Arendahl Sound 1723 Tower S THX Speaker
From my first encounter with Arendal’s speakers and subs, I have been greatly impressed by their performance and build quality. I was so delighted by the 1723 THX Monitors last year that I had been eager to see what their other speakers were capable of. I opted to review the 1723 Tower S THX, the subject of this article, because I wanted to see what they could do as a tower speaker, but not merely as an extension of the 1723 THX Monitors which I already had experience with. The 1723 S THX series scales back the regular 1723 THX speakers for a smaller size and lighter weight but keeps the same basic design cues. In theory, this should give us a similar sound qualitatively at the cost of dynamic range versus the regular 1723 series. This is probably a worthwhile trade-off for most people since few users of the 1723 series are likely to take full advantage of their dynamic range. There may be a difference in soundstage between the two since the smaller drivers of the 1723 S series would radiate sound at a slightly wider angle thereby incurring a bit more early acoustic reflections, and that can have its benefits, but that is not going to be a major difference.
Outside of comparisons to Arendal’s other speaker lines, what does the 1723 Tower S THX deliver on its own? $3k/pair is not an insignificant sum for most people, so what does Arendal deliver with this particular model? Does it keep the same value that Arendal has rapidly become known for? Let’s dig in to find out…
The 1723 S Towers arrived at my house on a heavy-duty plastic pallet. The boxes were secured to the pallet and covered in a plastic wrap and had security tape lining the edges. There were edge protectors and corner protectors on the outside as well as the inside of the boxes. Inside the boxes, polyethylene foam blocks sandwiched the top and bottom of the speakers, and there was a foam stand-off piece in the middle. In addition to that, there were polyethylene sheets on the inside of the box protecting nearly the entire surface of the speaker. The speakers were covered in a fine fabric drawstring sack that felt like rayon. Inside the boxes, white gloves were included for handling the speakers so as not to get any fingerprints on the gloss finish. The overall packing was some of the best I have yet seen, and the packing nearly prepares these speakers for war. It seems that Arendal really doesn’t want to deal with damage claims with shippers, and they have prepared their speakers accordingly.
Once unpacked, the 1723 Tower S speakers stand as gleaming gloss black towers with five front-facing drivers that look primed to do battle. The vertical edges are beveled, and the base has a slot, and these details help to give the 1723 Tower S some style. It looks somewhat stately, but with all of those exposed drivers, it looks muscular as well, so the car analogy would be something like a luxury performance vehicle. A large magnetically adhesive grille almost totally hides the front baffle for a much more subdued appearance for those who don’t want to see drivers. The grille has some curvature as well as an Arendal badge at the bottom so it still keeps a touch of style instead of just blanking out the speaker like so many other grilles do. Much like Arendal’s other products we have reviewed, the 1723 S Tower smacks of solidity and quality, with a solid aluminum waveguide and finely machined aluminum outriggers, as well as HDF construction and a brushed aluminum backplate. These speakers look nice, and, much like the 1723 Monitors I reviewed before them, they do look like they should cost more than what they do.
If the 1723 Tower S were to be summed up in a single sentence, I would call it a 2.5-way floor-standing speaker using four 6.5” woofers and a horn-loaded tweeter. But there is far more to a speaker like this than base specs. Each component has many noteworthy design characteristics that make these speakers more sophisticated than the everyday tower speaker. Let’s get into the nitty-gritty by first talking about the tweeter. Since the tweeter is largely the same as was seen in the 1723 Monitor, we will just quote ourselves from that review:
The tweeter is a 1.1” synthetic soft dome loaded into a spherical aluminum waveguide. The waveguide should help control dispersion by constricting the lower end of the tweeter’s band but also widening the high end. This is done so that the dispersion remains more consistent than what normally occurs for dome tweeters without a waveguide, which is a very wide dispersion at their lower end that ends up becoming narrow at the top of the tweeter’s frequency range. Arendal’s literature states that the tweeter uses a neodymium ring magnet, copper and aluminum shorting rings, ferrofluid cooling, as well as an aluminum heatsink and a damped rear chamber to mitigate resonances from backwave radiation.
