Audio Therapy welcomes Kroma Atelier onboard!

I’m thrilled to announce that Audio Therapy are now a dealer for the incredible Spanish loudspeaker brand – Kroma Atelier. Over the past couple of years I’ve attended several shows, both in the UK and overseas where Kroma really came into my focus and after some evaluation time in my demonstration room it further cemented my initial thoughts and I knew I had to be involved.

There are 13 loudspeakers in the Kroma Atelier line up, divided into 3 ranges –  Classic, Signature and Reference.

Classic Models: Mimi, Thais, Julieta, Stella, Elektra

Signature Models: Leonore, Macbeth, Jovita, Matilde, Mercedes

Reference Models: Irya, Turandot, Maribel

The Jovita and Irya are brand new models, both had their official launch at Munich High End 2024, the Jovita are pictured below

Visually the Kroma range is quite unconventional with all of the cabinets manufactured from Krion™ which is a material designed and manufactured by the Porcelanosa Group. Krion™ is very much like Corian in the way it looks and feels, visually they are superb and a break from the norm is very refreshing.

They almost look and feel like natural stone, it is comprised of two-thirds natural minerals (aluminium trihydrate) and a low percentage of high-resistance resins. This composition gives Krion™ a number of exclusive features: it does not have any pores, it is very hard-wearing, highly resistant, it only requires minimum maintenance and is very easy to clean. Due to the nature of Krion™ and its properties it is very strong acoustically and offers excellent insulating properties.

I’ve started with the entry level standmount speaker in the Classic range, the Mimi, with plans for another 2 or 3 models to follow over time. The Mimi stands just under 40cm tall, 20cm wide and 25cm deep so it isn’t a large speaker by any stretch of the imagination. The current iteration of the Mimi uses a Mundorf AMT ribbon tweeter and a 6.5 inch Purifi mid/bass driver. Sensitivity is 88db and they are a 4ohm load so they like a good amplifier behind them, but at this level of speaker (Mimi are £11,495 a pair plus the matching stands) that really shouldn’t be an issue.

The dedicated stands for the Mimi are £3495 and are also manufactured from Krion™ and feature a Panzerholz top plate and feet.

The classic Kroma finish is all white, but you do have the option to change the side cheeks to Titanium, Aluminium, Champagne, Carbon Fibre or Wood for the same cost, plus there are cost option paint finishes which add £680 to the price of the Mimi and £580 to the stands.

The front port is made of cedar or fir wood and is highly tuned for each speaker and plays an important role in terms of giving the speakers their voice.

The Mimi cabinet has a swept back design to time align the drive units, they are single wired and front ported. Some time and effort is needed with set up in the room, distance from the side walls is arguably more important than distance from the rear wall, in my demo room they really like firing straight down the length of the room (4.5m) with no toe in and for the size of box they really impress with their bass weight and scale, they render a large soundstage and are incredibly holographic in terms of placement of artists and instruments.

I’ve been playing with the Mimi in a couple of system configurations and they respond really well to any change you make, they are incredible transparent and have a sweetness and richness to the sound, they have a tonal quality and rightness about them that simply puts a smile my face every time I listen to them.

Over the past few year I’m finding more and more customers who are wanting to downsize their system in terms of box count, but at the same time increasing performance and the Vitus RI-101 mk2 is without doubt the amplifier to beat in this arena, with the onboard DAC option you simply need to add speakers and you have a complete system.

With a Melco S10 switch to hand to further complement performance and a complete loom of the brand new Shunyata Research Theta cables this makes for a really compelling system, one of the first customers to hear the Mimi was quite stunned at their sense of scale and musicality in my room. This system and superb synergy annd coherency and it delivers the music with real vigour and vibrancy, there is a huge amount of bandwidth on tap, they dovetail in the with the RI perfectly.

Another amplifier which also works incredibly well with the Mimi is the T+A PA 3100 HV, this offers no on board DAC so I used Gold Note’s DS-1000 with it – similar sort of money to the RI – the end result here is a slightly different flavour, certainly not worse, but not necessarily better either. Arguably, a little more explosive and dynamic – I must say I could happily live with either combination.

The Mimi won an Editors Choice Award in Hi-Fi Plus Magazine’s 25th Anniversary Edition earlier this year and I feel as a brand they are going to be seen more and more. Many people shy away from a loudspeaker brand they are unfamiliar with and they often look at this they feel more comfortable with, in performance terms the Mimi and Kroma across their price points are incredibly special and I guarantee they will be raising some eyebrows.

They dovetail in perfectly with our other speakers brands of Avalon, Vimberg and Fyne F1 and offer something a little different to them all.