Chario offers an extensive lineup of speakers, and its Aviator line, introduced in 2018, takes its inspiration from the heritage of flight in the last century, the names of the line’s models reflecting those of important people. Thus, for instance, there are Amelia (Earhart) and Nobile (Umberto) models. The solid walnut (at least 20 years old, sourced from northern Italy) side panels range in thickness from a smidgen less than 1" to just around 2" and are fabricated using artisan joinery techniques. Every element of each cabinet is manufactured using CNC lathes, a process guaranteeing perfect and precise milling, lending structural integrity to the cabinet even before everything is glued together. The front, top and back appear to be covered in a black, finely textured coating similar to Nextel.

Physically, the Amelia speakers are slightly over 42”H, just under 7 1/2”W and a bit over 13”D and present a relatively small footprint. They are beautiful in a classic, hardwood sense. Each weighs just over 44 pounds. It is described as a three-way speaker -- a 1 1/2" silk-dome tweeter, 5" midrange and 5" woofer (of which there are two: the first rear-mounted, the second, downward-firing and ported on the bottom of the speaker and acting as a subwoofer.) The speakers have a sensitivity of 90dB, an impedance of 4 ohms and incorporate a fourth-order (Linkwitz-Riley style) crossover with frequencies at 200Hz and 1345Hz.

The speakers arrived by freight company -- two large cartons on a pallet and a smaller carton containing stabilizers. The masked delivery driver placed each speaker at my front door. After that, it was an easy job to waltz the speakers into the house where I began the unpacking. Within their containers, the cloth-wrapped speakers nestle into custom-formed-and-molded polyethylene. Because one of the two 5" woofers is mounted unprotected, on the bottom of each speaker, you have to be extremely careful when handling the speakers. A small box containing four small “tips” is found inside the shipping container. As I learned, these are to be screwed into the bottom of the larger speaker spikes. Chario eschews the pointed, flesh-piercing metal spikes commonly found in favor of friendlier, hard-rubber nubs. I applaud them for that. More than once, wrestling heavy speakers into position, I have accidentally placed a finger or two under pointed, metal spikes. I'll spare you the string of expletives such action triggered.

After removing the cloth “sock” from the speakers, the first thing I did was sit back and admire the beauty of the solid-walnut cabinets. Next, I subjected them to the knuckle-rap test, which elicited nothing but a reassuring solid “thunk,” indicating, to me at least, quality of design and robust interior bracing. A single pair of custom binding posts adorns the rear of the cabinet, precluding biamping or biwiring. When the nut was tightened down, these posts had a death grip on my spade-lugged speaker cables. I wish all binding posts were so well designed.

I appreciated being given very specific setup instructions, but I respectfully ignored them and proceeded to place the speakers in the magic spots in my room, having been arrived at after much trial and error, schlepping and listening. These were where my EgglestonWorks Emma EVOlution speakers, and all other speakers, had sat and given superb sound in my room. This placed the Amelias four feet from the front wall, two feet from the side walls, six feet apart and nine feet to the listening position (and my ears). The speakers were toed in slightly. So eager was I to listen to the Amelias that I placed them directly on the floor with the footers installed but not on the stabilizers. This placed them 1 1/2 inches off the floor. I figured I would incorporate the stabilizers later.

he first LP I pulled from the shelf to familiarize myself with the sound of the Chario speakers was a new acquisition: Thomas Newman’s American Beauty Original Motion Picture Score, [Geffen Records RGM-0891]. This album, expertly mastered by Kevin Gray and immaculately pressed at RTI, not only presents offbeat and captivating music but also has demonstration-quality sound. I especially wanted to hear the repeating four-note bass pattern entering approximately two minutes into the first cut, “Dead Already.” Heard on my EgglestonWorks speakers, the decay on the last bass note of the last pattern can be heard long after the initial attack, virtually shaking the listening room. I knew the Amelias were up to the challenge the moment the stylus settled into the lead-in groove. What I heard signaled good things to come. The marimbas were there, bouncing off the studio’s (and my room’s) walls, and the visceral bass pattern I was waiting to hear was equally there, causing me to question how a pair of 5" bass drivers could perform so well. Though not as emphatic as the bass of the EgglestonWorks speakers, the Charios' bass was handled well enough -- was deep and powerful -- that I was not aware of any lack of information. As I leaned back on my sofa, smiling, I sensed I was really going to enjoy my time with these speakers. The Amelias equally impressed me on track three, “Power of Denial,” with its opening descending bass note, which seemingly extended beneath the floor of my room toward a subterranean aquifer.

