Be-718 Build Quality

Okay, I admit it; my first impression of the Tiny Dancers was slightly altered because of a simple mistake in my part. As it happens, that alteration was in the positive for these diminutive yet substantial speakers. I had set my receiver to 2 channel stereo mode, which happens to add subwoofer out to the signal, which obviously colored my first impression because of this nearly miraculous bass that these little dynamo’s were producing. A couple evenings later I began to suspect that this type of low frequency response was a bit too substantial, I dug into my B&K receivers menu to realize I was indeed using “2 channel stereo” mode, instead of “LtRt” mode, which is in fact exactly what it implies, pushing all power strictly to the 2 speakers in those positions. Do you want to know what the most impressive part about these speakers is, now that I’ve discovered my own mistake? They don’t (necessarily) need a sub to impart a realistic amount of low frequency effects into a stereo presentation. As a matter of fact, as I write this passage, I have a the Blue Man Group blasting directly beneath me on the floor below. While I am testing the system at THX Reference Level to see how they handle a lot of power over a long period of time (call it the ‘stress test’ if you will), I wouldn’t expect to feel as much of the song now most famous for being the Pentium 4 theme song to be so resonant as it vibrates through the legs of my chair, each note unobscured by the fine American craftsmanship of my 51 year old Midwestern house’s construction. The resilient intonations of their ‘tubulum’ and ‘drumbone’ instruments resonating through every chamber and crevice of this well established old home. Needless to say, the original builder had never thought such an acoustic assault to be possible, but not only is the house holding up, so are these remarkable little speakers. Is that to say that they are without fault acoustically? Well, they obviously handle a lot of power with aplomb, and I’d go so far as to say the power handling capability as rated by the manufacturer is very conservative. Passages with a sense of depth are deftly grasped by these not insubstantial instruments.

Build Quality

Imitation, so the saying goes, is the sincerest form of flattery. That being said, these speakers don’t necessarily fall into the category of unflattering ne’er-do-well trading on a more familiar name. While the Be-718’s from well established (if not well known) manufacturer Usher (no relation) are nothing short of breathtaking to behold, the design is far from fresh. Having been in consumer electronics sales for many years, there have been a few standout brands for not only visual quality, but construction and audio fidelity as well. One of those brands is Italian made Sonus Faber, with visionary designer and founder Franco Serblin steering the high end manufacturer in new and exciting directions. Sonus Faber is without a doubt the brand that has most affected me as a listener and consumer of music and it is this fine pedigree that I use to compare the Tiny Dancer’s against. Those of you familiar with the former’s name and reputation will know that this is high praise, but it is not without reason. First and foremost, when unboxing the Usher’s, and removing the almost silky smooth jersey material they are wrapped in, the look was unmistakably a tribute to the Sonus Faber Concertino, from the brass buttons on the exquisite wood sides, to the name of the speakers embossed into a plaque on the front panel, the look is one of distinguished elegance, but not truly original. The weight and construction quality feel similar, though the materials prove to be more approachable than the rare woods and impossibly expensive finishes of the Concertino’s, without ever feeling under-built or cheap. Granted the speaker/tweeter and port layout is distinctly Usher, and the performance of these speakers is unique from that of their Italian stable mate. That’s not a bad thing as you will see in the depths of this review though, as the flattery does extend to some degree into the listening experience.

The Woofer

In removing the drivers to examine them in greater detail, it was made perfectly clear that these Tiny Dancers are not to be taken lightly. From the massive magnet and cast basket construction of the woofer to the uniquely capable beryllium tweeters, this is an acoustic package out to impress.

Looking every bit the part of a natural pulp paper cone again strikingly similar to the above mentioned Concertino’s, the 7” cone’s light weight and sublime rubber surround made for spectacular transient response in the low and midrange frequencies. The cast basket and extremely large magnet mean these speakers are not particularly efficient, but when fed with adequate clean power, you are rewarded appropriately. One thing that I did find rather surprising in my examination of the driver was the conspicuous absence of a bucking magnet to shield these speakers against magnetic interference on CRT televisions. Call me old school, but my stereo listening room has my older tube TV in it because it’s strictly for 2 channel audio, and I don’t watch videos in there at all. Once I replaced the woofers and began positioning the speakers, it was obvious that I needed to widen my speaker placement by an additional 8 inches per speaker to counter the magnetic interference my TV was suffering.

The Tweeter

Truly where the Be-718’s begin to shine and stand out from underneath the specter of being considered an imitator. The unique way in which the Beryllium is applied to the dome and the massive size of the magnet for the tweeter makes me think that if I put it in a tube with a trigger I could sonically dismantle an Abrams tank at a thousand paces. This is a big tweeter and boy oh boy can it really belt out some sound! Once properly placed in my room (wider than usual because of the lack of magnetic shielding) and simply running some test cd’s and frequency sweeps through the system, I seemed to be hearing frequencies higher up the spectrum than I recall hearing before. I am sure it’s more perception than reality, but it seems that particular tones I thought I’d lost the ability to hear were clear and present with these speakers, and it is the fault of my previous speakers that I’d been missing these transient notes at the crossover point between the woofer and tweeter. What a pleasant and yet disappointing revelation that is, and all this time I thought my current speakers were some of the most dynamic I had ever owned, but this Beryllium tweeter proved me wrong.

The Crossover

Accessing the crossover was no simple task as it was fixed to the inside of the cabinet so getting a clean shot for this article was not in the cards, but needless to say this crossover network is well thought out and even better tuned. As stated directly on the Usher website “Dr. Joseph D'Appolito, Usher's long-serving technical consultant, provides crossover tuning here in the 'States. Crossover parts and JPS Labs internal wiring are made in the USA. Design wizard Danny Richie, of Texas based GR-Research, boosts the stock crossover's performance to unprecedented levels by selecting premium crossover parts, altering parts values, re-tuning baffle step compensation and smoothing out the speaker's vertical off axis response.” That retuned crossover features all new/upgraded parts as follows: {Erse high-purity oxygen free copper air-core inductors; Mills resistors; Sonicaps; Erse poly caps; and Gen.2 Sonicaps}.

What does all this mean to you and me? How about a smoother performance for most music styles than I’ve ever experienced. It is absolutely remarkable how the crossover almost never belies the crossover point audibly, a true testament to Dr. D’Appolito’s continued and unrivalled brilliance in the world of acoustics.

The Backside

The Be-718’s have a full featured, and some may even say intimidating back panel. The dual 5-way binding posts and optional jumpers make it easy to connect as either a single wire or bi-wire connection. The binding posts are very heavily knurled with a coarse nut that attaches directly to bare speaker wire, and a finer threaded nut behind that which locks the larger one into place. The difficulty I came across is that my Audioquest wire is 4 solid copper conductors rather than dozens of finer strands, and I never felt that the binding posts had clamped onto my wire like they should have, which meant I never felt certain that my speaker cables were firmly locked in place. This was fleshed out one night when one of my speaker wires simply fell out of the binding post. A simple fix, and a recommendation for anyone with solid core wire, would be to attach banana connectors to your cable and simply insert them into the end of the binding post instead.

Being that my wire is 4 strands, it allows me to single bi-wire the speakers fairly effortlessly and the surprising thing is that the difference between straight wiring and single bi-wire was less significant than I expected. Once properly setup I began listening to several passages wired both ways, and the most notable difference was a minute sense of increased depth of the soundstage. I attribute this in large portion to the cabinet and crossover designs. With a cabinet designed to negate standing waves, and a brilliantly engineered crossover, the benefits of single bi-wiring these speakers is subtle at best.