The Emma EVOlution is the latest iteration of loudspeakers occupying the top of EgglestonWorks new Artisan series and they are the company's entry-level floorstanders. These (relatively) modestly priced speakers incorporate the same design and manufacturing elements of their pricier stable mates, the Viginti ($39,995 per pair) and Kiva ($14,995 per pair), and are positioned in the market to offer music lovers unprecedented value at their price. Drawing upon construction techniques gleaned over its many years of custom furniture manufacturing, EgglestonWorks recognized the importance of fine cabinetry and uses various wood products cut on a CNC router for the cabinet walls in a double-wall configuration -- one layer of MDF and one layer of HDF, in order to effect the rigidity and non-resonance EgglestonWorks stresses. The cabinets do seem exceptionally rigid and non-resonant, as a rap on the side of the loudspeaker produced only a sharp thunk sound. In addition to new cabinet-finishing techniques, the EVOs incorporate a number of upgrades, such as redesigned drivers and crossover networks, improved wiring and Cardas binding posts.

In a certain sense, this review began long before the EVOs arrived by motor freight, strapped together and palletized, with a pair of Emma SEs. Not long after submitting my review of those speakers for publication, the company’s national sales manager, Anthony Chiarella, advised us of an updated model -- the completely redesigned Emma EVOlution, which was in production and due out soon. Upon receiving this news, my review was put on hold until I was sent the new EVOlutions for further listening.

Each Emma EVO arrived wrapped in a fine, protective fabric “sock” and nestled in sculpted foam inside a sturdy, casket-like, shipping carton. The removable grilles sat on top of the fabric cover, sealed in a plastic bag. Again, packed with one of the speakers was a separate box containing eight carpet-piercing spikes. I was told the new, streamlined spiked feet provide a tighter, more focused energy conduit for cabinet resonances. Interestingly, the rubber footers and spiked feet screw into different holes on the bottom of the speaker.

Once the speakers were freed from their boxes and the “sock” removed, it was time to waltz them into position in the listening room. The Emma EVOlutions are slightly deeper (16”) and higher (43”) than the Emma SEs, but they retain the 7 1/2” width. At 69 pounds each, they’re noticeably heavier than the earlier model, making their positioning a bit more of a challenge. They do share the same modest footprint, however, and are visually unobtrusive.

There the similarities end. Unlike the Emma SEs, the Emma EVOlutions do not sport a front port. Instead, a horizontal “vent” (13/4” x 6”) graces the posterior, just beneath the connection terminals. Firmly mounted to the speaker’s aluminum baffle plate are a pair of custom-spec’d 6" woofer/midrange drivers and a custom 1” fabric-dome tweeter.  Morel builds the drivers to EgglestonWorks’ design specifications, and no other manufacturers use them. Stated frequency response is within a few dBs from 32Hz to 20kHz. I was told the crossover incorporates a fourth- order Linkwitz-Riley alignment. With a sensitivity of 88dB and a 6-ohm impedance, these speakers should prove an easy load for any number of power amplifiers, integrateds and even receivers. EgglestonWorks is proud of the fact that virtually any color customers could desire for their speakers is available on demand. The review pair, finished in Imola Red (a $500 option), an iconic BMW automotive color, and polished to a mirror finish befitting the fine M-series sports car, looked spectacular.

I initially placed the Emma EVOs, magnetically attached grilles in place and slightly toed-in on their husky, adjustable rubber feet, 26” from the front wall, 60” apart and 22” from the side walls. This placed them 6 1/2’ from my listening position on the sofa. I experimented with other configurations later. Connection was easy: because there is only one set of sturdy Cardas binding posts per speaker, biwiring or biamping is not an option. In addition to the approximately fifty hours of in-house break-in at the factory, EgglestonWorks recommends at least 100 hours of additional break-in playing music at moderately high levels. The pair of Emma EVOs came directly from another reviewer, so I felt comfortable ignoring this suggestion and began serious listening immediately, feeding signals from various sources to the speakers by a pair of my overachieving Emerald Physics EP100.2SE stereo amplifiers running as monoblocks. During the course of this review, I felt no need to change that arrangement. Going about other business, I let the EVOs play in the background, not concentrating on the music streaming on Tidal. I soon found myself drawn repeatedly to certain music reproduced so convincingly that I stopped what I was doing at the time and listened more closely. Without exception, the music triggering this reaction featured male or female vocals, so I made a note to myself to begin my serious listening with a handful of recordings featuring singers.

