Review: Rega R5 floorstanding loudspeaker

While Southend's finest hi-fi company may have started out as a turntable specialist in 1973 with the Planet and its distinctive three-armed platter, nowadays Rega produces a complete range of stereo components including cables, CD players and loudspeakers. As yet founder Roy Gandy has not found a reason to enter the multichannel market primarily because he can't see what it's got to do with music. Each to his own...

The R5 is what the company describes as a medium floorstander, it looks quite cute to me but then I don't have to accommodate the tastes of other householders, not in the listening room at least. Standing just over 80cm high without spikes this is an attractive and none too intrusive speaker whose biggest drive unit is located on the side, thereby keeping the front profile slim.

The middle model in a range of five, the R5 is in essence a three-way speaker, albeit one that is cleverly designed not to require crossover components to tailor the output of the 130mm bass cone. This relies on mechanical roll-off to achieve integration with the 90mm coned midrange driver.

The bass unit features a six-layer aluminium voice coil which reduces mass and combines with the paper cone to produce low notes down to an unspecified frequency - unusually Rega does not specify a low frequency roll-off. This is probably because it is aware that the bass extension of any speaker is dependent on the nature and positioning within any given environment, and figures achieved under laboratory conditions are rarely accurate for domestic situations. Sorry, but it's true.

Rega suggests that the R5 can be placed against a wall and while it accepts that conventional thinking would say that the bass drivers should face outwards its recommendation is that the user should experiment with both options to find the best approach for a given environment. We got a bigger sound when firing outwards but achieved a better focused and preferable result with an inward orientation.

This speaker is equipped with bi-wire terminals but according to Rega's literature this “will offer no advantage”, so presumably they have been included because of the demands of the market at this price point rather than just for the heck of it. The twin terminals arrive connected by gold-plated bars but these are best replaced with speaker cable if sound quality is a concern. If you're in any doubt, just compare the two - the difference isn't subtle.

Performance
The majority of loudspeakers at the more affordable price points tend to have a fairly safe and sensible balance - they pump up the bass a little and smooth off the treble so that they sound bigger than they really are and not too challenging. Rega's R5 eschews this approach and gives you an uncompromised version of events, which means that it sounds distinctly different right from the off - there is a dryness to the presentation that makes for an explicit and upfront but not bright musical experience.

This is a highly engaging loudspeaker that's not satisfied until it gets you leaping about the room. It does this primarily by getting the timing spot on, and as a result other factors like dynamics, timbral resolve and imaging take a back seat. Not so far back as to suggest it fails to communicate these qualities but enough to give the impression that the designer considers them less important. On the evidence presented it's hard to disagree.

Communication of the musical message is very good, whether that be the groove of Third Face or the laments of Gillian Welch, the R5 takes you to the nub of the music. Occasionally, as with the former, it can sound a little coarse - this is not the smoothest speaker around. But more often, as with Ms Welch, you hear the emotional power of the song so loud and clear as to be transported - which after all is what music should be all about.

It's very good with steel strung guitars though, sounding more like the real thing than plenty of more expensive designs, and it brings out the 'liveness' in almost any recording. It also differentiates well between recordings, right down to individual album tracks in fact. This is probably a reflection of the balance though and not high resolution per se. Occasionally you get a record that does not suit the R5's approach, notably Keith Jarrett's piano on Bremen Lausanne which lacks body, sounding tinny and hard. There is a leanness to the speaker which inevitably won't suit all music or tastes and anyone who prefers a really sumptuous sound is reading the wrong review. The rest of you, though, should consider an audition.