Triangle Magellan 40th Duetto

Triangle is in a rich seam of output as it celebrates its 40th Anniversary.  Triangle’s Magellan 40th series features this Duetto, alongside the floorstanding Cello and Quatour loudspeakers.  Of one thing you can be sure with this series, they are stunningly beautiful and without compare in terms of quality, finish and binding posts.  These are easily the best die-cast aluminium binding posts I have experienced.  But what does the Triangle Magellan 40th Duetto sound like?

Design

The Triangle Magellan 40th Duetto is a two-way standmounted loudspeaker with forward-facing bass reflex ports. It features a newly designed horn-loaded tweeter that has an eye-catching magnesium alloy dome.  There is a new 16cm paper cone driver on bass and midrange duties, it is called the T16GM-MT10-GC1-V2 midrange!

Triangle has employed a French MKP crossover from SCR AUDIO that offers ‘steep cut-off slopes, ensuring clarity’.  Also, Triangle has engaged Audioquest to provide the cabling inside the cabinets

The Duetto has a nominal impedance of 8 Ohms and a sensitivity of 88 db/W/m.  There is a quoted frequency range of 38 Hz – 30 kHz (+/- 3 dB).

Quality

The Triangle Magellan 40th Duetto are exquisite to the touch with soft and rounded edges finishes to them.  They are pretty weighty too and need careful positioning on speaker stands that don’t match their footprint.  Fortunately, mine are wide enough and heavy enough and the golden oak finish is very pretty indeed.  As I have already mentioned the terminals are probably the best I have ever encountered.  The 11mm thick aluminium plate to the crossover has a bi-wired terminal with copper posts that befit the binding post assembly.  The terminal plate has a serial number on it, my sample is 23 of 500.  Above the terminal plate is a plaque celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Triangle and its ‘Handcrafted in France’ status.

Out of the Box

The ‘double’ boxing is excellent, the speakers come in their own soft feel socks with a pull string.  There is a set of very sharp metal spikes and some rubber ones with the loudspeakers.  Also in the box is a pair of gloves and a polishing cloth, I would imagine this is essential with the space black finish which must be a nightmare to keep fingerprints free, and photograph!

There are grilles, but they are less attractive really in black and I imagine they work best with the same space black finish.  I have the golden oak colour finish and it does not need the black grille.

Details

There is a separately sold stand for the Magellan 40th Duetto, called S03.

Triangle themselves refer to the Magellan 40th Duetto as a bookshelf speaker but the size and weight of it make it a standmount to me, though there are rubber spikes for side-board type use.  The dimensions are 252 x 348 x 460mm (or 9.9 x 13.7 x 18.1 inches for our many US readers), and they weigh in at 16.8 kg (37 lbs) each.

Price £5,500 incl VAT. available through SCV Distribution.

The speakers are available in a striking-looking shadow zebrano, this golden oak finish and a space black finish.

Performance

Review Equipment

The principal listening has been with the peerless Moor Amps Angel 6 power amplifier supported by the matching Angel preamplifier with Tellurium Q XLR cables between them.  As a source, I’m using an iFi Pro iDSD as a DAC and I’m using a USB B input from my DELL XPS laptop. I have an Atlas Mavros USB A-B cable with their GRUN independent earthing system to manage excess electromagnetic and radio frequency noise. Because I am not using the streaming platform in the iFi Pro iDSD I have the Chord Company GroundARAY in the Ethernet slot so there is, hopefully, even less HF noise. I have Atlas power cables to the Moor pre and power as well. With all of these marginal gains, in my view, this is a really clean and revealing source.

I have the Triangle Magellan 40th Duetto approximately 2 meters apart, they’re both 70 cm from the side walls and I’m about 2.8 meters away from them. I have the speakers 30cm from the rear wall with acoustic panels in close proximity. I’m using Tellurium Q Ultra Black II loudspeaker cables.

Physically

I’ve got the Duetto on some very heavy spiked Focal Kanta No.1 stands and they’re doing a great job.  The positioning has been pretty easy with the pair of speakers facing front and forwards with

no toe. There is a bit of Blutac (white tac, in fact) going on too. Triangle sells a matching stand that rakes back and it looks spectacular.  The bi-wired binding posts are huge and lovely at the rear, it looks like they’ll take just about anything.  Above the binding posts is a very elegant inlaid plaque celebrating the Duetto association with Triangele’s 40th Anniversary.

I personally don’t like the grilles, I don’t generally to be honest.  From the very moment I put one of them on upside down, the grilles have just stayed on the floor.  Evidently whoever had them before me only put one grille on and came to the same conclusion because the other one is still in the plastic package.

Moor Amps

I happen to start my listening with Alabama Shakes’ Sound and Colour (Qobuz 16-bit, 44.1kHz), after the gentle opening, the track is naked and stripped back, the drums tight, the vocal forward and urgent but is dealt with wonderfully by the Duetto.  The tone is set, accuracy, and forward delivery, it is very delicate as the track resonates to a close.  Hang Loose (Qobuz 16-bit, 44.1kHz) is similarly clean and delivered with the raw energy demanded by lead vocal Brittany Howard.

Next, again without intention, I stream Lump’s Late to the Flight (Qobuz 24-bit, 44.1kHz).  It is an extraordinary song with a background ‘jackhammer’ rumble that is handled with ease by both Angel 6 and the Duetto. I’m getting the low-end comfortably from the Duetto and it is controlled and very satisfying. The guitar strings in this track are incredibly detailed and well-delivered by the Duetto loudspeakers.  The resolution and clarity continue as a tonal theme here.