Removing the tweeter, we can see that the waveguide is reinforced by some MDF-type wood that must have been CNC cut to shape to fit. We also see that there is a bucking magnet on the back of the tweeter, possibly to help contain the magnetic field of the neodymium magnet in the motor. The neodymium magnet is a very large one and holds an extremely powerful magnetic field. This is a very heavy-duty tweeter that should be capable of a far greater dynamic range than a normal dome.
The four 6.5” woofers of the 1723 Tower S speakers use long pulp fiber cones with an inverted dustcap and a nitrile-butyl rubber surround. The suspension has been optimized using finite element analysis for linear travel in both directions. The voice coil uses copper-clad aluminum wire for a good balance of low weight and conductivity. The motor uses a 1 1/8” thick double stacked magnet with a 4 ½” diameter, a very beefy magnet for a 6.5” driver (although what really counts is the actual magnetic field strength in the voice coil gap rather than the magnet size). It also has an aluminum shorting ring for the purpose of lowering induction effects. The surface area of four 6.5” woofers is about equal to a 13” woofer, so the speaker as a whole should be capable of a lot of displacement in bass frequencies.
The crossover circuit uses fourth-order electro-acoustic slopes on the tweeter and woofers at 1.5kHz. The lower two woofers are low-pass filtered at 100Hz, which is an unusually low crossover frequency for a tower speaker. The phase rotation of such a low crossover might make it tricky to precisely integrate a subwoofer for those who intend to do that. In fact, crossing these over a subwoofer would give the bass drivers such a small bandwidth that it wouldn’t be worth it. I would calibrate these to be used as a full-range speaker if I wanted to use a subwoofer. So I would not run the 1723 S Towers as ‘Small’ speakers. The crossover circuit itself uses higher-performing parts such as heavy-gauge air-core inductors, polypropylene capacitors, high-power resistors, thick PCBs, and twisted-pair multi-strand wiring. It’s a heavy-duty crossover circuit with the kind of build quality we have come to expect from Arendal.
The enclosure is made from HDF (high-density fiberboard) which helps to make these medium-sized tower speakers feel heavier than their size. The front baffle is 1” thick and the side panels and bracing is also 1” thick. The cabinet is chocked full of acoustic damping stuffing, indeed there might be more in these cabinets than I have seen in almost any other loudspeaker. The grille is a perforated metal sheet wrapped in black fabric. It adheres to the cabinet magnetically, and the magnet has a fairly strong grip, so even though it’s a relatively heavy grille, it will not fall off easily. The feet are mounted on some solid metal outriggers, and users have the option of using either rubber half-domes or metal spikes. The rubber feet are obviously the choice for hard flooring whereas the spikes might be a better idea for carpeted surfaces.
There are two rear-mounted ports with an approximately 2.6” diameter and a 6.5” length that are flared on both ends. Arendal provides port plugs that enable the 1723 S Towers to have variable port tuning as well as a sealed operating mode. Leaving both ports open will allow the widest dynamic range in bass frequencies although it won’t dig quite as deep. Sealing one port will give up some headroom but lower the extension so the user can get some deeper bass. This mode might be better for those users who don’t push the speakers very hard and have a smaller room. Sealing the ports will reduce both output and extension. The only real reason to seal the ports on a speaker like this is to get it to blend better with a subwoofer if there are some integration problems. Most people are better off not sealing any of the ports on this speaker.
The speaker connections are high-quality polished rhodium binding posts mounted in a large brushed aluminum backplate. Two sets of binding posts allow the user to bi-wire or bi-amp the speakers. While it’s usually more advisable to use a single amp for the vast majority of home audio speakers, the 1723 S Towers could probably use a fair bit more power than what a typical AVR can deliver, so for more headroom, bi-amping looks like a viable option for this particular speaker. There is rarely ever a good cause to bi-wire a speaker, so just don’t do that.
