Design 5, Connected Home Media

In this modest room, tucked away at the end of a corridor, we got our first taste of the most impressive speaker setup of the show. To our absolute amazement, it was also the cheapest speaker at the show. It was the Era Design 5.

I know what you’re thinking. It’s folly, you might say, to even begin to equate a relatively inexpensive bookshelf speaker with, say, that monstrous $50,000 behemoth downstairs that made Louis Armstrong sound alive and well and right beside us, singing lovingly just for the benefit of our ears. And I’ll admit that knowing the pricing structure of the Era Design 5 system influenced my judgment. How could it not? I’d spent the day in dreamland, listening to speakers that I knew I would never own or even think about owning. My day at the festival was supposed to be only a lark, a way to fantasize and, at most, check out where we were in the evolution of speaker technology. I never would have imagined that the show would feature a system that not only incorporated top-tier engineering and craftsmanship but also fit in my budget.

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Design 4, Stereophile Recommended Component April 2007

...even without the subwoofers, the Era Design 4s offered much better sound quality than you have a right to expect for just $600/pair. Their extraordinary stereo imaging, grain-free treble, and clean, detailed midrange deserve to be heard by those wanting to spend more than this on a pair of floorstanders. No, this is not a speaker that will blow people out of a room with party-level sound, but for the audiophile with a small room, or who is setting up a high-quality desktop system, the Design 4 is definitely a speaker to check out.

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Design 5 - This is not a small speaker trying to sound big in a small room. It's a small speaker designed to sound big in larger rooms.

Bass hounds on a budget take note - this in all likelihood is your magic speaker. n other words, while the added dose of bass does provide a lot more meat on them bones, the bones themselves are essentially unchanged. The excellent imaging and high degree of focus I'd observed with its smaller sibling remained unchanged with the D5.The D5 sounds fuller and more robust and much more satisfying than any speaker I know of at low volumes, making it a fantastic choice for apartment dwellers or anybody who must restrict volume levels.

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It was as though someone had switched on lamps one after another, while walking deeper and deeper into the soundstage, as the wall behind the speakers disappeared. Each voice and instrument was fully realized with texture and shadow. I started visualizing the distances of microphones from lips and guitar amps, and I wasn’t trying to be clever and analytical—the amount of information coming out of familiar test tracks was simply overwhelming.

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The little era's sounded so full, warm, and three dimensional. era speakers are developed by the team at Signal Path International and at CES era demonstrated its tiny new D3 loudspeaker, whose projected retail is just $400/pr, alongside a pair of B&W flagship 800D's. The funny part was that the little era's sounded so full, warm, and three dimensional that some suite visitors sheepishly asked "Which ones are playing?  Does this mean the $400 eras sound as good as the big B&W's? Of course not, but it does mean they're good enough to keep listeners guessing...at least for a while.

The era Design 4’s deserve every bit of the kudos the audio press has given them. Once again, it proves that many of the best affordable speakers are coming from young, upstart companies.

The 4’s are intoxicating, the warmth from the forward bass creates a wonderfully deep soundstage. Just as surprising is the outstanding smooth highs that maintain control even at the upper at the upper reaches of listening volume. Whether you’re looking for home theater or a simple two-channel setup for limited space, don’t buy until you’ve auditioned the Era Design 4’s.

Issue 11, Nov 2006

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Their extraordinary stereo imaging, grain free treble, and clean, detailed midrange deserve to be heard by those wanting to spend more than this on a pair of floorstanders. era speakers offer impressive speaker engineering at affordable prices…the new Design 4 two-way sounded superb…

January 2007

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The D4 satellites were designed to appeal to the style-of-life customer who prefers audiophile performance. The basic design and performance parameters belong to Era, while a large part of the engineering should be attributed to Michael Kelly. The drivers were custom designed by Michael to ensure a very high level of performance at a reasonable price. When you couple terrific fidelity with a heavily fortified cabinet wrapped in exotic wood veneers; the Era speakers represent an enormous value.

Design 4 - I've seen samples in every available finish and these are exceptionally accomplished speakers that completely belie their asking price. The pictures just can't do justice to their satiny finish and attention to detail.

I popped out a woofer on one of the D4s and not only verified the claim of internal bracing but encountered a level of attention to detail inside that left me mightily impressed. The D4s are balanced and extended through the treble in a manner very similar to the $4,400/pr Thiel CS 2.4 - very revealing and honest. Simultaneously, I was more than fairly impressed by how smoothly detailed the D4s presented the ride cymbals which were coming across with a good measure of air, body and detail. Moving down into the midrange, the D4s really began to step aside and allow the music through unencumbered. These speakers are wonderfully transparent and well behaved. 

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The Absolute Sound - Editor's Choice

One would expect a rather bass-shy presentation from such a small enclosure w/ a 4" woofer, but the system had astonishing weight and bottom-end extension.The reason the bass sounded so rewarding was the systems absolutely mind blowing mid-bass articulation, dynamics and resolution.The Era Design 4 has to be the winner in the "best bass from the smaller cabinet" contest. The impressive articulation extended well up into the midrange. I heard a sense of transparency, resolution of fine detail and timbral purity I associate with electronics and speakers costing far more.The soundstage this system threw was open and expansive, with good dimensionality. The Cambridge/ERA Design system got this fundamentally prerequisite of musicality right.

June/July 2006 Issue 162

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