And all of this was without the stabilizers. Anxious to hear the effect of the stabilizers on the sound, I quickly went about installing them. Due to the speakers' weight, placing them on the stabilizers is best done with two people. The four spiked feet must nestle into four indents on the stabilizer, best accomplished by lowering each speaker directly over the stabilizer or carefully tilting it into place from the side. Placing the speakers on the stabilizers puts the center of the tweeter 31 1/2” from the floor, just slightly lower than my ear height when I'm seated on the sofa. As I expected, the stabilizers tightened up everything and increased the boundaries of the soundstage such that the speakers seemed to make my room larger. It didn’t take long for me to decide not to remove them.

Lastly, I faced the question of whether or not to remove the grilles. Opinions vary whether to listen to convention speakers with or without grilles, so I did the obvious and listened both ways. After a short listen, I decided to leave the grilles off for the remainder of my listening. Why? Removing the grilles seemed to free up all aspects of the Amelia’s sound. Images were brought into sharper focus, lending an enhanced sense of presence. There was also an increase in the depth and width of the soundstage. Though the effects of removing the grilles were subtle, I felt the end was justified by this simplest of means.

Returning to American Beauty, I was struck with the Amelia’s speed and dynamic response as demonstrated on the wildly exotic rubbed or struck percussion and subterranean bass grenades on “Root Beer.” On side two’s “Marine,” more bass beckons and the speakers responded admirably. Not once did I feel the need to add a subwoofer to the system. I appreciate taut, extended bass in my listening sessions, so I grabbed a few more LPs, along with some CDs and digital files that I’ve often used to evaluate a speaker’s ability (or not) to provide that experience. Thirty seconds into “Jigalong,” the first track on Peter Gabriel’s soundtrack to the 2002 movie Long Walk Home [Real World Records 7243 8 12238 2 6], there is a thunderous bass note that is more felt than heard. My reference speakers planted this note firmly on the ground with a lingering decay after the first strike. The Charios were not as explicit, yet they left nothing to the imagination in terms of musicality. Dwelling further into subterranean bass, I cued up “Limit To Your Love” from James Blake’s self-titled debut album on Tidal. The undulating bass entrance, a few seconds into the song, was revealed as clearly as I’ve ever heard it. I could not fault the Amelia’s ability to handle this mélange of sound while further admiring the speaker’s uncovering of even the smallest ambient room sounds.

SZA’s much applauded 2017 debut album Ctrl [RCA - 88985-44919-1] is a stimulating journey into neo soul via the amazing 29-year old singer Solána Imani Rowe (SZA), with creative production by, among many others, Anthony Tiffith, founder of Top Dawg Entertainment. The two-LP set has demo-quality sound, as it was mastered at Bernie Grundman Mastering and pressed at RTI. Side two’s “The Weekend,” with a guest appearance by Justin Timberlake, strikes an easy groove as the intro’s phasing effects die down and a strong bass line enters, laying down an infectious beat beneath the singer’s emotionally honest musings. The Amelias were quite convincing in conveying the retro-styled spirit of the music and its playful production.

In search of lighter fare, I turned to bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma’s 1983 LP Showstopper [Grammavision GR 8301]. It is another great-sounding LP with mastering by Bob Ludwig and pressing at now defunct Europadisk. The opening track, “Sunk in the Funk,” slaps you upside the head with its beat and Tacuma’s Steinberger electric bass guitar. If you can sit still during this song, you’re in a coma. I couldn’t and got up off my butt and did a few turnarounds in front of the speakers. It takes a very good speaker for this to happen -- and along with the EgglestonWorks Emmas, you can add the Chario Amelias to that list. I was getting worn out with the bass-heavy music being played, so decided to end this particular session with an album that almost always puts me in a state of restful bliss -- Jimmy Smith’s Plays Pretty Just For You, from the Tidal stream, an early Blue Note recording from 1957. This album of easygoing standards features the inimitable Smith and his Hammond organ, with only guitar and drum accompaniment, in glorious mono sound where the unique tonal quality and microdynamics of the amplified keyboard and bass pedals were captured nicely by Rudy Van Gelder’s microphones. The Amelias did their job so well that, as can happen, I fell asleep.

I dug into the record shelves and pulled out a couple of LPs offering a broader musical perspective. In the early 1950s, NBC televised a 26-part documentary entitled Victory At Sea. It dealt with warfare, especially naval warfare, during WWII and was awarded an Emmy in 1954 for Best Public Affairs Program. Richard Rogers was commissioned to write a score for the series, and Robert Russell Bennett served as arranger and conductor of the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra. The first stereo pressing of Victory At Sea Vol. 2 [RCA LSC 2226], on the famous “shaded dog” label, has long been an Absolute Sound recommendation and is one of my go-to demonstration LPs. Recorded to three-track tape at Manhattan Center in NYC with the team of Lewis Layton and Richard Mohr, it exemplifies the best of that duo’s efforts. As soon as the stylus settled into the groove, the Amelias seemed to disappear, as an almost holographic rendering of the orchestra replaced the front wall of my listening room. I sat back, relaxed, and savored the experience.

