Loudspeakers
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• Outstanding sound
• High efficiency
• True three-way
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• Solid framed grille
• Low impedance
• Outrigger feet design
RRP $16,000
I love that this Lithuanian loudspeaker manufacturer has named a complete series of loudspeakers after a scheming Spanish barber who appears as a character in eighteenth-century French plays as well as famous operas by Mozart (The Marriage of Figaro) and Rossini (The Barber of Seville), though I would have preferred it recognise its own national heritage, not least because Lithuanian is the oldest language in Europe - older than Celtic, German and Greek and certainly far older than French or Italian. Still, I suppose that Audio Solutions’ founder and lead design engineer Gediminas Gaidelis had his reasons.
The model reviewed here, the Figaro M2, sits almost in the middle of an eight-model range that includes a centre channel (Figaro C2). Three models — the S2, M2 and L2 — not only look identical but also sport the same driver count, driver layout, tweeter and cabinet design. Their differences lie in cabinet size and that the smaller Figaro S2 use 152mm drivers for the midrange and bass, whereas the larger Figaro L2 pair a 183mm midrange with two 233mm bass drivers.
The original Figaro speakers were released six years ago, and it was only last year, at the 2023 Munich High End Show, that this new ‘M2’ version launched. The Figaro M2 are so different from their predecessors that I was a bit surprised Audio Solutions didn’t see fit to create a new range. You may also share my surprise when you discover further in this in-depth review the full extent of what is so different about it.
THE EQUIPMENT
Each Figaro M2 has twin bass drivers, just like the originals, but whereas the earlier model used two repurposed mid/bass drivers to deliver the lower frequencies, the newcomer uses dedicated bass drivers specifically designed to deliver low frequencies, not low and midrange frequencies. The sonic upshot, according to Gaidelis, is that the M2’s bass reproduction is ‘more precise and articulate’. As with the first-gen Figaro, the cone drivers here are not made in Lithuania by Audio Solutions but by SB Acoustics, a division of Malaysian company Sinar Baja Electric which
