Review of the Celestion TA-412 Hi-Fi Speaker by Antonio Gerbasi

After a month sharing the Tropic Audio Speaker Hi-Fi TA-412 Celestion, after a good break-in period and finding a good toe-in, I can talk about my experiences and impressions.

The purchase was a blind one; I had never listened to a Tropic speaker before and I’m always wary of buying audio equipment without the possibility of testing it. Despite being well-served with a pair of Dynaudio Special Forty speakers in the living room, the good reviews, the aesthetics of the cabinet, the wood, the size of the drivers, the front port, horn tweeter, and ribbon super tweeter, along with conversations with Fábio, and the option to order matching pedestals and a coffee table to complement the room's aesthetic (and my wife's apprehension), I decided to finalize the purchase.

I have to admit that they deliver more than I expected. I thought they would have good dynamics, good for listening to rock and electronic music, and in that regard, they are excellent; they seem limitless in my environment. I wasn't expecting much more, but the speakers possess a refinement, an ability to render details delicately when needed, which I hadn't anticipated.

I primarily listen to jazz, vocal jazz, rock, progressive, and classical, and their performance with each musical genre is very good. There are no compromises here; the blanket isn't too short. They are delicate when necessary and fierce and intimidating when required.

Despite being speakers of a certain size, they have the ability to disappear when heard, even with the acoustic limitations of my room (though I'm still working to improve the acoustics). The soundstage is good but lacks depth. The front reflex ports allow the speakers to be positioned close to the rear wall without overemphasizing low frequencies, which is ideal in my case because I can't move the speakers too far away due to the presence of a door.

The low range is well-articulated; each beat is precise and without lingering tails. Damping is quick and also provides good depth. On the Minnesota Orchestra's album, Mefisto e Co., "St. John's night on bald mountain," at 00:13 and 00:54 seconds, there's a kick drum carpet that is clearly discernible, which is not perceptible with the Dynaudio speakers' 18 cm woofers.

Regarding dynamics, I conducted a test: I placed my wife on the sofa, playing Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana," Telarc edition. The amplifier's volume knob was well past halfway, which is very loud given the speakers' high sensitivity of 97 dB 1 W/m. When I want to exaggerate, I don't even get close to halfway. At the entrance of the full orchestra, she was startled and called me crazy.

With a Fusion album, Dave Grusin All Star Big Band Live, the size of the speakers brings out their best; all the power of large orchestras is reproduced with devastating impact. The same happens with a jazz trio, Keith Jarrett At the Blue Note with Peacock and DeJohnette. There are 6 live-recorded albums, and it feels like being at the concert; immersion is guaranteed. DeJohnette's drumming has a "power" that only large woofers possess, pounding non-stop, while at the same time, Jarrett's piano solos are delicate. There's no muddiness; you can identify, separate, and follow the three on stage effortlessly.

The transparency is impressive. In albums like Bill Evans Trio with Scott Lafaro & Paul Motian, live, on the track "My Foolish Heart," every detail of the audience in the room is clearly perceptible. The contribution of the ribbon tweeter helps a lot, remaining present but not invasively so.

I had the occasion to attend a Gianni Coscia "Frescobaldi per noi" concert in a small Jazz club, which has good acoustics. I was seated at the same distance from the speakers as I am now. At the time of the event, I bought the CD of the show. It's a four-member group, with a trumpet and a trombone that have impact, a lot of dynamics, and up close, they are irritating. Until now, I had never been able to reproduce the same sensation I had live. With the TA-412s, I had almost the same feeling: impact, presence, and the wind instruments become irritating, as they should be live—nothing morbid or velvety. I believe the merit is mainly due to the horns.

When watching a football game or a movie with the audio on the speakers, the voices have excellent intelligibility, something that is not possible with speakers with "small" woofers, where you have to reinforce the low range with a reflex port positioned a little higher in frequency to emphasize, to give the impression of having a larger dimension woofer.

With rock, on the track "Whole Lotta Love - Led Zeppelin," the panning effects are immersive, thanks to the low range; you get drawn into the sound.

Female voices are well represented, right in front of the stage. Only in a few passages do voices with higher tones remain excessively prominent, without sibilance, nothing annoying, but it must be due to having a horn or it could be the crossover between the mid and tweeter, which seems to be between 3-4kHz.

But it's during nighttime listening, at low volume, that impressed me the most. The representation is good. I live in a condominium and cannot overdo it with the dB, so the system delivers perfectly. I can listen to an album like Charlie Haden & Egberto Gismondi's "In Montreal," with double bass, guitar/piano, in an engaging way and without losing a single note.

Acoustic instruments are reproduced with all their harmonics and are very realistic.

In the end, I liked the speakers. The finish is very well done, the materials are beautiful and of excellent quality, and Fábio also did a good job on the pedestals. The sound is correct, and the best adjective that comes to mind to define them is "fun." They are pleasant to listen to, don't fatigue the ear, even after hours, and I find the price still very competitive compared to the competition. With the Sunrise Labs V8 20TH amplifier, they form an excellent all-Brazilian cost/benefit duo, not forgetting that the great merit of the sound obtained should be shared with the Sunrise amplifier, which is another piece of equipment I find incredibly good, and the Tropics perfectly deliver what they receive and vice versa.

The rest of the components are:

Sunrise Labs V8 20TH anniversary amplifier

Wiim Ultra streamer (Synology DS118 NAS/Qobuz)

Marantz SA-11S1 SACD/CD player

Technics SL1200 MK3D turntable with Ortofon Black

Korsun/Dussun u3i phono preamplifier

Ataudio cables

Room 8x4x3 m.

Here's a playlist with some songs:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0MvSIvH3C-3bmmL_1zeXqDoaih807SVg

Antonio Gerbasi