rewrite this title This beautiful hand-made floor-standing speaker ain’t cheap, but I can’t take my eyes off it and I haven’t even heard it yet

Audiovector unveils R 5 Arreté loudspeakerBeautiful fin-shaped, hand-crafted wooden designBarrage of speakers includes twin bass drivers

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a floor-standing speaker that wasn’t beautiful or exotic in some way, and Audiovector has just proven my point by unveiling the new R 5 Arreté.

You’ve already seen this speaker in the above image, so you already know how good it looks. Each unit is hand-made in Denmark, and you can pick it up in a range of finishes. Above, you’re looking at African Mahogany, but there’s also Italian Walnut, White Silk, and Black Piano.

Audiovector is a family business, as we discovered at the launch of the Trapeze Ri, and so it makes sense that care goes into the speakers. The cabinets are designed ot be narrow, to “minimise edge diffraction for a more precise and transparent soundstage” according to the brand.

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This attention extends to the plinth, with that staggered design achieving “a perfectly controlled coupling to the surface beneath”. As you can see from the quotes from the brand, we haven’t actually tested the R 5 Arreté yet.

You can, if you’d like, because it’s on sale now. But you’ll have to pay £17,500 (about $23,600, AU$32,860) for the pleasure of doing so.

Have you forgotten about the sound?

Okay, okay, the R 5 Arreté isn’t just a lovely piece of furniture, but a loudspeaker. So what’s it packing under the hood?

The three drivers are all 6.5-inch carbon speakers that use the brand’s Accelerated Force Concept to reduce driver inertia. One’s a mid driver, one’s a lower-mid driver, and another’s a bass driver aimed at the lowest frequencies. There’s also a tweeter to handle the higher frequencies.

According to Audiovector, the frequency response is 23Hz-53Hz, with an average impedance of 8 ohms and a sensitivity of 90 decibels.

Another selling point of the Arreté is that it’s designed to work well with amplifiers, due to its “unique three-position damping adjustment”. So you can use your extra accessories to really eke the most out of the speaker.

If you’re worried about whether you can fit these things, they’re 11cm tall, 22cm wide, and 41cm deep with a weight of 32kg.

To many people, super-speakers like that might be outside the budget. But I was recently at a hi-fi show where I found some affordable hi-fi kit that might fill the Arreté hole in your soul.

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