I have been the owner of the new Courante 2.0 loudspeaker for less than a week. As of this writing, they have approximately 60 hours on them.
In addition to the Courantes, I have also heard the Counterpoint 2.0s under show conditions at AXPONA in 2019 for approximately 30 minutes during an uncharacteristic slow time on Thursday for both the show and especially the room, which was understandably packed for the rest of the show.
Please realize that all of the comments below are based on only 60 hours of break-in.
The Courantes continue to break-in and the woofers continue to show daily improvements in both the dynamics and bass control as well as the coherency between the mid-bass drivers and the remarkable Bayz Radial Speaker (BRS).
The preliminary impressions thus far are that, together with its bigger brothers, the Courante 2.0s offer the best dynamics, resolution, musicality, and presence as compared to all other speakers we’ve ever heard.
For me, the biggest thing separating reproduction from the real thing has been the dynamic characteristics of tweeter designs over the years. My first high end speaker was the ESS Heil AMT 1Bs which I bought as a young man in the 1970s, with the legendary Heil Air Motion Transformer tweeter; and while the speaker was flawed in other ways, the dynamic characteristics of that very special tweeter went unmatched for decades. That is until now - and not only has it been matched by the BRS, but easily exceeded, and by a large margin.
One of the most stunning aspects of the BRS is how closely it dynamically couples to the mid-bass drivers. Female vocals and the top 2-3 octaves of the piano are reproduced much better than any previous tweeter implementation before, conventional or otherwise, not only dynamically, but also with unrivaled image density and palpability from around 100Hz all the way past the limits of anyone’s hearing.
With my admittedly limited experience with the Counterpoints, the bigger speakers seem to improve the bottom extension significantly. In addition, the presence, resolution and top to bottom dynamics, already a hallmark of the Courantes, are taken up several levels. The image on the bigger Counterpoints is also larger, with improved micro layering, image density, dimensionality and significantly improved image height.
However, it is the music lover in me that is truly excited. After searching and hearing all of the ‘who’s who’ of speaker designs and contenders for world’s best of the past 45 years; I feel that the Bayz audio designs have broken away from the rest of the pack and represent a true sea-change in music reproduction, regardless of the type of speaker design. And all of this is not at the expense of musicality, but rather in the service of it! No other speaker is as beguiling musically—inviting the listener into the performance and engaging with and immersing them with the artists' intent—while still providing all of the above world class attributes.
I have been a fan and follower of the greatest speaker designers of our time; Arnie Nuddell, Dr. Oscar Heil, Andrew Jones, and Franco Serblin to name but a few. Now, those with careful ears must certainly add Zoltan Bay to that distinguished list, and I, for one, nominate moving him to the very top of it.
Because material science and components will continue to improve, the state of the art in speakers will move as well. After owning literally dozens of speakers throughout the years, there will no doubt be other designs that will entice me down the road; however, I am quite certain that for me, most, if not all of these designs, will come from the brilliant mind of Zoltan Bay.
I will keep all of you posted.
Kerry Legeard
Music First Distribution
Ontario Canada
03/31/2020
