I had been hearing a few things about Era loudspeakers through the grapevine. But we need a new speaker line like a hole in the head. Jim Spainhour, the importer for Musical Fidelity also handles Era, and was coming out to show us some new Musical Fidelity products that are about to be released and wanted me to give them a listen.

Now truth be told…when we have these meetings it’s about listening to the gear then getting dinner. And I love to go with Jim because we like the same stuff. And I was hungry. “I brought the loudspeakers…you should really listen to them” he said. Why not? Bring them in. We set them on some stands then I said “Let’s go eat…I’ll listen to them later”. I mean dude….Tokyo Kitchen awaits. Speakers are no big whoop. Nope.. we ain’t leaving. He insisted he be there when we fire them up. So I ignored my stomach and we played them through the Musical Fidelity A3.5 integrated and matching CD player.

I was shocked. I noticed Jim was looking at me to get the reaction from my face. And I know now why he wanted to witness it.

Never before have I seen such a teeny speaker get real midband and voice correct without being honky. And have true bottom end extension. I’m pretty conservative in my statements folks…and will tell you I have not been wowed like this in many moons.

The speaker is small. I usually would not even consider getting anything this small because they always sound not too great. It’s less than ten inches tall! We were having so much fun I wondered how they would play with a tube amp. The specs show them to want a little power being 84dB efficient. But most small speakers like a little juice. So we hooked up a Prologue Two 40wpc integrated amp. Fantastic! Here is the waiver: If you are Ozzy Osbourne and want to re-create concert level Black Sabbath performance you will need bigger power and the fantastic Era Sub 10 subwoofer to fill in the bottom end.

These speakers run $600 a pair in rosewood, cherry, or sycamore. Shown above is the Design 4 in sycamore. $659 for piano black. The cabinets have a fantastic real wood veneer and they are so dense it’s as if they were made from a solid chunk of wood. No cabinet resonances period. They come with trick wall mounts no charge.

If you have a little more room get the Era Design 5 which will give you even better reach for midbass. $899 for the wood finishes above and $989 in piano black. More on that later. There are also matching center channels available.

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