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Stenheim Alumine Two.Five Speakers Boxed

£15,500.00
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Condition:
Used
Weight:
45.00 KGS
Minimum Purchase:
1 unit
Maximum Purchase:
1 unit
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Stenheim Alumine Two.Five Speakers Boxed

Excellent ex demo pair with original packaging.

What Makes the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five Special? 


I wear a Swiss watch (Frank Muller AKA “The Master of Complications”) and aspire to someday own a Patek Phillipe 3919 in white gold. The movement of these watches, specifically the Patek, is legendary, and they speak to the first concept that makes the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five so special, which is beyond-impressive build quality, paired with exquisite attention to detail. The Stenheim Alumine Two.Five is built to physical standards that border on the absurd. The cabinets are made from thick sheets of aluminum that make these low-profile speakers produce bass that others close in size couldn’t dream of providing. 
The driver configuration of the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five consists of two 6.5-inch woofers and a one-inch soft dome tweeter with a front port. This isn’t revolutionary but, when paired with such a robust cabinet, you get magic, especially in the low end. 
The Stenheim Alumine Two.Five speakers are rated at 93 dB efficiency. They can be driven with anything from a flea-watt single-ended triode tube amp to a pure Class-A amp, like my Pass Labs XA-25. For small or auxiliary room applications, today’s all-in-one integrated amps (think: NAD Master Series or the Cambridge Audio EVO 150 DeLorean Edition) would make for sublime performance and even more sexy system simplicity.
The Stenheim Alumine Two.Five are 100 pounds each. That’s insane when you consider that they are only 37.2 inches tall, nine inches wide and 10.8 inches deep.
The bass performance from a small speaker is likely going to be beyond your expectations.The reported performance of the speakers is 35 Hz, which is pretty low. Would they benefit from a subwoofer? Yes, but so would bigger and even more expensive speakers in this class or category. 
The warranty on the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five is five years, which is generous. 
There are some nice stock colors for the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five speakers, including Metallic Light Grey as I reviewed. Other stock colors include All Black (front and sides). Custom colors include Ivory and Mocha. I am sure if you wanted the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five in Bugatti Blue or Fly Yellow (a PPG color for Lamborghinis) that Stenheim will get it done for you. It might take some time and cost you a few bucks, but this is an ultra-premium speaker product that we are talking about. 
The front port on the Stenheim Alumine Two.Fives makes them easy to place in a room, and they don’t load up the corners of your room the way that rear-ported speakers often can. Getting the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five to image is easy, too. I used almost no toe-in and they made a wide image, extending well outside the physical boundaries of the speakers.
 Listening to the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five Audiophile Loudspeakers…
You gotta give Queen B some credit for doing a cover of a tricky Beatles song in “Blackbird.” The recording from Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter album should be on your short list to check out as a a great demo. This track isn’t shy on overdubbed vocals and, on the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five speakers, you get to hear these wonderful musical layers in ways that are just striking. Beyonce’s voice is iconic. The recording is what you get with a cost-no-object recording budget in 2023-24, and that is a very good thing. With the Stenheim Alumine Two.Fives playing, you never get any harshness or annoying sibilance. These speakers image like few others on this track with a laser focus. The slight percussive element (a pick tapping on an acoustic guitar, I would guess) has an amazing level of detail on the Stenheim Alumine Two.Fives. 
Dating back to my last publications that I sold right before the pandemic, I have made it clear that, if your audiophile speakers can’t play Jimi Hendrix in a way that gives you the chills, your speakers might just suck. For $23,500, allow me to report the news that the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five speakers deliver on The Jimi Standard – and in spades. While I love the three progressively better studio albums from The Jimi Hendrix Experience, I like the live recording of (the) Band of Gypsies best for audiophile purposes. “Who Knows,” the opening track from this all-star band’s live performance at The Filmore East is a specific example from January 1, 1970. On the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five speakers, the recording sounds anything but dated, but what is so fantastic is, when Jimi lays into his Strat, with the distortion giving his thick strings (his huge and ultra-strong hands allowed him to play thicker strings that gave him a very unique sound that few others ever have achieved) that is just, as the kids say, pure fire. The call-and-response vocals extend, in terms of imaging, well beyond the width of the speaker by many feet. The subtle burn of Hendrix’s first solo at around 1:45 in the track has immense space in it, with a funky-rhythmic outro that is pure ear candy. Even at very high (think: concert) levels, the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five speakers simply deliver a musical experience capable of lining your arms with goosebumps. 

Do you like music in HD? I know I sure do and Buena Vista Social Club is a stunningly fantastic, RIAA-certified platinum recording that is amazingly now 25 years old. This Grammy-winning recording is an acoustical gem, with perhaps the best Cuban musicians that have ever lived playing jam after jam. The track “Dos Gardinias” has some striking moments. The muted horns have a three-dimensionality and bite that you will only hear when played back on the best speakers the world has to offer. Normally, that level of that musical energy is reserved for the live experience. The Stenheim Alumine Two.Five speakers allow you to close your eyes and musically travel to exotic places, which is their true superpower. I’ve never been to Cuba, but I feel like I have after having the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five speakers in my listening room for a few weeks. 
I found myself spending a lot of time getting deep into some of my favorite music with the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five speakers installed in my reference audiophile system. “Echoes” from Pink Floyd’s Meddle was an epic 20-plus-minute jam, but “When The Music Is Over” from Strange Days by The Doors was what really caught my attention. The swings in terms of the dynamic window from quiet to full musical rage was what was most impressive with the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five speakers in play. Robby Krieger is a golf buddy of mine and member at the same local golf club. His solo is way out there on this track and, when it really kicks in, you can hear the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five speakers open up like giving the gas to a growling V12 Ferrari on a lonely, open stretch of California desert highway. Jim Morrison’s voice has a raspy and sexy sound and, when he yelps at the top of his lungs as he will do on this track, the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five speakers just laugh at the challenge. When the music is actually over (about 11 minutes later), you are left with your jaw on the floor when you consider how sucked into the musical experience these Stenheim speakers can take you.
You can absolutely find bigger and more dynamic speakers for less money than the Stenheim Alumine Two.Fives. What you can’t find is more evolved musical resolution when it comes to your loudspeakers playing back your favorite music. If you want a window on your musical world that is punchy, powerful, resolute and truly engaging – then you need to find yourself a Stenheim dealer. There are more and more of them these days but, take it from me, this is an audiophile experience that you must have if you are in the market for small format speakers. The Stenheim Alumine Two.Fives are audiophile gems. They might not be bigger than life, but they deliver at each and every level that a speaker possibly can at this price. I am getting sad just thinking of loading them into their (factory optional) road cases, as if my favorite band is done playing and now heading to another city to rock out for other fans. They are worthy of being missed.