The 1723 S Towers are THX Ultra certified. While a lot of people understand that is an indication of high performance, what does that mean exactly? Among other things, Ultra certification means it can hit THX Reference levels in a 3,000 cubic feet room with a 12-foot distance from the speakers. THX Reference level loudness is 105dB peaks with low distortion, so it takes some real firepower to achieve that at a 12-foot distance in a 3,000 cubic foot room. But THX loudspeaker certification is more than just dynamic range; it assesses frequency response, dispersion characteristics, electrical behavior, and time-domain behavior too. In other words, it has to be an all-around good performer. What is more, the qualities that THX looks for aren’t just to say whether a speaker is good or not but rather how well it will fit in the context of an overall THX system. What THX is looking for is predictable behavior so that the program content will sound very similar on any THX-certified system. THX is about ensuring that whatever the audience sees and hears is what the content creators intended. So if you have something that is stamped with THX certification, it is just one piece of a system that could faithfully reproduce the source material, if the chain of signal reproduction follows THX prescriptions from top to bottom.
The good news is that 1723 S Towers keep the same incredible level of build quality as the 1723 Monitors that I reviewed before. They are not inexpensive speakers, but I wouldn’t normally expect this level of build quality at this price point (well, maybe from Arendal I would, but they have raised that expectation for themselves). What we should expect from a design like this is a good balance of dynamic range and bass extension. Now let’s see if they can deliver that in some actual listening…
In my 24’ by 13’ (approximately) listening room, I set up the speakers with a few feet of stand-off distances between the back wall and sidewall and equal distance between speakers and listening position. I experiments with toe-in angles and ended up angling the speakers with a slight inward angling but not facing my listening position directly. The listening distance from the speakers was about 9 feet. No equalization was used and no subwoofers were used.
For an example of what the 1723 S Towers could do for vocals, I listened to Willie Nelson’s 72nd studio album “A Beautiful Time,” released in 2022. Being a new album from Nelson, the production quality was top shelf. Since so many people know Nelson’s voice so well, his albums can be a good choice for assessing a speaker’s signature sound. He doesn’t usually resort to studio gimmickry either, and the instruments are cleanly recorded as well, so this is music that almost any listener will know is supposed to sound like. I am not a big country music fan, but somehow Nelson’s music is an exception, possibly because he never quite fit the mold of standard country music subject matter, nor did he follow the sound of loud and overblown modern country productions.
From the first track onward, the 1723 S Towers imaged the performers on “A Beautiful Time” with precision. Nelson’s voice takes center stage, of course, but beyond that, the individual instruments had their own well-defined placement. A harmonica could be heard to play just to the left of center, steel guitar to the right of center, and Nelson’s guitar squarely at center stage. A plethora of other guitars spread out over the soundstage as well as a piano. Nelson’s voice sounded rich and detailed, and his age could be heard as well as his experience and finesse over his intonation. The instruments sounded natural and full, and the ensemble of players combined for a cohesive sound without blending into a mush together. “A Beautiful Time” isn’t an album with tremendously complex music, but the simplicity is deceptive, since it takes deep expertise to not only perform but record music this well. The 1723 S Towers were able to reveal the depth and mastery of both the artistic and technical aspects of this recording. I am looking forward to Nelson’s next album, and when I hear it, I hope it will be with loudspeakers as good as the 1723 S Towers.
Orchestral music is always a great way to gauge a sound system’s tonality and soundstage since it can often cover such a broad spectrum of frequencies with familiar sounds. For an example of this, I listened to a terrific recording of Hector Berlioz’s masterpiece “Symphonie Fantastique,” a symphony that tells the tale of a young artist who falls madly in love, but when he is convinced that his love is spurned, he decides to end his life by overdosing on opium. However, instead of dying, he goes on a hallucinatory journey where he thinks he is executed and is thrown into a monstrous bacchanal of witches. This 2012 recording was performed by the Orchestre National de Lyon and is conducted by Leonard Slatkin. As produced by the always reliable Naxos label, the recording quality and production are first-rate. I streamed this from Qobuz in a 96k/24-bit resolution.
