Fidelity Imports reached out a little while ago about checking out the Perlisten A4t Floor Standing speakers, and as a huge fan of Perlisten, of course I was interested. The A4t is the largest of the A series speakers, the brand’s entry-level line. However, the A4T is anything but entry-level. They are an affordable way to get Perlisten towers into your system, coming in at a retail price of $3,495.00 U.S. per speaker. Which, compared to the price of their reference line tower, the $30,000 S7t, they are much more attainable. You get a lot of the tech of the S series, just with fewer drivers. The waveguide tweeter trickles down from the flagship line into the A series, which is a defining design for Perlisten.

Perlisten is a younger audio company, launching in 2106, though started by industry veterans Daniel Roemer, Erik Wiederholtz, and Lars Johansen, they rapidly grew the company into a titan in the industry. The company is based in and does all of its design work in Verona, Wisconsin, though they own a plant in China for manufacturing their speakers.

While I was very excited to get the Perlistens in for review, the timing made my brother less excited. I had just had back surgery less than a week before, which meant I was not moving them into the house, and they are not light, nor are they small. Better his back than mine. Once they were in the room and hooked up though, it made all his hard work worth it, well, to me anyways. Luckily, Jen was able to help with positioning adjustments after some listening. So let’s take a deep dive into the sound.

Setup:

After my brother got the speakers into the listening room and in a good starting position, Jen got the speaker cables hooked up for me, and I started listening. Being a bass reflex design with a front port, I started them in the same position as my Sonus Faber Sonettos, which are bottom-ported. With rear-ported speakers, I tend to start them further from the wall. I had the A4ts about 1.5 feet from the back wall and 1.25 feet from the sides. Ultimately, I ended up having them positioned like this after some tweaking, with the only permanent change from the initial position being the toe. I had them more toed in originally than they preferred, so I toed them out a few degrees from the original position. With a single set of binding posts, there isn’t much else in the way of setup.

I powered the A4ts with my Advance Paris X-A160 Evo amplifier, which sits comfortably in the recommended power range of 50-350 watts, at 240 watts into 4Ω. I used 2 different preamps for this review, though that was not planned. My Marantz SR7009’s power supply died, and I was able to replace it with a Rotel RSP-1576 MKII. Though it is an AV preamp, it has all the connectivity I prefer and was available locally, which was fairly important to avoid a week or more of downtime waiting on shipping.

Sound:

I knew upfront that I liked the sound of Perlisten speakers, and I had yet to hear them in a system that I didn’t like, but I had never heard them in my system, in my room, and for extended periods of time, so there was certainly more to learn about their sound and performance. Speakers will almost always be the most influential single piece of gear you can buy to change or set the sound in your system, so it’s extremely important to find a speaker that you like. And it’s also the piece of gear I try to do the most in-depth listening tests with in a review, even with speakers I am already fairly familiar with. The Perlistens were no different.

My first listening impression was, wow, these are powerful, not just in a loud way, but in presence. How they fill the room with sound. They are large speakers, and they sound even bigger than they look somehow. I am sure the 3 rather large woofers in each have something to do with it. I didn’t have the sub reconnected and didn’t realize it at first. The low end is incredible and crystal clear. But even more impressive is the mid-range. The A4t is a 2.5-way design, and sometimes 2.5-way speakers can have a bit of a muddied mid-range; there is none of that with the A4t. The high frequencies keep up with the rest of the sound with the aid of the waveguide, a type of horn that is designed to control the dispersion of sound, not just increase efficiency. What you get is a fairly flat response in the room that doesn’t feel boring (see Fig. 1.1). I have heard very flat speakers that sound somewhat lifeless and lack any sort of sonic excitement. For example, Kefs are generally fairly flat speakers, and no matter how much I try, I don’t care for their sound. Do not get me wrong; they have great overall sound quality in the objective measures of detail and so forth, but they come off as dull to me. It is fair to say I probably won’t ever see their speakers in for review, but that is my honest opinion of them. And I know they have a huge following, and people love them; they just aren’t for me, and that is the great part of this hobby: there are plenty of options for everyone’s tastes in sound. The Perlistens, though, kept me at the edge of my seat the whole time. I wanted to get a measurement to see if they were indeed fairly flat, as they are almost too thrilling to be a flat, boring speaker, and I have to say I’m a bit surprised.

