finally joined by the center and surrounds. This is the kind of environment and equipment I expect these speakers would normally live in. My electronics are all reasonably capable mass-market components of the type that would normally be used with speakers at this price. This system manages to be detailed without being analytical, or overly revealing of the inherent flaws associated with most mass-market electronics. The 533-Ts weren’t very sensitive to placement in either room, which makes them a good choice for less than ideal spaces.

Listening

Into the CD player I dropped the Fry Street Quartet’s recording of Haydn’s String Quartet No.11 in D Minor, Op.9 No.4 [Fry Street Quartet FSQCD4]. I’m not always a fan of string quartets, but I make an exception in this case. This is an outstanding quartet, and an excellent recording. I was immediately struck by the absolute clarity of the violins, and the placement of all four instruments in a wide, deep soundstage. I’d never heard this level of depth in anything remotely approaching this price range. The subwoofer added heft to the sound of the cello, but not the excessive weight so common with home-theater subwoofers.

If you’re into percussion, check out "Ecstatic Drums," from Rusted Root’s Live [CD, Touchy Pegg 480301]. This band is not everyone’s cup of tea, but you’ll have to at least admit that they’re not doing the same old tired stuff as everybody else. What struck me about this track was how close the Aperions came to actually getting the percussive elements right. I was a percussionist in my school band, and I’ve always found it interesting how few speakers, even many very expensive ones, can accurately reproduce percussion instruments. Mid- to high-end Maggies get it right, but the speakers I’ve heard in this price range that can do it can probably be counted on the fingers of one hand. Add one to an exceedingly short list.

The film Shooter isn’t likely to win any awards, but it’s entertaining, and has enough gunshots and explosions to be a solid demo film. In my small theater, I generally place the subwoofer along the front wall, about 4’ from the corner. This may not produce the most output, but corner placement can be a bit boomy in this room. Of course, the problem with placement away from the corner is that most smaller subs then need a little help in the output department. However, the Intimus S-10 proved to be the little subwoofer that could, its 10" cone pulling off Shooter’s explosions, in particular, with a depth and impact that, before, I’d heard produced only by much larger, 12" subwoofers. The S-10 won’t match some of those in sheer output, but made up for it with exceptional refinement for its price. There were plenty of clues that the other Aperion speakers were above average, but the sound of dripping water at one side of the service-station restroom in chapter 6 was realistic enough to make me turn my head to look for the leak. This is not normal behavior for speakers in this price class.

As I was completing this review, I hooked up a Panasonic DMP-BD10A Blu-ray player to the system for evaluation and immediately spun the Blu-ray edition of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. This disc contains a 5.1-channel, uncompressed PCM soundtrack that’s among the best of the new high-definition releases. Combining the added detail of an uncompressed hi-def audio track with the Aperion system’s unusual soundstaging abilities vastly enhanced the spatial characteristics of this movie over the standard DVD’s Dolby Digital track. The improvement was evident throughout the film, proving that you don’t have to spend huge sums of cash to get speakers capable of showing off the sonic benefits of the new hi-def discs.

Comparison

The Intimus S-10 subwoofer is nearly identical in size to the Athena AS-P4000 ($300) I keep around here as a spare sub, but there the similarities end. The Athena is a nice enough sub for the money, but the Aperion bested it in every important aspect. It was tighter, more refined, and more musical, and played lower and louder under all circumstances. I wouldn’t use it as the single subwoofer in a large space, but in my small- to medium-size rooms it outperformed anything else I’ve heard in its price class.

In terms of price, the Intimus 533-T tower compared most closely to the Ascend Acoustics CMT-340 SE / CBM-170 SE system ($1118) I had here until recently. However, the two systems present vastly different entertainment experiences. If the CMT-340 were a Corvette, then the Aperion 533-T would be a Boxster. Each is excellent in its own right, but one is American heavy metal, the other German precision. The Ascend system is better at dynamics, is happier at high volume levels, and will fill all but the largest rooms with sound. The Aperion system is lighter and more nimble, and provides better transient response and midrange and high-frequency detail. Your choice will boil down to how and where you plan to use them, and to personal taste.

Conclusion

I’ve heard different speakers from Aperion over the years and have always come away impressed, so I had high expectations from these speakers before they arrived. That my expectations were exceeded at every turn is saying a great deal. I also think their svelte appearance and lovely finish will be a huge hit with those in the family who are more concerned with décor than with sound.

In this combination of affordable price, good looks, an overachieving subwoofer, above-average transient response, and excellent midrange and upper-frequency detail, Aperion has come up with a winner. This is one system that will be easy to recommend to my friends.

Manufacturer contact information:

Aperion Audio
18151 SW Boones Ferry Road
Portland, OR 97224
Phone: (888) 880-8992, (503) 598-8815
Fax: (503) 598-8831

Website: www.aperionaudio.com

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