The David 6000 is one of a family of mini and micro-minitors made in Berlin by Heco-Hennel. (By all accounts, Berlin is a hotbed of state-of-the-art audio in Germany.) Equipped to compete with a metaphorical Goliath, this model is rated at 60 watts, weighs less than a litre of wine, and a pair can be held in each palm, for a cost of around £117.

Boasting two drive units, it's different to the similarly-sized monitors we've reviewed in the past twelve months. Doing it two-way, with a bass/mid driver plus tweeter, means there's a trade-off in sound integration (unless we're careful to make each driver integrate by careful design) but an enhancement of the top response. It also reduces intermodulation and Doppler distortions, because the high notes aren't trying to ride on top of the bass line. The top end has its 'own cone to go to', so to speak. The practical benefits should include cleaner, more accurate sound at any given volume, when compared to single drive micro-monitors.

Contents

The enclosure is fabricated from half inch chipboard, but the matt black Nextel finish makes it look convincingly like an up-market plastic moulding. Nextel is tough stuff, and easy to keep clean too. The 6000 is unusually small (see shortform spec.) and more than most, it'll squeeze unobtrusively into hand-baggage. But sadly, we can't recommend these speakers for the road, (even in the mild, hand-baggage sense) first because any chipping will display white marks, which is guaranteed to blow the cabinet's cool 'high tech' image. Second, the protective steel grille is too easily crushed, whilst the plastic support frame is likewise insufficiently heavy duty.

The 3" bass/mid driver is distinguished by its unusually large magnet. Broadly, this lowers the 'Q' (ie. raises the damping) and also increases the midband efficiency. But this is at the expense of the LF response, and the bottom-end roll-off is also accelerated. As a result, the high bass is emphasised at the expense of the low notes, of which there'll be very few; below 100Hz say.

Practicalities

The crossover's networking and build quality compares favourably to the carpentry in larger speakers costing many times more. Put simply, though Lilliputian, the 6000 is a serious design. And there's a neat gizmo to boot: a pair of back-to-back Zener diodes are wired across the driver connections, in series with an LED on the front baffle. The idea is that the LED turns bright red when it senses signals are going over the top. A crude overload indicator, if you like.

Testing the LED with pink noise, we found it lit dimly when subjected to around 25 watts. Fine, but the LED only senses in one direction, and without a definite threshold, and with a variety of ambient light levels colouring our judgement as to whether the LED is bright or only dimly lit, it can never offer more than a rough confirmation that we're approaching the driver's PHC (power handling capacity) limits. In particular, the LED is barely visible in a sunlit room, or one with bright spot lamps.

To sum up, the LED certainly shouldn't be regarded in lieu of accurate power amp overload and/or power metering, which is far more to the point. But let's assume that you own a pair of David's. With careful inspection, you'll discover that the LED is simply pushed into a 2 pin socket. This means you can easily plug in (but check polarity!) an LED of your own choosing. Possible improvements include changing red for a more prominent green or yellow say; or better still, try a transparent, high-intensity LED if you want to make overload conditions more apparent in brightly lit conditions.

On the back panel, we found quick-connect terminals flush with the panel. These grip the wires over a small area only, and this made it difficult to achieve a reliable contact with some tails (wire ends). Solution: twist wires neatly and tightly, and keep the insulation well away from the clamping bar, or dress the tails with crimp-on pins.

The 6000's average impedance is just under 6 ohms, but it drops to below 4 ohms around the crossover point in the high mid. To avoid crunch up on vocals, this means you must partner the Visoniks with an amp capable of driving into 3 ohms or below. Of course, this figure can be relaxed somewhat with a high power amp (say over 300 watts), because you're unlikely to trip the protection at the sort of levels the 6000 is capable of handling.

Mounting is limited. There's an airtight hook-hole on the back, great for hanging the 6000's against the wall on a woodscrew, but not much else. For console mounting on the meter bridge, say, I'd use a strip of Velcro. The 6000 would compete more favourably if it had a threaded insert on its bottom. It could then benefit from the range of ball'n'socket heads, stands and G-clamps made available for certain other mini-monitors (such as Bose).

Sounds

As anticipated, the 6000 is strong on stereo imaging, and although this is restricted to the main stage (ie. no 'behind your back' tricks!) the depth and breadth is commendable and these speakers are candidates for the creative stereophile.

Integration is excellent, principally because the tiny bass/mid driver encourages an intimate relationship with the tweeter. Amplitude response, to use the full term, is both a strength and a (stylised) weakness. The first impression is of immense vitality. This is a consequence of the extended top-end (contrasted with a weak bass-end) and a prominent upper-mid. Altogether, these facets make vocals, some percussion instruments, and horns in particular seem larger than life. On a wholly positive note, this is achieved without the sound becoming clinical, hard or cold; the same cannot be said for many speakers with the same general response curve tilt.

In general, sound reproduction is articulate, but there's some very audible distortion present across the band even when the units are driven well below the rated short-term PHC, 60 watts. This, together with the high-end prominence will lead to ear fatigue, and in turn, this is a good reason for skipping these speakers for any long-term monitoring duties. In other words, they're best suited to short playback comparisons. Meanwhile, for mix-down, the impressive 'larger than life sound' could be a hindrance if this is your desired end result; "let a more neutral monitor be advised".

The Visonik's power rating isn't as conservative as some we've found in the past, but it's certainly not inaccurate either. When pushed, distortion accumulates more rapidly than compression per se, and the quoted 60 watt rating is about right. You should certainly avoid driving these speakers in excess of 100 watts. But a large amp can be used with aplomb, provided it's turned down. A model with accurate peak power metering, either LED or 'swing needles' will prove helpful in this instance. The bass driver's cone limits are signalled with a dull 'Thud', and, as is to be expected with a 3" driver, bass end overload will more often than not preclude driving up to the rated power.

For such a small speaker, the sensitivity seems remarkably high, but it's mostly a subjective impression brought on by the bright sound (viz. high mid prominence, where our hearing's most acute) and the high incidence of intermodulation distortion products. There's nothing wrong with this, so long as you're aware that this sort of 'sensitivity' can have fatiguing repercussions, and makes hearing damage more likely. Here I must emphasise that the same applies to any loud and coloured speaker, and the moral is not to hesitate to rest your ears as soon as they ache or begin to buzz.

Conclusion

The Visonik David 6000 should be investigated if you're concerned with getting very close to the mid, top-end and spatial performance of a standard (ie. full size) 2-way domestic Hi-fi speaker in the smallest possible enclosure. Bar this, remember that you can buy a full size speaker (eg. models from Tannoy, B&W etc) for only £10 or £20 extra. I'll leave you to make the decision!

A pair of Visonik 6000 speakers retail for £117.30 inc VAT.

More details from Uher Sales & Services Ltd., (Contact Details).