As heard through the 1723 S Towers, the soundstage of this performance had more explicit imaging than many other orchestral albums that are recorded in a mid to far-field distance where the concert hall acoustics can lend some ambiguity to the exact positions of the performers. My guess is that this performance was recorded with overhead microphones which can provide an orientation of the performers while still capturing some of the acoustics of the venue. Woodwinds occupied center stage as did the brass but over a broader area, while strings spread out over the breadth of the performance space. The timpani resounded with a thunderous roaring that sounded like a subwoofer was active. The famous crescendos of “Symphonie Fantastique” erupted like a volcano, and the 1723 S Towers gave this recording a lifelike bombast. In this respect, orchestral fans should note that the THX badge benefits more than just movies. But it wasn’t just the livelier passages that the 1723 S Towers could bring to life. Calmer moments were also painted with realism and subtlety that gave depth to this dreamlike piece. The tonality of the instruments all sounded spot on, and I didn’t notice any undue emphasis on any particular sound nor did I notice anything missing. The 1723 S Towers proved to be a solid choice for orchestral music with such a wide dynamic range, and fans of classical music are certain to be very happy with the performance they have to offer.
The passing of Vangelis in May of 2022 came as a shock to me, since he was one of my favorite musical artists for as long as I can remember. In my grief, I took to going over many of his past albums, and one album that I listened to in my reminiscence was the classic 1996 release “Voices.” I have listened to this album countless times and know every note by heart, and this intimate familiarity would certainly be an asset in evaluating a loudspeaker’s tonal character. This album lies somewhere between new age, pop music, and neoclassical, but Vangelis was never someone who was easy to pigeonhole into a genre. It has gorgeous vocals awash in Vangelis’ distinctive lush synths along with a bevy of orchestral accompaniments. It is a beautifully recorded and mixed album. So, I was really interested in how would it sound on the 1723 S Tower speakers.
The first track, a march that was driven by a strident, low-pitched melody sung by a male choir, was rendered with verve by the 1723 S Tower, and the soundstage was expansive and enveloping. The second track contained the same melody but stripped back much of the pomp of the opening number, and the clean synth leads were reproduced with crystal clarity by the 1723 S Towers, as was the vocalist in track 3. On the fifth track, “Ask the Mountains,” I heard something I hadn’t noticed before in a more pronounced choral effect on the singer that accentuated her unusual singing style. Something else I hadn’t noticed for many of the tracks was just how potent the bass was, and it was then that I realized that most of the times I listened to this album in the past was on headphones rather than a set of serious loudspeakers. The 1723 S Towers gave these songs a strong low-frequency foundation but without becoming boomy or overbearing. The overall presentation by the speakers was engaging, and “Voices” sounded as good as I have ever heard it. It made me eager to throw on more albums by Vangelis to hear them reproduced in such a clean and commanding fashion.
Remixes are a big part of most of the electronic dance music genres, so it is strange that the enormously successful Dutch drum’n’bass group Noisia hasn’t had that many remixes of their work. However, with their disbanding in 2020, they felt that the following year be a good time to see how other artists would rework many of their hits, so they released a remix album in late 2021 called “Resonance 1,” the first of two such albums. “Resonance 1” is fairly rough and tumble as music goes, although it doesn’t take drum’n’bass to the harsher extremes that genre can see. Nonetheless, it is rambunctious music, and, as the name of the genre indicates, percussion and bass are used plentifully and intensely, thereby making it a serious workout for any loudspeaker at an elevated loudness level. An album like this makes a great test of a sound system’s dynamic range, so I cranked the volume to see what the 1723 S Towers could do with some heavy-hitting tunes like these.
