Vimberg are a German loudspeaker manufacturer, designed and manufactured in Cologne in Germany, Vimberg are a sub-division of Tidal Audio who are highly regarded as one of the world finest high end audio brands. Look at a Tidal loudspeaker and then a Vimberg and you will see more than a passing similarity!
Vimberg launched at the Munich High End Show in 2018 and they went down a storm. The first 2 speakers they released were the Mino and Tonda, both floor-standers, both built without compromise and for the asking price of both models they genuinely rewrite the rule book in terms of performance and value for money.
I’d happily put either of these 2 speakers up against anything else costing several times the asking price here, they are genuinely that good.
The Mino is the smaller of the 2 floor standing models although still fairly imposing at 128cm tall. The Tonda looks visually the same, but is taller at 144cm and is a little wider and deeper than the Mino. The Tonda are 96Kg each, the Mino are 72Kg each.
The Vimberg range are best described as invisible audible messengers……they have incredibly transparency and clarity and stupendous bass weight and extension, they almost have very little character of their own, what you hear is the system behind them. In a well set up and correctly balanced system the resultant sound with a pair of Tonda or Mino is a tear inducing experience of the highest order!
If you have the space and the budget the Tonda is exquisite and all the speaker anyone would never need, but to be fair they need a large room to work at their best, the Mino is just as good in every way, but simply designed for smaller rooms. The Tonda need space to breath, whereas the Mino will work effortlessly in your typical UK living room. Of course, not everyone has the budget or room size that can cope with the Mino, never mind the Tonda, so say hello to the Amea!
The Amea was launched as the third and most affordable speaker in the range, but they came along a little time after the launch of the Tonda and Mino, in Munich 2019 a dummy Amea was introduced, but it was not a finished product so was not played
My initial pair of demonstration Vimberg Amea arrived in October last year, due to a perfect storm of Covid and the floods in Germany they took a little while to arrive and when I got them I literally took them sealed in the box to show a customer, who promptly bought them on the spot after listening to a selection of his favourite go to tracks. This customer has owned many speakers from Focal Utopia, B&W 800 Series, PMC Fact, Audio Physic and the customer went on the record to say that the Amea were comfortably the best speaker he has ever had in his room.
My replacement pair arrived a few weeks ago and I’ve been putting them through their paces and always promised a more in depth post about the Amea and how they perform.
The Amea are 504mm tall, 230mm wide and 390mm deep, the dedicated stands by default stand at 784mm tall so the finished height of them is around the same as the Mino but they are not quite as wide or deep.
Build quality is exceptional and is the fit and finish. As with the Mino and Tonda the cabinet is manufactured from a material called MRD (similar to HDF) and they weigh in at 20kg each, the front facing tweeter and mid/bass driver are mounting into the cabinet via a special aluminium plate which decouples the drivers from the cabinet to avoid unwanted cabinet resonances. The cabinet is waterproof (!), very heavy and incredibly dense, wrap your knuckle anywhere on the cabinet and they feel incredibly solid.
The tweeter is a 30mm Accuton Ceramic Cell unit, the mid-bass unit is a 173mm Accuton Ceramic Driver.
On the rear of the cabinet there is a 220mm Accuton Passive Radiator in lieu of a port – a lot more costly to implement but as is the way with Vimberg there is no compromise, this results in bass response that is deep, clean and incredibly fast which in turn helps with placement in a room. No issue with getting these close to a wall, they’ll happily sit closer than most people would imagine as well.
All internal cabling is from Mogami, pure silver Argento terminals on the back and the crossover is populated with components from Mundorf and Duelund – again no compromise or cost cutting here.
Nominal impedance is rated at 5ohms and sensitivity is rated at 86ohm, not particularly difficult to drive but they appreciate some serious amplification, although given their price point I’m sure these would only ever be used in a system with appropriate partnering equipment.
The Amea are available in high gloss black or white lacquer, the finish of the Vimberg lacquer is the very best ‘gloss’ finish I’ve come across ever.
They also have a ‘more affordable’ finish called Velvetec, which is unique to Vimberg, it is a matt finish with very fine ceramic beadings embedded into the paint finish, they look stunning.
Black or White Lacquer £13,600 a pair
Black or White Velvetec £11,400 a pair
With Velvetec there are also some cost option finishes such as grey, orange, green and blue.
There is also the option to change the plate that surrounds the tweeter and mid/bass driver to either copper or brass, my demo pair are in brass and they superb, especially when the light catches them.
There is also the option for a Accuton Diamond tweeter instead of the ceramic tweeter, this adds £7000 to the price.
Vimberg released the dedicated stands for the Amea at the start of this year, they’ve been a while coming but were more than worth the wait.
They are incredibly heavy, a pair of stands in their crate are substantially heavier than both speakers and I would estimate they must be around 60kg for the pair, certainly a two man lift when packed up!
When built they are tall, the finished height with the Amea hovers at around the same height as the Mino, but they are beautifully proportioned. Installed on other stands they never looked quite right to my eyes and were always very top heavy, not so here. Jorn has advised building a pair of stands that are shorter is no problem at all if required. The stands are £2900 a pair and I’ve not heard the Amea sound better when used with any other stand.
In terms of performance the Amea are incredibly transparent, agile and ever so precise. Using some of my go to tracks such as Leonard Cohen ‘A Thousand Kisses Deep’ the level of clarity from the Amea was quite startling, you can hear everything and in the moments of silence you can hear absolutely nothing. The Amea are linear and there is simply no colouration at all – you are listening to your electronics pure and simple and presentation is incredibly linear.
In my demo room the Amea sounded best with just a little toe-in applied, the speakers are just under 2m apart sitting about 60cm off the rear wall and the sound is as pure and as lifelike as I’ve ever experienced in my room, almost palpable. The presentation is incredibly holographic with brilliant imaging. Bass weight is tight and extended, sure they don’t go as low as a Mino, but at a fraction of their size I wouldn’t expect them to, close your eyes and will not for a moment think that you are listening to stand mount speaker!
As ever with Vimberg, they give you clarity, resolution, neutrality and spine-tingling realism, they simply disappear from sonic view.
I listened to them on variety of different systems/components, Gold Note DS-10 with 2 x PA-10, Vitus RI-101 mk2, SIA-025 and SIA-030, Melco N10, Melco N1ZS, Vitus RD-101 and an SD-025 plus a Taiko SGM Extreme – each time I stepped up the electronics the Amea responded magnificently and I’ve subsequently had plenty of late nights getting to know them inside out exploring lots of music.
Starting at £11,400 plus the stands the Amea offer brilliant value for money, I’ve heard other speakers costing a lot more than the Amea that don’t convey the musical message as accurately and enjoyably as these speakers, they are a hugely rewarding listen.
As always part exchange is welcome, please get in touch if you have any questions