I was equally captivated with Leonard Bernstein’s early 1960s reading of Mahler’s 3rd, released in 1968 on Columbia Masterworks as part of a limited-edition boxed set of the Mahler Symphonies [Columbia GMS 765]. With the volume turned up a notch and from the opening horn flourish onward, I heard the grandeur and power of the New York Philharmonic as the 100-plus-piece orchestra (including six timpani, two glockenspiels, two harps and multiple choruses), navigated the ebb and flow of Mahler’s massive tome. Columbia engineers Ed Michalski and Fred Plaut gave producer John McClure a nearly demo-quality recording, where the scale of the orchestration is easily heard as well as felt. Like Victory At Sea Vol. 2, this Mahler Symphony was recorded at NYC’s Manhattan Center. In stark contrast to the bombast of Mahler’s larger symphonies, I tuned my ears for the burnished timbre and virile growl of Jordi Savall’s seventeenth century bass viol as captured on the 1987 recording Captaine Tobias Hvme Musicall Humors [Astree AS-77]. As I listened thru both sides, it has rarely seemed as compelling as heard with the Chario Amelias. My listening room became an intimate chamber in which Jordi Savall applied bow to string, in front of me to the right of center, releasing the music. This was truly musical vividness.

Turning to lighter fare, I put disc one of Ry Cooder’s 1995 two-CD set, Music By Ry Cooder [Warner Bros 9 45987-2] into the CD player’s tray and cued up “Highway 23” and “Feelin’ Bad Blues.” This collection of Cooder’s soundtrack compositions not only is a great introduction to his writing skills, but also, with mastering by Bernie Grundman, the sound is of demonstration quality. Fourteen seconds into “Highway 23,” drummer Jim Keltner hits a rim shot that, with the Amelias, sounded as convincing as I’ve ever heard. The remainder of the track is a potpourri of assorted drums and other percussion with startlingly fast dynamics. The Amelias excelled with this challenge. On “Feelin’ Bad Blues,” Cooder turns to the slide guitar, with Jim Dickinson plucking quietly in the background on the dulceola (zither). Every gnarly, fractured slide and slur of the notes flying off the fingerboard was conveyed with microscopic clarity thanks to the quality of the recording and the Amelia’s ability to convey it.

Brazilian percussionist Airto Moreira’s 1992 album, The Other Side Of This (Tidal), features a smorgasbord of percussion sounds, beautifully recorded. The track “Tumbleweed” is an amazing display of the variety of timbres one can coax from simple wood blocks. Some of the differences are very subtle, details of which the Amelias revealed with ease. The first track, “Happy Land,” from the soundtrack album to the powerful 2005 Australian film The Proposition [Mute-9305-2], coaxed a gentler sound from the Amelias, with such finesse I could almost see the wisps of dust devils rising off the Outback’s parched earth. Nick Cave and Warren Ellis contributed a score incorporating traditional songs and haunting originals with mostly sparse instrumentation. The scale is intimate, which the Amelias captured perfectly.

I thought I was in an aviary after cuing up the title track of Arthur Lyman’s 1968 LP Taboo [Hi-Fi Records SR-806]. Reviled as just so much “lounge music,” Lyman's tropical-themed tunes feature bird calls (real and human), scratchers, xylophones, vibraphones and marimbas up front in the instrumental mixes. The three-track recording, taped on an Ampex in the Kaiser Aluminum Dome in Hawaii, incorporated congas, bongos, timbale, cocktail drums, boobams, cowbell, asses' jaw, conch shell (heard at the opening and close of "Kalua") and guido [guiro?], as well as the more ordinary percussion instruments, such as tambourine, snare drums, wood block, cymbals, Chinese gong and sleigh bells. Contrary to some, I find this music light-hearted, fun and a nice antidote to much more sober listening. The Amelias handled all the dynamic percussion and high-pitched whistles, chirps and squawks on this recording with ease. The silk-dome tweeter was notable for its detail, smoothness and air without accompanying brightness or brittleness.