The first thing I did after cranking the volume was to turn it back down again because these speakers could easily play back at a level that was beyond my own limits of aural endurance. I’m not about to damage my own hearing merely to assess a loudspeaker’s dynamic range! The second track, IMANU’s remix of “Incessant,” pulled bass down to deep frequencies at a high SPL, but even so, the four 6.5” bass drivers barely even moved, so I knew these speakers had a lot of bass headroom left in the tank. The snares and hi-hats had a palpable snap that could keep up with the hard-hitting bass with no problem; that is one hell of a 1” fabric dome being used in the 1723 S Tower! The kick drums of the sixth track, Bunshiin’s remix of “Purpose,” just pounded in my room, and it’s hard to think that a subwoofer would have bettered what I heard in the 1723 S Tower’s rendering of these tunes. A subwoofer surely would have had more headroom, but these floor-standing speakers had all the headroom I could have asked for even at the elevated levels I was listening to. The Posij remix of the classic track “Lekker” sounded fantastic. The dynamic range of these speakers is tremendous. If you like loud music, these can do that; whether for house parties, head-banging, or just want to get evicted from your apartment, the 1723 S Towers are a superb choice. I can only imagine how much more powerful their bigger brothers are with their 8” drivers. I doubt that many people would ever need the extra headroom that they would provide over this S version. These things can rock.
One movie I watched with the 1723 S Towers was “Dracula Untold,” a 2014 fantasy/action movie about a Transylvanian prince who must make a deal with a monster in order to protect his people from the army of a ruthless Turkish sultan. This is a big budget period movie with lots of action mixed with horror elements, so while I had not yet seen it, it was a movie that promised lots of ‘Sturm und Drang’ and thus a sound mix loaded with clamor and violence. A THX-certified loudspeaker ought to reproduce a film like this with its due dynamics, and I thought it would be a good test to see how close the 1723 S Towers could come to a big screen sound.
After having watched “Dracula Untold,” I understood why it did not sweep the academy awards for its release year. Nevertheless, it was a passable Hollywood fantasy that delivered on its promise of a bombastic sound mix. The vampires’ attack by turning into and out of a fast-moving colony of bats roared like a passing jet on the 1723 S Towers. Battle scenes were given a frantic energy, and the thud of bodies falling to the ground had a meaty, visceral bass. Ramin Djawadi’s orchestral score wasn’t as memorable as his work on “Westworld” or “Game of Thrones,” but contained extensive use of kettle drums which kept the bass drivers busy, and the 1723 S Towers had no problems realizing the large-scale exuberance that permeated the sound mix. Since “Dracula Untold” is driven more by effects, both visual and audio, than a compelling story or human drama, a competent AV system is a must to get the most out of the experience it has to offer. The THX-certified 1723 S Towers are very competent in this regard. It made for a fun Saturday afternoon matinee in my home theater, and the 1723 S Towers were definitely a key component in making the experience enjoyable.
For something with a more down-to-earth sound mix, I watched the 2020 spy drama “The Courier” starring Benedict Cumberbatch. In this cold war drama based on real events, a British salesman who has done some business across the iron curtain is recruited by MI6 to make contact with Russian intelligence in order to cool tensions during the Cuban Missile Crisis. This movie looked to be heavily dialogue-based, so I thought it would stand as a good test for dialogue intelligibility and sound mix elements that are less overwrought than an action movie.
The most notable audio element of “The Courier” was its outstanding musical score by Abel Korzeniowski. It was a dynamic and emotionally diverse orchestral score that really deserves to be better known. It sounded superb on the 1723 S Towers, as did the rest of the film. “The Courier” is a rather talky movie, and dialogue intelligibility was always crisp and clear throughout, even with sometimes heavy Russian accents. There is not much physical action, and what little action exists is largely driven by the music in the sound mix. I have to wonder how effective a movie like this would be without the music; I would imagine that it would feel extremely dry. The score is such an important element that it really disproves the notion that there should be some kind of qualitative difference between sound systems for music and sound systems for movies; if a loudspeaker is not good at one, it cannot be good at the other. Luckily for me, the 1723 S Towers are good speakers for any kind of content that can be thrown at them. While “The Courier” might be a talky movie without much in the way of action, a good sound system is still imperative for getting the most out of this movie, and Arendal’s 1723 S Towers are a fine choice toward that end.
James Larson is Audioholics' primary loudspeaker and subwoofer reviewer on account of his deep knowledge of loudspeaker functioning and performance and also his overall enthusiasm toward moving the state of audio science forward.
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