The essence of a powerful statement lies in a declaration of intent, a focus, an ambition to commit and subsequently express the core of an idea. Take a deep look at Estelon’s Extreme Mk.II and you begin to truly understand how it elevates the company’s design disciplines and philosophies to their most ambitious heights. Literally. To a max of over 2m, in fact. Yes, it’s a statement. It’s a flagship product from a progressive brand willing to deeply invest in acoustic engineering. It employs some of the very best drivers available, pairing them with proprietary cabinet materials. It expresses the sum of its technologies in a unique industrial design. The Extreme Mk.II is a top-tier loudspeaker system embodying Estelon’s ethos and signals a serious challenge to the industry’s finest. Let’s put this elegant super-model to the test.
Deep Listening Is An Act Of Surrender – Valarie Kaur
Valarie Kaur, I hear you. Totally. Plus, that act of submission also results in a greater understanding of music, of ideas, and of creativity and imagination. Magnify those simple concepts onto a communal, global psyche and maybe, just maybe, humanity might ultimately triumph. And I mean culturally, socially, spiritually, and technologically. So, music is one of the keys, or at least one very important factor, for a better humanity… but enough philosophising. Within this context, my desire to truly understand the experience Extreme Mk.II offers is to deeply immerse myself in its generous musicality and overall grandeur.
First, I’ll examine what makes this truly unique loudspeaker design. Extreme Mk.II is a product of the creative imagination of company founder and Chief Designer Alfred Vassilkov, along with the engineering team under his guidance. I guess that if there was a first-glance elephant in the room, in the case of Extreme Mk.II, it would be its gracefully elegant form and imposing presence. It takes the baton from earlier Estelon designs and carries it to a higher plane of scale and aesthetic form.
So, there’s the signature curvature around the sides, the slimmed mid-section where the tweeter lives, leading to the bulging-out of the top and sides where the woofers require a larger internal volume for deep low frequencies. Like its stablemates within Estelon’s upper tier, a proprietary marble-based composite material is used to shape what is a superbly inert cabinet. However, the Extreme Mk.II (and its original predecessor) differ from the rest of Estelon’s line-up by way of its adjustable modular design.
The main module, widest at its apex and tapering as it slopes downward, is an independent cabinet housing a tweeter, a midrange driver, and a large woofer. The sculpted form isn’t just visually striking; it also has an acoustic purpose. It’s designed to optimise dispersion and minimise diffraction.
In addition, in order to cater to different room acoustics, listening distances, and seating heights, the module is height-adjustable within a 300 mm range. The different heights can be set via an all-metal infrared remote which controls a precision motor system. There are nine steps synchronised to vertically adjust both the left and right channels in unison. This is engineered to provide optimal dispersion and imaging to match room characteristics and dimensions while providing driver acoustic alignment.
There’s one more fine-tuning and image focus trick available via the remote control. A second motorised mechanism, featuring a belt-driven “lobed camshaft”, physically shifts the decoupled tweeter back and forth in five set steps. Again, this is done in unison on left and right channels and across a calibrated range of a few millimetres.
Of importance here, the remote features a small LCD screen with numerical guides allotted to both the module’s vertical alignment and the tweeters’ fore and aft adjustments, allowing precise references. All of these refined adjustments, once again, point to intelligent design in the pursuit of sonic performance.
Onto the drivers that make up this 4-way bass reflex design. The broadest section at the top of the main module houses a 250 mm (11 inch) high power mid-woofer custom engineered by Germany’s Accuton (by Thiel & Partner). The driver features CELL technology which sandwiches aluminium and ceramic in an inverted honeycomb architecture (like a subtly curved dome, rather than cone). It’s super-light yet very stiff.
Below the mid-woofer driver, an Accuton 168 mm (7 inch) CELL ceramic/alpha-corundum membrane driver handles the midrange. Its bandwidth spans between 1.8 kHz and 145 Hz. The driver features a massive motor incorporating a neodymium magnet ring, making it both very efficient and capable of high power output.