I am not a big measurement person; for one, I don’t listen to measurements, and two, they have never swayed my opinion on what I liked. If I like a piece that measures horribly, I’m not going to stop liking it, and the same for the other way around. That said, I think measurements such as frequency response can be helpful with room treatment and speaker placement. But as evidenced in my own preferences, just having a flat response doesn’t mean it’s a sound you will like or dislike. I know there are whole groups of audiophiles that go heavy into measurements, and if that is how they want to enjoy the hobby, then I’m happy they are having their version of fun with audio.

So what is the sound like? Well, I could just end the review now with “buy them,” but that wouldn’t be nearly as interesting. As I mentioned, I have loved Perlisten speakers every time I have heard them, and doing this review and getting to spend real time with them has solidified my opinion of the brand. The A4t has one of the best midranges I have heard in this price range, and I would be willing to put them up against more expensive speakers. The midrange is so smooth and blends incredibly well into the lower and higher frequencies, making it seem even wider than it really is. The midrange is such an important area to focus on, as the vast majority of music lives there, and it seems there are quite a few speakers that put more focus on the low end and high end, as they tend to be the more exciting frequencies. That said, the A4t does not leave them in the dust; as you see on the graph, the full range is well represented, but you don’t have mountians on each end. The high frequencies are simply divine; the waveguides around the tweeters deliver crystal-clear sound with just enough amplification to keep things balanced. And on the opposite end, you have a nice bump in bass to keep everything fun and give you a foundation to build on. The bass has great control and speed to keep up with even rapid beats, as you see in EDM. At no point does the bass seem flabby or overwhelming. I played some extremely bass-heavy tracks to see if there is a point at which the bass overcomes the rest of the speaker or makes the sound muddy, and, well, I didn’t find this limit in my listening. I have a list below if you want to see what your woofers can handle.

• “Mellow Man – VIP” – Distinct Motive
• “Northend Nightlife” – Headphone Activist
• “Angel” – Massive Attack
• “Heron Blue” – Sun Kil Moon (comes later in the song)
• “Lost in Cosmos” – Kozah

I will add that “Lost in Cosmos” by Kozah is always on my listen list for reviews, for more than just the bass. It has a great build to an incredibly dramatic drop that I can’t get enough of. If you like a good crescendo but are not into electronic music as much, then “Shores and the New World (instrument)” by Levi the Poet is a must-listen track. Both of these tracks contain layers upon layers of sound that can get muddy with speakers and systems in general not up to the task, but the A4ts never faltered. Levi’s track specifically really shows how well the speakers handle the negative space between notes and sounds. There is a great deal of room around everything, which is what translates directly to clarity and resolution. The more closed in and squished together instruments and notes are, the muddier the sound. The song has a layering, adding in another instrument to the track at the beginning of most of the bars. It keeps building to the iconic drop. The song also has incredible depth in the soundstage, with some elements sounding as if they are several yards behind the speakers and others as if they are in your lap. You have likely heard me talk about this song before, and this is why, on a great system, it is wildly captivating.

There are a handful of tracks I listen to regularly and always when evaluating gear, and two of those are “House In Nebraska” and “Thoroughfare”, both by Ethel Cain. Both songs are sonically and lyrically powerful pieces that, if you have the imagination for it, create a movie in your head. The whole album “Preacher’s Daughter” is an incredible example of storytelling in music, but those two tracks in particular are sure to excite. While listening to this album for likely the 10,000th time during this review, what I appreciated the most was the vocals. Ethel’s voice is airy and ethereal. I have heard her live, and the A4t comes within inches of the live performance in terms of balance and naturalness. Somehow the massive woofer handles vocals with a delicacy you may not expect. What this means is a silky smooth sound that envelopes you and really immerses you in the music. You can get lost in your own listening space, as if you were in a whole other world.