The Emma EVOlutions handled voices in a very special way. For example, playing “Tom’s Diner” from Suzanne Vega’s 1987 LP Solitude Standing [A&M SP-5136], the Emma EVOs put me in that New York restaurant on Broadway and 112th Street directly in front of the singer as she recited her story a capella. The words weren’t coming from an amorphous entity either -- the detail and texture of Vega’s voice were so well defined and articulated by the Emma EVOlutions, it left me staring between them at the image of a real corporal person. I gazed slack jawed as I anticipated her next intake of breath. On “Uncle John’s Band” from The Grateful Dead’s 1970 LP Workingman’s Dead [Warner Bros. Records WS 1869], the sudden entrance of the a capella voices after the break at four minutes into the song is startling. So revealing was the sound on my green label first pressing, that the studio ambiance is easily sensed surrounding the singers as is the subtle reverb. The Emma EVOs made that observation clear.

Moving to jazz, Chet Baker’s voice on his 1956 LP Chet Baker Sings [Pacific Jazz PJ-1222] never had the lissome innocence and haunting barely-there effect it did as heard through the Emma EVOlutions. Similarly, the pure, burnished tone of his trumpet (also “barely there”) became a delight to my ears, as his thoughts on each of the album’s standards unfolded in precise, economical statements. Try “My Funny Valentine” for starters. Similarly, Blossom Dearie’s eponymous 1956 recording, reissued on CD in 1989 [Verve 837 934-2], was delightful. In one of Norman Granz’s better recordings, this CD beautifully captures the innocent young girl in her 32-year old dewy voice. And, the six-decade-old mono recording yielded nothing to today’s technology, the Emma EVOs being thoroughly of "today's technology," revealing all of this vocalist's idiosyncrasies.

Considering idiosyncratic voices, another has to be that of Tom Waits. His 1975 LP Nighthawks At the Diner [Asylum Records 7E-2008], recorded live before a select audience at the Record Plant in Los Angeles, has it all -- upright bass, drums, piano, tenor sax and Waits’s raspy voice, captured truthfully by engineer Bones Howe in a snug acoustic space. The balance between the lows, mids and highs with the Emma EVOlutions was perfect. That, along with their transparency and dynamic capabilities, allowed this music to bloom such that I felt I was among the lucky ones in the audience. Finally, on Danish neo R&B singer Erika de Casier’s debut album, Essentials (16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC), the subterranean bass heard throughout was occasionally augmented with even deeper, more ominous tremors, such as that heard a third of the way in on the song “Intimate.” Once again, the Emma EVOlutions provided an extraordinarily visceral listening experience. And so it went with each well engineered vocal recording –- in many instances the Emma EVOlutions replaced the somewhat synthetic voices presented by lesser speakers with eerily lifelike, three-dimensional portrayals.

Sometime later, I streamed Jimmy Smith’s 1956 album At the Organ, Vol. 3 (16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC), which I had just finished listening to with my subwoofered Revel M22s. I was gobsmacked as the trio sprang to life before me in Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in vivid, palpable sound. On “Willow Weep for Me,” Smith’s inimitable Hammond organ had such physicality it nearly brought tears to my eyes. To my surprise, no subwoofer was needed to coax out the deepest bass-pedal lines -- they were not only heard but felt. I was hearing something special here.