Below that, you’ll find the very upmarket, highly engineered Accuton 25 mm (1 inch) CELL diamond tweeter which is mounted on a dedicated decoupled sub-baffle and contained within the boundaries of a soft, felt-like surround. The sub-baffle, as noted earlier, is remotely adjustable to precisely shift back and forth in five step increments to enable subtle yet potentially impactful refinements in image focus.
The proximity of the three main-module drivers has been purposefully designed to offer seamless inter-driver acoustic transference, especially in light of the top mid-woofer’s handling of the frequency range between 65 Hz and 145 Hz (Estelon rightly regards any driver operating above 100 Hz to be crucial in terms of sound localisation).
At the lowest point of the secondary module, Estelon engineers chose two 250 mm (11 inch) CELL aluminium sandwich woofers that have been custom designed by Accuton. One per side on angled panels. The drivers feature a massive voice coil which is nearly the diameter of the driver diaphragm. Yeah, massively large with tremendous power handling capacity. The woofers were deliberately positioned low and near to the floor in order to acoustically couple to it, maximising efficiency, output, and coherency, while providing a more even distribution of potential room standing waves. Estelon calls this design aspect ‘Symmetric Driver Loading’ (SDL). This, of course, makes for less complex room placement, all part of Estelon’s ‘Room-Aware Design’.
The new 2nd order electrical and acoustic crossover design features a who’s who list of top-level components. Housed in its own isolated compartment so as to avoid vibrational distortions, the network features SESGO capacitors, wire-wound Supreme and “precision thick-foil Ultra” resistors, Mundorf grain-oriented steel core vacuum impregnated round wire and flat foil inductors, Goertz flat foil air-core coils, and BEC capacitors for the bass range.
The crossover network is engineered to provide accurate frequency and time domain relationships between the Extreme Mk.II’s drivers, which transition at 1.8 kHz, 145 Hz, 65 Hz. In addition, Estelon has developed a proprietary technology it calls ‘flat foil direct coupling’ which star-connects the crossover components to a central conductor. Said conductor provides the signal directly to the speaker terminals via short cable runs. The hand-soldered crossover avoids the inherent drawbacks of PCBs and optimises the component layout.
Finally, back to the Extreme Mk.II’s cabinet which is exemplary both in terms of its construction and sheer elegance. As mentioned above, Estelon has developed a proprietary material used to construct the speakers’ cabinet, with each speaker weighing-in at 250 kg. Extreme Mk.II’s marble-based material can be formed, or machined, into intricate shapes and curvaceous lines, both elements that have become company trademarks.
The complex shaping extends to the enclosures’ interior surfaces which, combined with the non-parallel external panels, form specific geometries in multiple chambers. The internal cabinet architecture is designed to minimise internal standing waves and distortions. As Estelon states, “The cabinet is extremely rigid, highly dense, resonant-free, and with exceptional internal dampening and acoustical control.” Each driver is coupled to a dedicated and finely tuned sub-chamber.
In addition, the motorised module vertical movement and the tweeter adjustments, in conjunction with the sloping front baffle, are efforts to achieve acoustic coherence, in addition to driver-to-listening-position arrival alignment and clean dispersion. The upper module couples to the motor mechanism via a set of steel spikes, for further distortion reduction. The sum of these strategies delivers high levels of spatial information, a characteristic that is emblematic of Estelon’s speakers across the board.
The Extreme Mk.II’s cabinet features a reflex design for the twin woofers which operate in unison in Estelon’s ‘Symmetric Drivers Loading’ (SDL) system. A bass reflex “tunnel” runs along the speaker’s rear and is lined with damping materials designed to eliminate air movement, or chuffing, improving the accuracy of the low-frequencies.
A few words on the speaker connectors. Estelon engineers evaluated a wide selection of high quality OEM binding posts, subsequently choosing to develop a custom connection methodology the company considers superior. Fitted towards the bottom of the cabinet, a panel houses a clamping system rather than the commonly-used screw posts. The clamps are spring-loaded and connect to a “high-grade” copper foil ribbon which is wired directly to the crossover. Estelon provides a dedicated clamping system for single- or bi-wiring.
