Anthony Gallo's original Micro system first hit dealers' listening rooms a little over three years ago and immediately became something of a celebrity on the surround system scene. Not only did the orb-shaped speakers look distinctive, they sounded it too. But while they might look like a slightly more 'designed' version of the cheap and cheerful home-cinema-in-a-box, but this is actually a heavy duty performer, with audio cred.
They're small enough to rate high on the spouse approval-ometer, and won't draw undue attention to themselves and while not everyone will be immediately drawn to the shape, especially when sitting atop their curvy swan's neck stands (£125 a pair), at least you'll never have to tell anyone off for trying to rest wine glasses or magazines on them.
Gallo considers the spherical shape to be an ideal one for loudspeakers since it effectively removes one of the main problems inherent in standard box designs, that of internal standing waves and exaggerated resonances, where sound bouncing off facing walls inside the speaker cabinet can cause distortion. The spherical shape diffracts the sound so that this doesn't happen.
This Ti keeps the look and size of the original Micro (though not the range of colours, these orbs come in black, white or stainless steel only) but offer a greatly improved driver. Highly efficient titanium replaces the old polypropylene version, increasing the upper range of the speaker, and in theory leading to a sweeter and more relaxed sound in the upper mid.
The speaker is lighter too, which has both pros and cons. The speakers are ideally suited to their curvy floor stands (or on the wall), but can be awkward to balance when placed on bookshelves etc - despite the little rubber isolation rings provided, sturdy speaker cables are likely to unbalance them. The new Tis have a metal grille rather than the old cloth one now, which offers some protection if they do go a-rolling.
The TR-1 subwoofer is the smaller of Gallo's offerings and offers 100 watts of low-end power from what looks like a sawn-off length of piping for £300 (the identical looking TR-2 offers four times the output for twice the price). It has three dial controls (for volume, phase and a variable low-pass filter between 50-180Hz) and a switch to toggle the bass EQ between 0, +3dB and +6dB.
Performance
For a system that seems so devoted to visual style, it's a relief that the sonic quality hasn't been neglected. The sound easily fills the room, without necessity for cranking up the volume, and the unnervingly precise soundstage created, especially for movies, is not only broad and deep, but also fairly high - not a given, especially with smaller speakers.
Their size, and the fact that they contain only a single driver, would also give the impression that they might require a lot of setting up and experimenting to find a rather narrow sweet spot. This wasn't the case however, and moving around our test sofa brought similarly impressive results throughout, even when we moved the sofa.
The subwoofer can be outboomed by other models out there, and if it's really big bass you're after, then this might not be the model for you. But big bass isn't all a good subwoofer is about and this one delivers tight, controlled low end that doesn't appear to splurge, even in busy scenes of movie mayhem like the attack scenes from War Of The Worlds. A slightly fuller sound might be on offer from the Ti's slightly larger cousin, the A'Diva, which has the same driver, but a larger cabinet, and therefore increased bass response.
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In our smallish test room though (4x4m), the Ti was more than adequate. The sound appears to spread intelligently around the room. The extended high treble was sweet and revealing, especially with effects such as rain bullet ricochets, which fizzed around with spot-on clarity. Speech too came across as clear and well-defined, even rendering arch mumbler Russell Crowe intelligible for once.
For music the Micro Ti also did the business, that sweet high end in particular coming to the fore with busy hi-hats and tambourines sounding more real than might be expected, and female vocals receiving just an extra nuance of space that seemed to ease off some of the more strident qualities of Laura Nyro's singing style - but in a good way.
Gallo claims the Micro Ti has been designed to replicate the dynamics and transparency of the mighty Anthony Gallo Reference III and they certainly cover much of the ground. For such a tiny speaker, the impressively full midrange is what really makes these little orbs worth the money.
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The Micro Ti is a little wonder both in sight and sound, offering some powerful dynamics, transparency and detail for their diminutive size and reasonable price, though we'd advise investing in the stands rather than relying on the supplied isolation rings, both for sound quality and for protection of your orbs. You'll need the sub to round out the bottom end - the Tis are very good, but at this size, they aren't miracle workers - though you may want to experiment with some other models if you prefer pure thudding power to more precisely defined bass frequency placement.
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