I have always felt that my Sonus Faber Sonetto Vs had a great soundstage. In general, I still think they are great speakers for the money, and I’ll probably never actually get rid of them; even when I upgrade them, they have treated me incredibly well, and I see myself hanging on to them for a secondary system and for reviews in general. That said, the depth and width of the stage with the Perlisten A4ts really do show them up quite a bit. They reach incredibly deep and wide; to really test this, I played a track I love to listen to with my eyes closed and create the space in my mind. It invariably looks like a massive old brick hall. The track is “Leave It Alone” by Caroline Glaser. The illusion of space was exemplified by the A4ts, enlarging the space I see in my mind in both depth and width. The precision in imaging is also impressive with the A4ts. This particular track uses alot ot panning on the instruments to create the depth and width you hear, so it’s a great track to really see how well a system images as well as hear the channel separation, and the A4ts do not disappoint in either category.

As I mentioned earlier, my Marantz that I had used as my preamp for the past several years died. The power supply, or rather something in the power supply section, died. I did get some decent time with it and the Perlistens, and I did enjoy the sound I got from the pairing, though I personally preferred them with the Rotel Preamp. I have long been a fan of both brands, and I think you can easily enjoy either with Perlisten speakers, but the Rotel sounded a bit more open and lighter.

The A4t is the first speaker I have had in that has had me seriously contemplating replacing the Sonettos as my reference speaker. While I have had some great speakers in for review, some have been a bit outside my budget to purchase, and others, while great speakers, have not been quite enough of an upgrade to be worth the cost. As my system is entirely self-funded, I have to make purchases count. Even with demo pricing, upgrades have to make sense and have to be a big enough difference to warrant the price. The Perlisten A4t is that type of product. It does everything I like from a speaker extremely well. It has depth, detail, texture, and is exciting to listen to.

Pros and Cons

Specs:

Price: $3495.00 U.S. (each)

Associated Equipment

• Maranz SR7009 – Preamp
• Rotel RSP 1576 MkII – Preamp
• Advance Paris X-A160 Evo – Power amp
• Geshelli Labs TORC DAC
• McIntosh MB25 Bluetooth Receiver
• VPI Forever Model 1 with 12″ Gimbal Arm and Shyla Cart
• VPI Prime with 10″ Unipivot arm and Ortofon Quintet Red
• VPI Avenger Phono
• SOTA Pyxi Phono
• Rotel CD-11 CD Player
• Fosi Marek CD Player
• Synergistic Research Powercell 8
• Synergistic Research Foundation XL Loom
• Prosper Cable Custom Speaker Cables

Conclusion

If you haven’t figured it out yet, I am a big fan of the Perlisten A4t speakers, and for good reason. They sound downright incredible. Not incredible for the money, just plain incredible. They do everything right. They are balanced, without being boring, detailed, resolving, and powerful. They have exceptional imaging and soundstage. I can not say enough good things about them. My only real critique is that I would like to see a second pair of binding posts to bi-amp. They are also not as efficient as other speakers, so for those SET tube fans, you may need to look into higher-power amps to get the most out of these speakers. I ran into no issues at all with my Advance Paris, but something to be aware of. I want to own these speakers, and they are on the list to be the next upgrade for my system. If you are in the market for a new pair of speakers, you owe it to yourself to audition the Perlisten A4t.

We would like to present Perlisten with our Gold Feather award, for offering a hih performance and high value speaker with the A4t.

For more information on where you can hear Perlisten speakers, click the link below

For American Distribution, click the link below

https://fidelityimports.com

Disclaimer:
Filedity Imports supplied Hifi Chicken with a demo set of Perlisten A4ts for the purpose of this review. Fidelity Imports nor any affiliate paid in part or in full for this review.