Switching it up a fraction to something I am more familiar with I turn to Helplessness Blues, the Soltice Version (Qobuz 24-bit, 48kHz) which is a live version that is recorded in a Brooklyn church.  The atmosphere translates and the transient notes are clear and well-held, the frailties in Robin Pecknold’s voice are clearly revealed, but it is a fine album and very immersive with this setup. Turning to the layered original album version of Helplessness Blues (Qobuz 24-bit, 96kHz) on their album, the guitars are wide enough and the track retains its organisation with these loudspeakers

Turning things down a couple of notches, I turn to Beck’s Morning (Qobuz 24-bit, 96kHz), the guitar is crisp and forward, really nicely supported by the heavy bass line, and it is controlled and enveloping.   Next up is Lang Lang’s Liebestraum No.3 in A-Flat (Qobuz 24-bit, 96kHz) which is similarly delicate and dreamy to listen to.  Searching for more bass I turn to Arooj Aftab’s fantastic Last Night (Qobuz 24-bit, 96kHz) where there is a delicious double bass in the rhythm section.

Finally to reinforce my ideas about the piano in these Duetto loudspeakers I excitedly put on Nils Frahm’s album Solo.  The second track, Some is absolutely fizzing along nicely (Qobuz 24-bit, 96kHz) with bass notes presented with crispy care, the piano is front and centre.  You can actually download a 24-bit recording of this album on his site here. On the same album, the track Chant in particular has a heavy resonant note that I’ve not been stopped by before. Wall is a very dynamic track that takes a bit of playing and the fast response from the Duetto is clear to hear. All in all excellent.

Musical Interlude

Looking at the playlist from Qobuz, I note the delicacy of the recordings I have chosen. With a couple of exceptions (Lump and Colourbox).  They are each some of the best recordings I know, in particular, the Arooj Aftab album is the most haunting and arresting album I have heard in recent times.  The departure of the Duetto coincided with the release of Philip Selway’s new album, Strange Dance (Qobuz 24-bit, 96kHz), but I was able to hear a first pass of the album and as it has grown on me I suspect the Duetto would have been a worthy companion.

Naim Uniti Star – streaming All-in-One

I have played around with a few amplifiers, the Cyrus Classic Amp, reviewed here, with the PSX-R2 off-board power supply was pleasant indeed and generated a positive response from the Duetto. Plugging in the Naim Uniti Star, with a similar claimed power output of 70W into 8Ohms, Lang Lang’s Liebestraum No.3 in A-Flat (Qobuz 24-bit, 96kHz) is a really forceful presentation.  The Uniti Star never disappoints and it is a great partner with these Duetto with some Kudos KS-1 speaker cable.  Johann Johannsson’s Flight from the City (Qobuz 24-bit, 96kHz) is a fantastic track and the Duetto offers an immense and personal soundstage.

T+A PA 2000 R – integrated amplifier

With the iFi Pro iDSD as my DAC with the Chord Electronics 2Go/2Yu streaming transport, I feel more from the T+A amplification, bigger room, bigger stage, and more circumstance.  This could be a function of the increased power output, with 100W into these 8 Ohms and, frankly, the additional muscle on tap (in a similar way as the Moor Amps offers the standout amplification with these speakers, at twice the price!).

The delicacy of the Duetto is retained, for example in Oscar Peterson’s If You Could See Me Now (Qobuz 16-bit, 44.1kHz) but the pace and bite are also there from pop tracks like the magnificent Colourbox track Inside Informer (Qobuz 16-bit, 44.1kHz), or even Punch appropriately.

Ending the slightly shorter review period due to Bristol, I am really enjoying the company of these musical Triangle Duetto loudspeakers and I’ll miss them. Maybe I can have them back at some point, I’d be happy to put these in my lounge. I feel they would pair nicely with Naim amplification; a bit of rough with these elegant French loudspeakers!

Thoughts

As we might expect, I’m getting a lot more from these excellent speakers with the Moor Amps pre and power combination but that is to be expected with considerably more tailored power than the muscly integrated amplifiers tried towards the end of the review.  However, what is clear is that these are very capable loudspeakers that belie their standmounted status, at times I’ve forgotten they are not floorstanders.  To get full precise, accurate and capable performance a worthy amplification source will be required, of that, I have no doubt.

Coincidentally, I have a pair of Kudos Titan 505s that we can describe generously as functional in appearance and I have a pair of ovoid Eclipse TD10Z MkII, that can be described as futuristic but these Magellan 40th Duetto are the best looking of the lot.  I’m minded to think of the PMC speaker cabinet finish as compatible but it will be a while before such a finish is seen like these loudspeakers.

Overall

There is absolutely no doubting the quality of the build and finish of these loudspeakers.  Though the look may divide opinion, there is no question you can see the French flair and precision on offer.  These are, without exception the highest-quality binding posts I have ever experienced.  Sonically, the tweeter is a highlight, there is exceptional resolution and accuracy.  These loudspeakers are elegant, more Chopin than Colourbox, and they have an excellent low-end response that is measured, yet satisfactory. I would happily recommend a listen to anyone, these are fine loudspeakers.  

Specification

Full details are on the company’s site.