Sylvan Portals Bookshelf Speakers

We have many speaker manufacturers come into Carlton Audio Visual with their designs looking for them to be showcased in a retail environment. Out of all of them that knock on our doors, it's not many that prick up our well trodden ears. These little units certainly did! My initial impression was, I must admit - 'not another LS3/5a knockoff'. But oh gosh what a pleasant surprise. These really do retrieve a lot bass frequency and more music than their direct competitors. And yes, we love to support a product that is made here in Melbourne!

These little fellas are on display ready for demo now.

Sylvan exists to build top flight passive speakers with beautiful sonics, aesthetics and materials. Think of the Portal as an internally modernised LS3/5a - with the same focus on  neutrality, depth and clarity which has made the original an enduring landmark in the hi-fi landscape - but with the added weight of 40 years of incremental improvements in transducer design.  

What Sylvan have set out to do here, is apply their thinking and design principles to this classic form factor. The thing closest to their heart is the same as the designers of the original BBC LS3/5a - voices and instruments MUST sound natural. What’s different about Sylvan's approach is preference for first order electrical crossover networks (this is nothing new in the industry, see also Marten and Dynaudio to name two greats) and the qualities they bring to the finished speaker, when done right.  

Essentially this means that the overlap of sound energy between the low frequency and high frequency drivers is greater, and their respective rolloff slopes are shallower. This is mostly not done in the industry as it requires very careful selection of drivers, first and foremost - they must be linear over a greater range. Usually driver designers optimise their drivers for very specific ‘pass bands’ and their response outside that range can be challenging, so they are rolled off harder to mask this raggedness, which also increases their power handling. So that’s all fine, but what makes a first order network attractive then? In a word, phase. At the listening position, more of the acoustic energy that you hear as coming from two separate point sources (the two drivers) over the critical midrange, will be in phase - that is, not cancelling each other out. This means your auditory system has to do less work piecing together all the anomalies. Put another way, first order networks, when done right with the right drivers, simply make music where other speakers make sound. Tying into this, if you look closely at the baffle you will see that the tweeter is recessed, this pushes the acoustic centre back into closer alignment with the midwoofer - again increasing midrange coherence.

When done right, this methodology will result in magic - Sylvan's approach is vindicated simply by enjoyment of the music, hour after hour.

Sylvan speakers are made and designed here in Melbourne. They are a bespoke made-to-order product. Please contact us for lead times and availability.