The Amelias were equally adept at handling the human voice. New Zealand singer Aldous Harding’s 2019 album Designer (Tidal) is a precious, minimalist recording featuring her innocent-sounding voice in the company of a small ensemble of mostly stringed acoustic instruments and piano. Her virtual presence in the listening room on the song “Heaven Is Empty,” in a recording that defines the word intimate, was striking, as was the delicacy of the plucked, strummed and bowed strings. Sonics aside, Designer is fascinating music-making, and the Amelias portrayed Harding's voice with all fine details intact. Male vocalists, such as Leonard Cohen, were equally well served. Any one of his later Columbia recordings, whether mastered by Stephen Marcussen, Doug Sax or Bob Ludwig, is a prime example of tasteful, honest production and makes this audiophile’s ears happy. Cohen's last album before his death in 2016, You Want It Darker [Columbia 88985365071], is my favorite, capturing the singer’s coarse, barely sung, mostly spoken vocals, supported by various ensembles, in crystal-clear sound. The Amelias seemed unsurpassed in sorting out minute details hidden deep in the mix in the decidedly spare arrangements. Feeling in need of a break from the introspective musings of Leonard Cohen, I turned to an album every retailer should have in his/her showroom: Shelby Lynne’s 2008 Just A Little Lovin’ [Lost Highway B0009789-01]. Produced by Phil Ramon, engineered by Al Schmitt and mastered by Doug Sax -- that trifecta created a recording that epitomizes what a female vocalist should sound like heard through a decent high-end system: palpable, in-room presence in the extreme.

Lately, I find myself becoming more and more interested in, and listening to, electronic music of all varieties -- and there are dozens of them: ambient, trance, dubstep, down-tempo, and deep house, to name a few. Listening to musicians playing machines (and/or found objects) and unique percussion devices instead of musical instruments can be challenging. Gone are the sonorities we are accustomed to and the sense of hearing human beings hard at their craft. Instead, one gets a feeling of distance, of separation from the event, of abstraction. I hear sounds I’ve never heard before in artificially created soundscapes. Consequently, I listen differently to electronic music, where I can immerse myself in those soundscapes, deriving satisfaction from that experience alone. I ask nothing further of it.

Klaus Schulze’s 1976 classic LP Timewind [Brain brain 1075], exemplifies the early application of electronic devices such as the ARP 2600 and Odyssey synthesizer, Elka String Synthesizer, Synthanorma Sequencer and Farfisa keyboards. The first side, “Bayreuth Return,” is a gradually unfolding stream of almost-there electronica that ends in a climactic chord of such suddenness and intensity that I was startled, rudely snapped out of my comfortable reverie. I realized then the Amelias were in their element with this music. As I played a couple of recent albums, Leon Vynehall’s 2018 ambient experience Nothing Is Still (Tidal) and Roedelius & Schneider’s 2013 album Tiden [Bureau B BB132/LP974991], I admired the uncanny three-dimensional sense of space achieved on each. I was especially impressed with “Whose Contact” from Tiden, where the overtones of the various percussion instruments enter the soundscape. These Chario speakers were made for this music.

inally, after weeks of directed listening, I put down the notepad and pen and reached for what I consider the LP equivalent of comfort food: the1977 release Basie Jam #2 [Pablo 2310-786]. This unpretentious, relaxed Norman Granz production captures the legendary Count Basie in the company of seven jazz stars, four of whom worked in one or another of Basie’s bands, letting go on four originals. The joie de vivre communicated by the ensemble permeated my room as the music unfolded, forcing me to ignore the usual mental audiophile sonic checklists. I felt my blood pressure drop as the throaty tenor of Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, the lithe alto of Benny Carter, the growly blat of Al Grey’s trombone, Clark Terry’s impish trumpet and the rock-solid rhythm section were buoyed by Basie’s keyboard capriciousness. With my ears being pleasantly massaged, I sat back, tapping my feet, grinning from ear to ear, through both sides of the LP.

And that experience sums up my impression of the Chario Amelia loudspeakers: true to the creators' words, they effectively get out of the way of the music, letting its ebb and flow involve the listener to a degree I’ve only encountered a few times in my time as a music lover and audio writer. The Chario Amelias offer a view through a clear window on any musical performance and they do so without editorializing. They laid bare poorly made recordings -- due to miking, mixing or mastering -- and let good recordings blossom. The Amelias veer toward the “yin” side of the classic Chinese dualist cosmology, in contrast to the opposing “yang” force of my EgglestonWorks Emma EVOlutions. Though not inexpensive at just shy of $7000 per pair (including the stabilizers), the Amelias reflect their Italian heritage with every curve of their solid-walnut cabinets. The fact that they also serve as fantastic musical instruments, capable of producing addictively captivating sound, free of artifact and coloration, is a bonus.

To quote the late Ronald Penndorf, publisher of the record and music journal Recollections, “. . . recorded music at its best is a grand illusion.” The Amelias create that illusion beautifully.