The Extreme Mk.II anchors to the floor with Stillpoints Ultra 5 footers that are mounted at the factory. As an alternate coupling option, Estelon provides a kit including heavy duty spikes with floor protecting pucks.
The specifications list is just as impressive as the Extreme Mk.II’s execution. Estelon quotes a frequency response that spans from 23 Hz to 60 kHz (no parameters provided, although Estelon states it’s linear up to 33 kHz at the high frequency end), a nominal impedance of 3 ohms with a minimum of 2 ohms at 95 Hz, and a sensitivity of 91dB/2.83V. The power rating given is 500 watts.
I spoke to Alfred Vassilkov to get further insights into the ideas behind Estelon’s Extreme Mk.II loudspeaker system:
I wanted to design a large speaker that put enough energy and sound volume in the room and to provide a proper soundstage and tonal balance. We experimented with the speakers in different rooms using the same electronics and found that the room had less influence when the speaker was made from separate modules. One module for the low frequencies and another for the midrange and highs. We found it worked well…
I was curious to know more about Vassilkov’s intentions when thinking about the improvements between the original Extreme and the new Extreme Mk.II:
I wanted to improve a lot. For example, we’re using a new diamond tweeter that has a neodymium magnet. Also, a new midrange driver with inverted dome technology that has a large diameter voice coil connected directly to the membrane. It looks like a big tweeter. It’s very fast and very clean and open. The crossover is totally new and also the internal cabling which is pure copper from Kubala Sosna. That makes the sound more dynamic and more musical. We also developed a new connector system that does not use a mix of materials. Each material has its own influence on the sound plus, each transition from material to material effects the sound. It’s also a very short signal path to the crossover. The new binding posts have excellent dynamics and micro-dynamics. All these things help to build the musical atmosphere, the nuances.
I asked Vassilkov about the curvature of the upper module’s front baffle, which crucially houses the mid-woofer, midrange and tweeter drivers, and whether it was a time alignment technique on the drivers’ acoustic centres or the voice coils.
It was the result of experimentation. We aligned the drivers for a listening position of around four or five metres. The module movement is curved so the focus stays the same as the module moves. We can then change the focus a little by moving the tweeter independently a little in or out. All the changes can be done with the remote control, allowing direct listening comparisons without leaving the listening chair. This speaker is very flexible to adjust the sound for different rooms.
On the materials technology, Vassilkov explained:
Extreme Mk.II uses our proprietary marble composite material, the same as our X Series speakers. The material was developed before our company was founded and we spent much time determining the necessary physical parameters for this technology. It’s very strong, stiff, and has good internal damping. It’s possible to create different configurations, different forms. The aesthetics are determined by the harmony between it and the engineering and then the desire to produce a large soundstage with very focused imaging. Also, we have very high standards for the finishing process, and we do all that in our factory. We also cater to different customer needs with the finishing colours.
Following on from Vassilkov’s comment above, the Extreme Mk.II cabinets’ stunning paint finishes, available both in gloss and matte, are a result of a 12 layer process and weeks of hand-polishing. The review sample came in a striking ‘Midnight Opera’ finish, Estelon-speak for a blend of gloss black and crimson gloss red. Several other attractive combinations are available as standard options in addition to custom finishes by request. Estelon speakers are entirely handcrafted in Estonia.
Herculean Muscle
Each 250 kg speaker comes nestled in an industrial strength roadcase, which itself would weigh over 50 kg, I’d guess. Plus, an additional separate box contains the Extreme Mk.II’s accessories. So, yeah, a three-box total payload weighing over 550 kg and a logistical challenge just to deliver. Sent in two vans plus a hatchback by the local distributor Advance Audio Australia, four tough guys only just squeezed each roadcased speaker through the sliding door and into the SoundStage! Australia listening studio. Literally, there was only a maximum of 2 or 3 mm clearance. Phew! That was close.
Once inside the room, the roadcases needed to be set upright. Again, no mean feat given the weight. Once standing, the roadcase’s top cover was removed exposing a small integrated ramp. Estelon provides a heavy duty jack with built-in rollers, allowing the speaker to be propped up a tad and wheeled out of the case.
