Test of the bookshelf speaker system 2.0 Penaudio Rebel 3

Penaudio is based in the central part of the Land of a Thousand Lakes – Finland in Jyväskylä. Penaudio founder, musician and sound designer Sami Penttil&auml and remains today the firm’s chief designer and tester of loudspeakers. The Penaudio loudspeakers sense their creators’ desire to get a natural sound, using as natural materials as possible, the design shows the Scandinavian tradition of woodworking, expressed in impeccable quality of hand veneering and a wide choice of varieties of real veneer.

CONSTRUCTION

After a brief attempt to expand the company’s lineup with more designer speakers the Ambient series in 2007 , the company remains the main designer and manufacturer of the. Penttila returned to its roots, to the Classic line, supplementing it with the flagship Sinfonia speakers and a number of new models Rebel with serial number 3.

Now the Rebel family consists of a central home theater speaker Rebel 3C, a wall-mounted rear speaker with an original diamond-shaped faceplate Rebel 3S and a shelf model Rebel 3. As before, the new Rebel is the smallest member of the Penaudio portfolio, which, however, has an impact only on its compactness and not on the quality of the construction or the components used in it.

So, the Rebel 3. Like its predecessors, this model is distinguished by a narrowed front panel width of only 140 mm and the volume of the cabinet gets at the expense of a solid depth – 285 mm. The Rebel 3 cabinets are partly made of Finnish birch plywood, this time nine-layer with a total thickness of 16 mm, the front of the speakers is made of 19-millimeter MDF board.

Point-to-point cabinet design is realized by the aluminum rear port, the connection is made by two WBT terminals. The entire speaker front is covered by a removable metal grill mesh.

Up front, two drive units by Seas, Norway: a 19mm cloth dome tweeter with ferrofluid cooling for the voice coil, paired with a 120mm paper cone bass/midrange driver. The centers of the radiators are close due to the fact that the mid-woofer slightly slides over the tweeter flange.

Using the new bass/midrange driver in the Rebel 3 has led to a recalculation of the crossover: the point of separation is moved to a frequency of 4.5 kHz. Everything else is the same: the dividing filters of the 3rd order are made by the hinged mounting method, the circuitry used high-voltage polypropylene capacitors and inductors with an air core.

But for internal wiring used a new cable from Swedish company Jorma Design, which uses Teflon insulation and lead wire from pure copper, moreover according to Jorma specification, purity of copper means not only its oxygen-free, but also the almost complete absence of admixtures of other metals.

Penaudio offers several choices of Rebel 3 finishes: black ash, walnut, birch, cherry, oak, mountain ash, zebrano.

SOUND

Since the developers did not make any radical changes in the design of the Rebel 3, its sound style if compared to previous models,

remains the same – a lot of attention is paid to the natural transmission of the midrange. At the same time it is obvious that the speakers have been successfully reconfigured, having equalized the tonal balance of the sound.

The clear and detailed top of the Rebel 2 was perceived a little sharp because of its elevated position, the speakers had to be slightly turned away from the direct direction of the listener. The Rebel 3 discs have become more peaceful and comfortable, without losing any of their resolution. Only at high volume does some turbidity appear in the cymbal plumes.

The midrange of the Rebel 3 is just awesome for its class: rich timbres of instruments, lively emotional vocals – the speakers are made for any acoustic music, especially small jazz or chamber ensembles. The bass of the Rebel 3 loses slightly in performance compared to the MF/HF range, it lacks attack and drive.

On the other hand – it’s fast, it doesn’t rattle, it shows the natural timbre structure of bass instruments. In a small room, for which the Rebel 3 is designed, you can almost always boost the bass by placing the speakers in a corner.

The music scene is built by Rebel 3 without sweep, but quite accurately, with stable image positions and good localization of sound sources at the edges. In this case, the stage space is somewhat compressed in volume, as well as the size of the instruments.

While we are talking about small or medium-sized ensembles of performers, the transparency of the scene, the transfer of its depth does not cause any problems at all, but symphony orchestras are already starting to squeeze. But even in this case the Finnish speakers sound musical enough, without turning sound into unintelligible mush.

Some installation tips: although the Rebel 3 does not exhibit much directivity in the horizontal plane, in the vertical plane it is noticeable, so you should make sure that the midrange/midrange driver is at about the height of the listener’s ears.

SUMMARY

Penaudio Rebel 3 – compact monitors with a very beautiful natural veneer finish, and no less beautiful, singing midrange, complemented by nicely detailed treble and controlled bass. The tonal and dynamic balance of the speakers are more suitable for acoustic music sound, but fit with brilliance.

41 900 Dollars.