• Jamo’s Studio 8 range as it turns 50

Readers who perused S+I’s history of Jamo in our 30th anniversary issue last year will know that the company is hitting 50 itself this year, and plans to celebrate in style, beginning with a new Studio 8 speaker series which was on show at CES in Las Vegas. The ‘reimagining’ of this key series for Jamo extends to three floorstanders (S 809, S 807, S 805) and two standmounts (S 803 and S 801), plus two centre speakers (S 83 CEN and S 81 CEN) and two subwoofers (S 810 SUB and S 808 SUB), plus one Dolby Atmos-certified elevation speaker (S 8 ATM, pictured above right atop one of the floorstanders), so that the series can be configured to any hi-fi or home cinema requirement.

The aesthetic certainly is striking — witness the models shown to the right: two of the three furniture-grade colour variants for the S 803 (the larger of the standmounts), with wood grain accents around the tweeters, at the bases, and feet. The fully-magnetic woven-pattern linen grilles also come in colour variants — ‘heather gray’ grilles for the white speakers, and charcoal gray for the walnut and black versions. The four corner ‘fasteners’ visible on top are patent-pending conductive metal fasteners that serve as terminals for the Dolby Atmos elevation speaker. These are on the largest two floorstanding models as well, where the grilles align with the Dolby Atmos elevation speaker to create continuous visual lines.

The 10-inch and 8-inch subwoofers (S 810 SUB and S 808 SUB, respectively) are usefully slimline so can be placed vertically or horizontally against a wall, even tucked under furniture.

Although Jamo is now owned by Indiana-based Klipsch Group, Inc., it is certainly continuing to honour its Scandinavian roots through design, and the inclusion of Jamo ‘trademark’ technologies such as the WaveGuides to govern dispersion from the soft-dome tweeters, and driver materials including aluminised polyfibre woofers on all but the centres and Atmos speaker (these use straight polyfibre).

Pricing is competitive, at $1599 per pair for the top S 809, $1299 for the S 807, $899 for the S 805, and the two standmounts at $899 (S 803 below) and $599. The Atmos-enabled S 8 ATM is $799 for two.

More information: www.qualifi.com.au