Before the setup could begin, the Extreme Mk.II’s transport locking system needed to be ‘unlocked’ to enable subsequent operation of the motorised mechanism. This adjustment uses a supplied tool and is accessed via a discreet removable cover at the top behind the main module.
Even if only roughly in the early stages, once Extreme Mk.IIs are moved into position, it was a matter of gently lowering and removing the jack. Fine-tuning for the perfect position in my room would come later via a special treat…
Where Words Fail, Music Speaks – Hans Christian Andersen
… And that treat was the privilege of having Alfred Vassilkov and COO Ilias Koutromanos travel from Europe to SoundStage! Australia’s headquarters to personally fine-tune the Extreme Mk.II’s position within my dedicated listening room.
So, fine-tuning, both in terms of general distances from room boundaries and toe-in angle, was made reasonably easy by re-inserting the jack and wheeling the speakers to a desired new position. Sometimes it may be a case of just a small nudge to tweak a degree here or there of toe-in.
From there, Vassilkov and Koutromanos conducted concentrated listening using their select music reference tracks, followed by more speaker shifting, sometimes an inch or two at a time. Corrections were made to the upper module vertical height, and the tweeter’s fore and aft setting. My listening chair’s position was also adjusted in relation to its distance to the speakers.
The process went on over a period of hours. Only when both Vassilkov and Koutromanos were satisfied with the speakers’ performance was the process ‘signed-off’. With the final position established, as a final touch if needed, the jack can then be brought back into play. The jack’s second height setting provides a little extra height needed for inserting the spikes. Of course, you may wish to experiment with the Stillpoints Ultra 5 footers first, as they come in place from the factory.
While some may feel that SoundStage! Australia’s room is not quite large enough for Extreme Mk.II, its near 7.5 metres length more than compensates for the just-over-4 metre width when considering overall acoustic volume. In practice, the room’s proportions provide ample breathing space for the Extreme Mk.II speaker system to unfold its full dynamic potential and deliver a very large percentage of its spatial capabilities.
Plus, the soundfield generosity and the low frequency control I experienced are a testament to the design’s mandate to perform across a wide range of acoustic scenarios. Yeah, that ‘Room-Aware Design’ architecture proves its worth. At no point during my several weeks with Extreme Mk.II did I feel like the room’s dimensions were a restriction. Granted, I wouldn’t knock back a couple of extra metres of width (most of us wish for a bigger room), but it was quite remarkable how uncompromised a sound performance I experienced in my environment.
Having said all that, I found the speakers were very sensitive to small adjustments. I noticed this while the Estelon team were perfecting the setup. During Extreme Mk.II’s stay over several weeks, I also experimented with the upper module vertical position and the tweeter’s settings and found small changes were easily noticeable. Ditto for cable changes. In my case, a mix of the super-value and highly resolving Cerious Technologies Lumniscate and the slightly fuller sounding VYDA Laboratories Orion HFC provided the best balance of profound detail retrieval and engaging musicality.
As you’d expect from a speaker system of this size, the dramatic power Extreme Mk.II is capable of delivering can be awesome. In the pure, literal meaning of the word. The sheer level of scale, dynamic contrast, bass authority, depth, and spatial envelopment were among some of the very best I’ve heard… and I’ve experienced many designs in that rarefied stratosphere. The Extreme Mk.II delivers a controlled… majesty that only expertly designed large speakers can offer.
So, to start-off, I wanted to explore those very qualities by playing large orchestral works and some powerful rock. The former provides a sense of ambient scale, of the positioning of the orchestra’s instrument sections, among other things, while the latter’s visceral power engages primeval instincts… my id, if you will.
