Triangle Comete 40th Anniversary - £1,499 (Premium Finish)
Martin VirgoIntroduction
It is not often that I open a box and find myself thinking, well this is beautiful; but, I have to say that I was bowled over by this pair of speakers. The design and attention to detail really impressed me.Triangle describes these speakers as ‘bookshelf’, for those with rather large bookshelves I would suggest.
The Triangle Comete 40th Anniversary is a part of the Triangle Esprit range. The eye is immediately drawn to the wonderful wood veneer and depth of polish. The covers are magnetically attached to the speaker.
I was assured that the speakers were well run in and so immediately set them up on my desk, well they are ‘bookshelf’ after all. This proved that these really ARE just too big for this use. However, they worked well with my WAD valve power amp, and so were to prove agnostic in terms of the technology driving them. I won’t be reporting on their near-field performance, which was surprisingly good, but with a form factor that was unsuited to the use to which I was subjecting them.
In due course, I carried them downstairs and slotted them into my main system.
I would recommend buying the bespoke stands, having used my own initially the designed stands not only ensure the speakers are at the correct height the tighten up the mid-field clarity.
I started with them firing down my room, twenty-four inches from the rear wall. The sound was wonderfully enveloping and the imaging was thrown well beyond the outer edge of the speaker boxes. However, there was a standing-wave which was re-enforcing certain bass frequencies. I solved this by toeing-in the speakers and moving my seat a foot forward. This narrowed the cast image, giving it a tad more depth and intimacy. Widening the sound field by pointing the drivers beyond my seating position again threw the imaging beyond the outer edge of the speakers, whilst reducing the three-dimensional depth; but without the reinforced bass.
The Triangle Comete 40th Anniversary speakers are easy to position and allow you to adjust to your preferred imaging.
The speakers have rather chunky female bolt holes in the base, which are for some dedicated 40th Anniversary stands (£329), unfortunately, these were not delivered with the speakers so I used some stands I had to hand.
Initially, I started with my recently purchased Synthesis Roma 69DC DAC. This adds a touch of midfield warmth which works very well with my Naim SBL speakers, but was slightly over-egging the pudding with the Triangle Comete 40th Anniversary. As a result, I changed to my Chord M-Scaler/Qutest, which performed excellently with these speakers.
Test Tracks: The Good, The Bad and the Bright
The tracks were selected to allow:- Comparison of local and Qobuz sourced versions of the same tracks;
- Comparison of standard and remastered versions of the same track;
- Comparison of older and modern tracks, with their different mastering priorities;
- How problem tracks were presented.
Problem Files:https://open.qobuz.com/playlist/12623970
Technical Detail
This is a two-driver dual-ported design, with the two ports facing forwards.
The TZ2550 titanium tweeter is set in a brass coloured horn. My immediate thought was whether this would prove to be narrowly directional; it wasn’t, even when unfairly used in my near-field system.
The Antal Ez mid/bass driver is wood pulp with a white membrane.
Listening Impressions
An unfair initial listening impression!The source was Roon, primarily Qobuz, with:
- Headroom enabled;
- Sample rate enabled (4x base rate, up to 192kHz);
- Sample rate to 768kHz via M-Scaler;
- Parametric EQ Enabled.
As noted above, for this review I used the Chord 2go/2yu, Chord M-Scaler & Chord Qutest; which worked synergistically with the Triangle Comete within my main system.
I was immediately struck by the vocal verisimilitude delivered by the Triangle Comete 40th Anniversary, I was captured in quick succession by Paul Simon, Tom Jones, Diana Ross and Johnny Cash. If I had the speakers pointed directly at me the singer was projected slightly forward of the speakers, when adjusted to face at a point just behind me the singer was in the same plane as the speakers with a wider sound-field.
I deliberately included tracks from Paul Simon’s, ‘Still Crazy After All These Years’. As superb as the music is I find that the digital copies have a slight upward frequency tilt. I was delighted with the reproduction of Simon’s singing voice via the Triangle Comete 40th Anniversary, yes, I was aware of the slight upper frequency stress, but it was well controlled and I was able to simply enjoy the track and Paul Simon’s performance. This continued with ‘My Little Town’, with the wonderful piano left hand and the punctuation of the bass drum.
The vocal presentation of the Triangle Comete 40th Anniversary continued to be excellent, be it male, with Tom Jones, or female, with Diana Ross.
The excellent Sting concert, ‘Sting Live in Berlin’, was well reproduced by the Comete, allowing the user to pick out the various percussive support, and placing the whole in its acoustic.
Oscar Peterson’s, ‘West Side Story’ was simply infectiously delivered with good tonality; the players were well defined and their parts easy to follow.
America’s eponymous album is full of great tracks. Sandman demonstrated the dynamic capabilities of the Triangle Comete. The track opens with a solo central voice supported by guitars, at 38 seconds supporting voices join and via the Comete there was a large expansion in the soundstage together with added dynamic weight; very nice.
Brian Bromberg’s, The Saga of Harrison Crabfeathers’ and Massive Attack’s, Angel are superb tracks for judging bass and dynamics. The Triangle Comete 40th Anniversary are not claimed to be full-range speakers. With the bass ports and added volume they deliver greater bass than LS3/5a speakers, but are not going to threaten larger speakers. However, what is delivered is tuneful and informative.
Mussorgsky’s, ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ as orchestrated by Ravel, is a wonderful piece of music with superb contrasts. Gnomus follows the pomp and circumstance of Promenade. I always feel that Russian composers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are a gold mine for film scores, where phrases, techniques and ideas are plagiarised aplenty. In Gnomus at about thirty six seconds you get strings swooping around their notes in an effect that is redolent of a number of soundtracks. The Triangle Comete 40th Anniversary are very effective at musically delivering these parts to the listener.
Conclusion
I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with the Triangle Comete 40th Anniversary speakers. Transducers that not only look superb but sound very fine too. I would recommend buying the bespoke stands which raise the speaker to the correct listening height. They help resolve mid-range detail that is slightly masked without.
I think the Triangle Comete 40th Anniversary represents good value for money. They are not only easy to position but the sound-field presentation is easily modified by changing the degree of toe-in you choose. If they worked up against the rear wall I would be very tempted to buy a pair!
Ultimately greater detail can be delivered by some more expensive speakers, but the balance of what is delivered is so entertaining and their vocal reproduction is so good that I would definitely recommend an audition if you are thinking of spending anything up to £2,500, and desire this speaker form factor.
With the Triangle Comete 40th Anniversary you have a pair of speakers that deliver rock, pop and jazz in an infectiously enjoyable way, and give musical insight into classical pieces.
