Price Paid:  $1200.00

Summary:
Stand back and close your eyes as you listen to these speakers. You will not believe it when you open your eyes and see that the beautiful sounds you were just hearing were coming out of these tiny wooden cabinets. This is true craftsmanship, some very fine woodwork, which plays a role in the overall sound.
The soundstage these little guys reproduce is huge. Sounds come from all around the speakers, right where you could visualise the instruments and performers. The depth and width are incredible.
Detail is another major strength. While some ,unspecified brands, speakers reproduce great detail they can be overly anti musical, at least to my ears. The Micras had plenty of detail without any of the fatigue that so quickly hits me as I listen to other "detailed" speakers. They maintained a wonderful midrange that sounded great with familiar male and female vocalists.
During some passages containing loud bass riffs the lower mids and upper bass became muddied at last listening. Now I have to say I suspect this fault to be from the electronics used at this session, which are solid state entry level pieces. That does not mean I thought the system sounded bad, just a fault noticed on specific tracks. I have heard these speaker through decent CJ tube amps and they were simply musical, but lets not be too concerned with the lack of low bass, I wasn't , I was too distracted by the music playing. What more can you say to that? When the music is what you hear and like, the equipment is doing its job.These guys deserve a raise!

Strengths:
Beautiful craftsmanship
Excellent fidelity
Small size

Weaknesses:
Lack of bass
not great for loud recordings

Summary:
The Diapason Micra II's are small, minimonitors from Italy built from hefty slats of beautifully finished Italian wood. (Please see their website for more descriptive/technical information). I first heard these speakers when I visited my dealer several years ago when shopping for a pair of high-quality mini-monitors for my graduate school dorm-room to complement my just-purchased Naim Nait 3 Integrated Amp. My first impression was that I really could not believe that all that sound was coming out of those mini's!!! In fact, the dynamics, extension, and articulation was damn good compared to just about any speaker in this price range (approx. $1200 per pair) regardless of size or configuration.
Aside from the real deep lows being absent (these are mini's, after all), they had one of the best midranges I've ever heard from any speaker at any price, and the bass down to its rated 45 khz limit was solid and more than easily felt. In fact, the Micra II's bass is one of the best things about this speaker that I liked: I've never quite heard speakers at this price point so able to impart a sense of impact and authority, especially given their size! As far as other parts of the audio spectrum, the Micra II's high end was well extended but never edgy, articulate but never analytical. Their ability to recreate a soundstage accurately was short of amazing, with depth perception startlingly real.

Ok, I guess by now you've got the sense that I really liked these things. However, a couple of points of caution. First, these are not the speakers for those of you who want to put them in a room greater than 20ft. x 18ft. Although amazing for the size, you will lose a little of the impact as room dimensions increase. Second, those of you into really loud, hard and heavy rock and roll may be less than impressed; music requiring a large degree of really low end bass may fall short of your expectations, although for me this wasn't a problem. Keep in mind, with a woofer only 4 inches in diameter, you can only squeeze so much out of these things! However, it was clear that the best music for these babies fell in the jazz category...boy do they ever shine when it comes to jazz!
Finally, keep in mind that every $1 you spend on high-quality speaker stands results in $100 in additional performance. Diapason makes some really good stands for around $300 or so, but I used cheap $150 Targets with results just as good.

But I could sit here and keep writing praises for the Micra II loudspeakers all day...what you should do is go out and listen to these damn things! They will utterly amaze you. And try to not look at them while you listen....you'll think you're going crazy hearing all that full-bodied, beautifully reproduced music coming out of those tiny little speakers.