On “Stürmisch Bewegt (Live)” from Gustav Mahler’s Symphony № 1 in D Major, in The Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon and Decca, Abbado, Mahler marathon release (246 tracks!), the Extreme Mk.II’s showed a capacity to ride the storming dynamic oscillations (pun intended) from pianissimo to fortissimo with simultaneous delicate ease and brutal power. The track starts with a violent attack, with Abbado’s command of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in full swing. Then, round about the three minute mark, it all subsides to a gentleness rich in both musical and emotional nuance. And then there’s that massive soundstage…
Through that intro, Extreme Mk.II provided shockingly powerful dynamics, room shaking actually, and superb control of the timpani while separating the various sections of the orchestra as it all plays in an amalgam of intensity. Then, in the calm section that follows, gentle violins float above the rest of the orchestra like the calm after the storm. Extreme Mk.II communicated the instruments with sharp resolution and precise separation while also maintaining the overall cohesion, delicacy, and tonality of the violin section. It all thunders back again around the 7.5 minute mark where anarchy takes over again, and the speakers’ dynamic scale will flip your wig.
Tool’s “Descending” from the Fear Inoculum album, provides an echoing analogy. As the track starts, you hear an ascension from the waters’ depths, rather than a descent. Then, the sound of waves lapping a shore, a gentle bass line emerging, with Extreme Mk.II providing stunning detail and transient attack even at that subtle level. Maynard James Keenan’s vocal rides above the emerging musical currents as the guitar and drums come in and things begin… building. It’s here that the power of Tool, a band that defines creativity in writing and musicianship (Danny Carey would have to be the world’s best drummer ATM), can move you, if you appreciate the genre. The Wah-tinged guitar solo cuts through the mix in a way that doesn’t detract from the track’s overall orchestration, allowing engagement and enjoyment. OK, settled. Extreme Mk.II can do both subtle nuance and violent savagery with reference level ease.
Driven by the extraordinary Gryphon Audio Antileon EVO (the beautiful custom Supratek Cortese preamplifier playing a part here too), Extreme Mk.II tracked the dynamic swings, pumped the low frequencies, and gently played the music’s subtleties to an unprecedented extent in my room. It is, after all, the largest speaker system I’ve reviewed in-house.
Moving on to other facets of Extreme Mk.II’s performance, I played “Autumn Leaves” from jazz pianist maestro Ahmad Jamal’s Marseille album. The rendering of bells and gently-struck cymbals was among the most realistic I’ve heard. There was a deliciously delicate sense of air mingled with true-sounding metallic harmonic textures. Extreme Mk.II’s diamond tweeter is a superb high frequency transducer. Also exceptionally well separated and tonally precise were the interplays with Jamal’s speedy piano, the backing tabla-like drum and the warm-sounding acoustic bass. In fact, the piano was superbly reproduced across the entire board, left-to-right. This recording revealed the Extreme Mk.II’s uncanny talents at reproducing delicate nuance, tonal purity, and superb micro-detail in a way that was far removed from cold, soulless analysis.
In common with highly-resolving upper echelon speaker designs, Extreme Mk.II was ruthlessly revealing of mediocre recording studio and mastering lab craftsmanship. Poor recordings were exposed for all their faults which, in my experience, are usually demonstrated by overall congestion and dynamically contrived mids plus, often, over-etched highs. Extreme Mk.II will not camouflage such flaws, but it must be said that there were always elements of the sonic presentation that impressed, somehow alleviating the effect of those recordings’ failings.
On the album Touristes by Boureima ‘Vieux’ Farka Touré (Ali Farka Touré’s son) and Julia Easterlin, the classic Americana track “In The Pines” shined with glorious vocals and instrumentations. Easterlin’s voice was beautifully reproduced with clear intonations and Touré’s Malian guitar sounded fast and clean. It echoed his father’s signature tone yet exhibited a character all its own. The track features a slow-pulsing drum, almost like a heartbeat, and Extreme Mk.II pounded it with faithfulness to the recording, in terms of its presence as an accompaniment. It was restrained, as intended by the musicians, while sounding realistic and with super-tight start/stop transients.
Estelon loudspeakers are renowned for their ability to free the music from the restrictions of the transducers’ cabinet. I fondly remember my time with the company’s near-entry-point AURA speakers (review here). Those speakers were, basically, ghosts (my review pair even in white sheets, sorry, white paint finish). They disappeared while manifesting realistic images appearing within a massive spatial field. Phantom apparitions in my listening room’s acoustic space, I tell you.
