It’s not uncommon for someone to approach me at a high-end audio show and ask me, “Do you want to see something interesting?” It’s a high-end audio show, of course, and people are there to be seen and heard and written about. In this case, however, it was Jeffrey Smith from Silversmith Audio Group, the very same man who treated Doug White and me to Schweinshaxe on the last day of High End 2023. Jeffrey led me to the IO Design room, where I listened to a unique no-baffle loudspeaker line that included models known merely as “Naked.”
Words and Photos by Marc Phillips
IO Design is based in Italy, led by Davide Dellacasa, but these speakers are very different from most of the Italian loudspeakers I know. Instead of rich wooden cabinets and a sonic signature that focuses on emotion and drama, the IO Design speakers are very much about retrieving the most musical information possible. With a system that included Ypsilon amplification, the Ideon Absolute digital stack and Silversmith Audio Fidelium cabling, the IO Design speakers supplied just about everything you need–stunning low frequency performance, thrilling dynamic contrasts and a deep, deep view into the recording.
In a nutshell, the IO Design loudspeakers aren’t open baffle–they’re NO baffle. The frame is made from aluminum, and the driver complement includes custom woofers, a planar magnetic midrange and a ribbon tweeter. These are fast, exciting speakers, and they possess a certain confidence in the way they deliver the music.
Jeffrey Smith and I had a long talk about the use of silver in cables after I listened to the IO Design speakers–he approaches everything from a physics and mathematics standpoint, which can be refreshing amidst the sales-speak:
“While my original cables 24 years ago were of a pure silver foil, the new Fidelium cables are made from an alloy that has neither silver nor copper and is far superior to both metals in terms of time domain accuracy.”
In other words, it’s not about silver vs. copper, or even separating the pure silver conductors from the edgy vices of silver-plated copper. It’s all about the science, and continuing the important research. Both IO Design and Soundsmith Audio Group understand this, and that made this room one of the most informative and illuminating at Munich 2024.
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