Review: Amphion Prio 620 Floorstanding Speakers - Embrace the Cold North

This time I'm going to introduce a pair domestic (Finnish) greatness, the Amphion Prio 620 floorstanding speakers which I've had the privilege of owning for several months now. Amphion as a brand has been around for ages and is indeed one of the oldest and largest Finnish speaker manufacturers. Together with Genelec they probably are the well known Finnish brands internationally.

The family. Picture Amphion.fi

Standing at 108,5 cm tall they are impressive in size. This particular pair of sleek columns which houses two 6,5" mid-bass drivers and 1" titanium dome behind metal grills is finished in superb birch wood giving them extremely Scandinavian feel. Mating them with Artek's furniture with similar finish really sells you the idea of minimalism and functionalism in Finnish design and brings nature closer to your listening room. These have been replaced by newer models by now but when new their listing price was only a little below 4000 € here in Finland. At this price range some might say that we are reaching the borders of High-End.



The pair I have under review are the unofficial Mk II versions (I hope I'm not giving misinformation here) with weight of 34 kg each. They are standing on their black plinths but they can also be further raised on spikes, which for the sake of my rented apartment's floor I will not do. The listening space is a bit weird one - back wall is almost 2 m away. Speakers are positioned 1,7 m from each other and 2 m from the sweet spot. The distance between wall behind and the sweet spot is 1,5 m. What I'm trying to say is that there should be little to no bass extension in the listening spot due to closeness of walls.

Tweeter & grill. Picture Amphion.fi

The Prio 620 houses all kinds of innovative features such as proriatory innovative driver configuration TAPS and U/D/D (Uniformly Directive Diffusion) technology. But I'm not so easily bought with marketing terms alone. The titanium dome rests in a crater between mid-basses of this D'Appolito configuration. The crater-like design supposedly has much to do with crossover point and making the tweeter align the sounds towards the listener rather than all over the room. This also makes positioning the speakers very important as sound stage changes greatly when speakers are positioned differently. This also gives one the possibility to have a small and focused sweet spot with pinpoint-like sharpness by facing the speakers towards listener or to widen the sound stage by facing the speakers straight without toe in. It's possible that the desired outcome is somewhere between these two extremes. I have mine only slightly toed in as I enjoy the wider presentation.

At 91 dB sensitivity and easy-ish to drive ohm ratings I paired them with my faithful Dayens Ampino Monoblock amplifiers. Preamplifier has been varying from Abrahamsen V3.0, Khozmo Acoustics passive attenuator to Burson Conductor Virtuoso (PCM1793). The Amphions are revealing enough to make it possibly to tell the differences between preamps, and between other components as well mind you. I tried them with Analysis Plus Oval 12 cables but eventually switched back the amazing all-rounders Talk Electronics Talk 3 cables. The Oval 12's gave more bassy and darker sound but for my little surprise these Amphions are not overly bright as I feared them to be, prior to my experiences with older Amphions. The Talk Cable 3's gave more snappy and brighter presentation which gave more synergy with the rest of the system that has the Burson working as DAC/Preamp.

On Amphion's web page they describe the Prio 620s being "clear and pure as the Finnish lake". I can totally see where they are going with this. Let me put it this way: these are just about as neutral as Åland, as transparent as those late autumn creeks in Lapland and as fast as Finnish Formula 1 drivers. With this setup the Amphions are not too in your face, music plays rather neatly just slightly in front of the speakers. No singe frequency pops out, nothing irritates. They simply deliver sound signals at studio-like accuracy. They can play any music genre with ease from Techno, Hip Hop, Classical, Jazz, Metal to Pop as long as the recording is well made, for they will not smoothe the faults.

My 50 watt monoblocks left no desire for more power or more bass, these speakers dig deep and can be driven to loud volumes - in fact they seem to like it, just be sure to have a large listening room. Being such majestic and capable speakers, the Prio 620's deserve to have equally capable amplifier and source for it will be a long way before they become the bottleneck in one's system.

And now it goes down to preferences.

To me the Prio 620's are so transparent and clear that they don't seem to have any personality of their own. They are somewhat perfect. But being perfect makes them feel distant, cold, lifeless. Having imperfections and personality are humane traits that makes us attach to other persons or even things. The Amphions are very inhumane, and as such I find very hard to fall in love with them no matter how good they sound. They seem to lack passion. Sure they do get my feet tapping and give me wow-feelings from time to time - but they seem to lack a soul, as if they are aware that they exist for one job only: to make perfect sounds, rather than to play music - maybe this is your cup of tea? The Amphions are not the only ones to blame as I have to admit I have a small allergy for all studio grade speakers - to me they are tools for professionals. They are too perfect, like machines. Then again, if you are not looking for highly involving musical adventures from your system then maybe the Amphion Prio 620s are a suitable choice, for as I said, in a way they are, or at least very close to being, perfect.

With right equipment, perhaps with the glow of tubes, the Amphions might turn out to be completely different beasts. Unfortunately I did not have any at hand. But playing some LP records from my Michell Tecnodec made the Prio 620s really sing - maybe thanks to the analog recordings or maybe because the Tecnodec + Tecnoarm combination is simply a better source than my DAC. Could it be that Prio 620s are capable of revealing the difference between digitally produced and analog music? Listening genuine instruments like piano or older music from time before computers gives a pleasurable warmth that the speakers transduce really well. The sounds transform into music and the overall feeling is lifelike.

The wilderness of Lapland is vast and harsh and for the most part of the year very unforgiving for the poorly prepared. So prepare well and embrace the nature - then maybe there is some warmth and soul to be found in the midst of cold windy fells.