With this experience fresh in my mind, I quickly turned my attention to other instruments occupying the musical palette. A Canadian pressing of Alan Stivell’s landmark 1973 album Renaissance De La Harpe Celtique [Polydor 2424 069] was revelatory. His wire-strung Celtic harp materialized in my room as the first cutting notes of the album’s opener, “Ys,” unfolded just a few feet in front of me. I have heard this music many times but rarely with the clarity, dynamics and presence as I was hearing now. Micro details were exposed such that I could differentiate not only the texture and size, but also the tension between the harps’s many bronze strings. As I expected, the EVOs revealed these details to the nth degree.

A cornucopia of string sounds is found on Irish piper and low-whistle virtuoso Davy Spillane’s debut LP Atlantic Bridge [Tara 3019]. Released over 30 years ago, it features Spillane’s dazzling mastery of the Uilleann pipes with support from such esteemed players as guitarist Albert Lee, banjoist Béla Fleck and Dobroist Jerry Douglas. Whether it was Lee’s “countrified” Telecaster licks, Fleck’s nimble picking or Douglas’s puckish Dobro, the unique timbre of each instrument was revealed as well as I have ever heard. The presentation was full of moments (which I’m sure we’ve all had) when a small performance detail or microdynamic shift caused me to lean in, toward the music, with a smile on my face. The Emma EVOlutions created such moments with ease.

On large-scale orchestral recordings, the Emma EVOs never disappointed. American composer Virgil Thomson continues to impress me with his often heroic take on American themes. His soundtrack for the 1937 documentary The River is one of my favorites. With the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra led by Neville Marriner on LP [Angel Records S-37300], the Emma EVOlutions placed me solidly in the balcony of Pasadena’s Ambassador Auditorium. Having been a professional trumpeter decades ago, I never fail to get goose bumps during the suite’s second movement, when the trumpet's clarion call enters at 45 seconds into the piece. That octave leap, soon followed by one of an octave and a half, leaves me slack-jawed, wondering what it must have felt like being on stage, horn in place, waiting for your cue. The LACO’s principal trumpet nailed it, as did the Emma EVOlutions, capturing the edge on the burnished brass sound beautifully. Throughout my listening to this album, the sense of being in the auditorium during the recording was utterly convincing.

To a similar degree, the Emma EVOlutions conveyed quite effectively the cavernous acoustic reflected off the masonry walls of the 17th-century Spanish sanctuary, where the audiophile favorite Misa Criolla was recorded in 1987 [Philips Digital Classics 420 955-2]. On the CD, José Carreras’s rich tenor voice is placed well in front of the chorus with the ever-present drums well behind them. The accordion, guitars, charangos, flutes and various handheld percussion players were splayed across the stage from left to right. The Emma EVOlutions captured that placement with pinpoint accuracy.

Comparing the Emma EVOlutions to my current reference Revel Performa M22s ($2250 per pair when still available), the Emma EVOs presented slightly larger images overall, placed within a more intimate performance environment. The EVOs brought me closer to the stage, offering astounding presence on some recordings. Also, when the recording cooperated, they brought a three dimensional palpability to the performance replete with a soundstage extending from the coffee table in front of the sofa to my neighbor’s patio across the lawn. In terms of tonality, the Revel’s sound tended toward the “yin” arm of the ancient Chinese cosmological duality as opposed to the predominately “yang” side offered by the EVOs. In simple English, the EVOs were leaner, meaner and more masculine sounding -- not a bad characterization. To me, it just affirms the speaker’s lack of colorations--pretty much like the real thing--as is the EVOs impressive retrieval of detail, a quality somewhat tempered with the Revels.

