Bought the Helicon's about a half year ago, didn't know them but when I saw them I was directly in love with the design.

The sound they produce is very pleasant and warm with butter sweet high notes, a sound you can listen to for hours!! they are not as spacious as what you aspect from loudspeakers in this price range but after a crossover upgrade with Mundorf SGO capacitors and Jantzen Wax coils they play on a totally other level :)

Picture link,
https://holco.picturepush.com/album/485664/p-Helicon-%28Oracle-Audio%29.html

Thanks to the asimmetric form of bass and middle transducers's envelope and to the ribbon high transducer they have a very natural sound, without artificial reinforcements; the bass is powerful yet controlled, and they go up and down the frequency scale in a vey natural way. Bass is really impressive-the organ in Bach's Toccata and Fugue in Re minor goes down to tremendous levels without a glitch. Of course they need lots of controlled power (I used MacLaren 250 W amplifiers), but they sound just as impressive with high notes (cymbals) and female voices. Looking at these monolites you may think they are too obtrusive, but in fact the form and the marble-laquered finish give a good WAF (wife acceptance factor). I used them with all genres, from baroque music to pop and jazz, and was always listening to real music-forgetting the sources.

They need plenty of good controlled power-better solid state- and a good chain before, from the source to the amplis. They are also sensible to positioning-far from reflecting walls, a simmetric environment, high ceilings is the best (as in most cases).

Must use with powerful amplifiers, then you get powerful and realistic bass, very good soundstage, detailed and clear sound; they are nice to look at too (high WAF) but need space, although placement is not problematic. They sound well with all kind of music-from classical to jazz to pop: full orchestra is a real pleasure, but a lute sounds detailed too.

Similar Products Used:

Apogee Diva: I love them best, although the bass is not so powerful as with Helicons-but the midrange and highs are a dream

Soundstaging, bass extension and detailed high-end

low sensitivity, needs lots of space.

The build...

Oracle Helicon is quite massive speaker although it looks quite slim. It's beutiful one too, especially in helicon-finish. Helicon is built on a metal back-bone, which is connected into the heavy bottom-base with marble-plate on top of it. Enclosure is rigid which makes these speakers quite heavy, about 60kg/each.

About the specs...

Helicon is a 3-way hybrid. It has down-firing woofer (10" made by dynaudio) in sealed enclosure, 5" mid-range (also dynaudio) and very long (112cm) ribbon-tweeter. Speaker can be tri-wired and Oracle recommends this option for the best possible sound. Sensitivity is 83dB per watt at 1m distance (Oracle recommends 4 m listening distance, so actually you get only about 71 dB per watt in your listening position!) and nominal impedance is 6.5 ohms (min 3 ohms). Frequency response is 20 Hz - 35 kHz (-10dB).

Associated equipment in this review...

I am currently using SONY CDP-XA20ES transport and MUSICAL FIDELITY X-24K d/a-converter. MCCORMACK TLC-1 DELUXE EDITION preamplifier and CLASSÉ CA-100 poweramplifier. Cables are from CARDAS & TARALABS.

The music...

Pop/rock, progressive metal, classical, jazz and ambient.

The sound...

Very good. Soundstaging is good compared to anything I have heard, not the best I have heard, but close enough and it might well be caused by the problems in my listening room anyway (I can't use optimal positioning and sidewalls are not identical).

Instruments sound like they should... Everything seems so right that you just forget that you are listening to a speakers. Ofcourse you need excellent recordings, bad ones sound like bad ones too, these speakers don't make them sound any sweeter than they are.

Bass is very nice, it could be a bit tighter (if compared to reference level speakers like Avalon Eidolon) but it has good definition + detail and it never sounds boomy. This speaker has very good dynamics if you have real monster-amplifier driving it. My amp is a bit too modest but suits for me because of fairly low listening-levels.

Helicon's have very detailed high-end, the best I have heard. It never sounds fatiquing. Cymbals are accurately placed 3-dimensionally, which is not the case with most of the speakers I have heard - not even top high-end speakers.

Oracle Helicon may not be the best speaker in the world, but it certainly has everything in one well balanced package. When it comes to listening music it's almost unbeatable, sure there is much sharper imaging, more dynamics and so on but when you listen to the music they too often have faults you can't cope with.

Someone once said that if you like to listen to the music hours and hours again, your speakers should be good ones. I have to agree, I'm off for listening again...

Not popular but very fine speakers. Ribbon tweeters, Dynaudio mids and bass. Had a chance to compare with Sonus Faber Extrema. Decided to get Extrema because I like its wood craftsmanship. Nevertheless Helicon look very elegant too. On the same occasion, I also listen to Genesis 500. No comparison at all. That tells a lot. The only concern is that if ribbon get damaged, repair would be a problem.