Can a speaker nearly three times the size match that feat? Yes and no. AURA is still an imaging champion, yet the massive Extreme Mk.II threw a gigantically larger soundstage with sharply focused images. It’s just that AURA was… special. Having said that, given a larger room, the potential is there for Extreme Mk.II to tell a strong ghost story…
To illustrate those qualities, I spun Belafonte At Carnegie Hall – The Complete Concert (I have a special edition CD given to me by Gold Note Records) a recording that, after decades, is still considered a benchmark for spatial reproduction. Extreme Mk.II passed the Belafonte test, providing a massive acoustic rendering of the famous hall and tracking the man himself as he struts across and around the stage. It’s quite eerie, really, how just two speakers can conjure up such a vivid illusion across all dimensions. Belafonte and his backing band emerge as sharply focused, independent images, each anchored in distinct locations and seemingly beyond the boundaries of the listening room. Extraordinary.
Conclusion
Art is what materialises as an expression of a creative urge… the result of an idea, a vision, or a craft. You can say the same for gifted engineering where at Estelon the designers’ concepts and disciplines, converge in the Extreme Mk.II, a singular manifestation embodied in an exceptional loudspeaker system.
Extreme Mk.II takes no prisoners… it’s uncompromising, refuting mediocrity and leaving it behind in a barren landscape littered with the remnants of poor studio and mastering practices. It ruthlessly exposes less-than-synergistic components and discordant cabling. Shifting its position and toe-in an inch here, and a degree there, effortlessly triggers sonic changes that reinforce the ‘Room-Aware Design’ principle. Yet, there's always beauty there, even in what could be seen as somewhat mismatched scenarios.
Get everything aligned and, true to the demands of a great loudspeaker design, Estelon’s Extreme Mk.II tower-of-power rewards gifted musicianship and accomplished studio craftsmanship with high-end audio playback of a truly elevated order. Pure joy.
… Edgar Kramer
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Associated Equipment
- Speakers — Wilson Audio Alexia V, Estelon Extreme Mk.II (in for review), Axis Loudspeakers VoiceBox S (nearfield monitor), Vermouth Audio Little Luccas Mk.II Limited Edition, Atacama stands
- Amplifier — Gryphon Audio Antileon EVO
- Preamplifier — Supratek Cortese, Totaldac d1-triunity (periodically, direct to amplifier)
- Sources — Digital: 432 EVO Aeon Mk.3 Reference Music Server/Roon Core, Yamaha CD-S2100 transport, Totaldac d1-triunity DAC. Analogue: Transrotor Crescendo with Konstant Studio controller, Reed 1X Tonearm with upgraded internal wiring, Shelter Harmony cartridge, The Funk Firm Houdini cartridge decoupler, Supratek Cortese & REDGUM Audio RGPH2 phono stages
- Processor — DEQX PreMate (part of arsenal/casual use)
- Cables — VYDA Laboratories Orion Silver Reference HFC IC and speaker cables, Cerious Technologies Lumniscate loom, PSC Audio custom design XLR, Vermouth Audio Reference loom,Tubulus Concentus USB
- Audio Rack — SGR Audio Statement MODEL V, Aspire Audio Belgravia amplifier platform (customised for Gryphon Audio Antileon EVO), Stereotech Aluminar Dark 3-tier rack
- Acoustic Treatment — Vicoustic Multifuser Wood, Wavewood Ultra, Cinema Round Premium and Super Bass Extreme
- Miscellaneous — Silent Angel Bonn N8 Pro network switch, GigaWatt PF-1 EVO power strip, Les Davis Audio Viscoelastic CLD discs, Voodoo Cable Iso-Pods, Bocchino Audio Mecado, Secret Chord Analogue Record Restore, plus miscellaneous accessories
Estelon Extreme Mk.II Loudspeakers
Price: AU$349,995
Australian Warranty: Five Years
Australian Distributor: Advance Audio Australia
+61 2 9561 0799
www.advanceaudio.com.au
Estelon – Alfred & Partners OÜ
Kukermiidi 6 Tallinn 11216
Estonia
+372 661 0624
www.estelon.com