By further comparison, the rear-ported Revels with Pioneer subwoofers supplied aggressive bass, especially noticeable on the tracks “Heatwave” from SBTRK’s self-titled 2011 album (16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC) and “Bells & Circles” from this year’s Teatime Dub Encounters from Underworld/Iggy Pop (16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC). Spiking the EVOs reduced to insignificance the difference in bass heft and extension between them and the subwoofered Revels and improved the Emma EVOs' already outstanding image solidity and integrity. In terms of bass dynamics, tautness and tunefulness, it was no contest -- the EgglestonWorks speakers easily bettered the Revels. After the speakers were spiked, the bass on “Bells & Circles” was an absolute knock out. In fact, the sound of the entire album was transformed after the spikes were installed. SBTRK’s 2014 double LP Wonder Where We Land [Young Turks kYTLP120] left me giddy. The beginning of “Poet’s Day” from DJ Seinfeld’s recent compilation DJ Kicks (16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC) contains a repeating sequence of four synth bass notes which are drop-off-the-edge-of-the-earth deep. Even without a sub, the Emma EVOlutions nailed those notes and made them felt as well as heard. For those who appreciate intelligent electronic dance music, I highly recommend this album. It’s available on vinyl, too. Needless to say, after these experiences, the rest of my listening was with spiked Emma EVOlutions. As to the grilles, they’re acoustically transparent and are held to the front baffle by magnets. Once placed, they did not seem to affect the sound in any way and certainly enhanced the appearance of the speakers, so I did my listening with them in place.

Just before putting this review to bed, as they say, I proceeded to test the limits of my sanity by firing up “Dark Prince” from Trio of Doom on Tidal (16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC). This four-decade-old recording features drummer Tony Williams, bassist Jaco Pastorius and guitarist John McLaughlin in a concert of high-octane fusion (all that’s missing was L. Shankar’s double violin) that I often use to end my listening sessions, because the music drains me of so much energy I find it difficult to continue. (Fortunately “Continuum,” the next song, is the perfect antidote, offering exquisite, poetically lyrical interplay between the three musicians.) If you are considering jumping into this bubbling hot-tub of passion, allow me to voice a word of warning -- this is six and a half minutes of music pushing itself to the edge of what’s possible using real-world instruments. It is relentless, jarring and, at times, a challenge to listen to. And sadly, it’s not something you’ll likely hear at any of the audio shows. I loved it! And so did the Emma EVOlutions, which, giving up nothing in their reproduction of the intensity, dynamics and emotion of the performances, put me in the audience at Havana Jam on that Saturday evening in early March, 1979.

And so it went -- with each recording, the Emma EVOlution loudspeakers either brought me to where the music was made or brought the music to my listening room. They built upon the strengths of the earlier Emma SEs and brought a new, higher level of performance and enjoyment to each listening session. And, with sincere apologies to Gertrude Stein, I heard more there, there. If I could find any fault at all with these speakers, it was that listening to music of whatever genre through them, from any source, proved so compelling and fun that I often put aside my notepad and gave way to the listening experience, playing each selection from beginning to end. With each listen, and almost without exception, as soon as the music began, I became immersed in the event and looked forward to the next. Regrettably, this recurring phenomenon led to unplanned delays in the reviewing process. Their ability to handle anything thrown at them at (even if you insist) unhealthy volume levels, coupled with the estimable quality of conveying music’s emotional essence without sacrificing its musicianship, put the Emma EVOlutions in an enviable position. Whereas the Emma SEs caressed my ears with sound beyond reproach, the EVOs grabbed me by the neck and shouted “Listen.” With the EVOs the aural experience was like walking through an open door onto the performance. They can be forceful and in-your-face when the music demands it (just like some live music) or gentle and calming (just like some live music). Their honest persona, coupled with note-grabbing authority and sense of “rightness” may not appeal to everyone, but it checked all the boxes and rang my bells. I simply heard more of the music with more clarity and dynamics than I had before. And oh, my -- that bass!

To me and most of my friends, $5500 is a lot of money, and a decision to spend that amount on a pair of loudspeakers is viewed by many as insanity. With sound as solid and beautiful as their handsome cabinets, the Emma EVOlutions make that expenditure seem downright enlightened -- they should be on every music lover’s shortlist of honest-sounding, full-range speakers. To me, they handily met the manufacturer’s goals -- they "perfectly balance resolution on the one hand and listenability on the other." I urge you to move whatever mountains you must to hear a pair of these speakers -- in your home, using your gear, or under other circumstances. If you’re as impressed as I was, you’ll be reaching for your checkbook or a credit card.