This article creates a new genre at LowBeats: the on-site listening test. With these articles we want to gain an assessment of particularly expensive (or heavy) components that we don’t bring into our listening room – precisely because they are too expensive, too heavy or both – but which are nevertheless definitely worth making an assessment of. To make this assessment, we travel to places where these exceptional products are located and – if we are convinced of their reliability – we rely on measurements taken by the manufacturer or supplier. Our first report of this kind took us to Essen, to one of the best listening rooms in Germany, where the now production-ready Peak Consult Dragon Legacy played almost intoxicatingly well under optimum conditions.
Three figures make it clear why the Prophet had to move to the mountain called Dragon Legacy in this case: overall height: 1.72 meters, weight per unit 225 kilos, pair price 185,000 euros. Now we at LowBeats are by no means of the opinion that weight and price per se make an interesting sound transducer. But there are three highly interesting people behind Peak Consult. Firstly, there is Peak founder Per Kristofferson, who has been building fantastically crafted loudspeakers with armored cabinet-like enclosures since the 1990s and whose highly acclaimed model called the Dragon Legend (300 kilos) significantly increased the pulse rate of audiophiles.
And then there’s Wilfried Ehrenholz, co-founder and decades-long head of Dynaudio and thus a driving force in the industry. Dynaudio has set the standard for the best (proprietary) driver technology over all these years and the loudspeakers have almost always shown a homogeneity that has rarely been so successful. After the sale of Dynaudio, Ehrenholz actually wanted to retire, but he didn’t succeed. So he bought Peak Audio from Kristofferson, changed the name to Peak Consult and now wants to realize his sonic ideas even more consistently on a smaller but even higher level.
Karl-Heinz Fink is to help him with this. Fink has a fully equipped development office with a number of specialists on board, but is also considered to be one of the most experienced developers of loudspeakers in the world and works for well-known brands around the globe. Now also for Peak Consult. His job was to analyze the existing models (Sonora, Sinfonia, Diabolo) and revise them once again – which, by the way, he did excellently in the case of the Sonora – see test.
Peak Consult Dragon Legacy: the technology
But this order did not apply to the Dragon Legend (no longer built). The Peak flagship somehow stood on its own and was not redesigned. Although certain similarities in design (symmetrical configuration) and appearance cannot be denied, the new (and smaller) Legacy was completely rethought. And that meant above all: new drivers and a corresponding tuning via the crossover. In the interview, Ehrenholz was particularly impressed by the differences between the various component qualities: “We use capacitors and resistors in the Dragon Legacy, which would have made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up in the past – they are that expensive. But once you’ve heard it, there’s no other way: you have to use them.” And Fink adds: “And expensive is by no means better. You just have to listen to them all.” That sounds like a lot of long listening. Both nod desperately, but somehow also very satisfied…
The individual crossover sections are mounted on sturdy boards and sit in sealed individual chambers that shield the components from the sound pressure inside the speaker. And they are completely embedded in the finest sand in the old-fashioned way. This measure, which is unusual today because it increases the weight enormously, reduces all possible microphonic effects to virtually zero and should ensure a constant temperature of the components even at maximum level.
Because the Dragon Legacy is symmetrically equipped, there are five drivers on each side, which are driven by the elaborate and carefully balanced crossovers. While Peak Audio previously sourced most of its drivers from Audio Technology, all of the Dragon Legacy’s tweeters, midrange and woofers come from Scan Speak. Ehrenholz: “The support the Danes offer us for these special drivers is incredible – with different drives, diaphragms and so on. Karl-Heinz always has a lot of ideas…”
Although the drivers appear quite conventional at first glance, they are absolutely state-of-the-art. Both Fink and the engineers at Scan Speak are masters in the development of drivers – of course you will find complex Klippel and laser analysis systems here as well as there. And above all, both sides know exactly what they are doing: in terms of low distortion, there could hardly be better. The woofer can be taken as an example here: What appears to be a normal paper cone is actually a complex and well-damped sandwich of paper and foam. And a heavy-duty voice coil with a diameter of 75 millimeters is also rather rare in this bass class and indicates far-reaching level possibilities.
Ehrenholz also deliberately chose the symmetrical arrangement for the Dragon Legacy: “We have also experimented a lot with such symmetrical arrangements at Dynaudio. My experience is that the room coupling simply works better with them.” He is certainly right. This is because the double design of the bass and mid-range speakers creates deliberate cancellations upwards and downwards – reflections from the floor and ceiling are reduced. And the double cone surface area has the nice side effect of 3 decibels more sound pressure. With its efficiency of 89 decibels (2.83 V/m), the Dragon Legacy is also comparatively undemanding in terms of the connected amplifier. During the listening tests, it was mainly used with the Soulnote A3, which is anything but a power giant.
The measurement protocols, which in this case come from the master himself, also show that the tuning here has been successful. But since I don’t know of a more credible source than this one, you can safely assume that everything here is correct down to a tenth of a decibel…
The housings…
…are already a show in themselves. Per Kristoffersen simply has a special knack for extra-sturdy enclosures and their perfect finish. Today, the Peak founder is in charge of production and ensures that his sometimes absurdly consistent housing ideals are meticulously implemented. More precisely: the side panels consist of three layers of HDF and MDF glued together, onto which a 14 mm thick layer of solid wood is then glued.
The angled front is covered in black artificial leather, behind which a baffle up to six centimeters thick is concealed. Generous chamfers on the side of the baffle reduce reflections, while the different distances between the woofer, midrange and tweeter modules ensure optimum phase behavior – the signals from the different drivers should reach the listener’s ear at the same time – so that impulses and spatiality are reproduced in the best possible way. And all of this is flawlessly realized and crafted in a way that is rarely seen. Just touching the work is a great pleasure.
And such consistently implemented details as the bi-wiring connection panel or the six (!) feet on which the face of the Legacy is distributed are also a pleasure. These little feet are pretty and more sophisticated than you might think: A threaded screw presses on a ceramic ball and thus provides a kind of decoupling. Ehrenholz: “Sometimes you can’t believe how big the differences are between metal and ceramic feet, for example. And the fact that you can even hear their influence in the weight and construction of the Dragon Legacy is beyond me. But it’s like this – audibly.”
The eavesdropping chain
I must first say a few words about the FinkTeam listening room. It was conceived and realized by one of the most ingenious room acousticians in Germany at the time: Uwe Kempe from W4, who sadly passed away far too early, actually created a real reference here. The listening room follows the golden ratio and is fitted with diffusors in all relevant places, which means that despite optimum damping it still sounds beautifully lively and therefore even better than our large LowBeats listening room… The room is large and you can hear in the width, so that lateral reflections only occur to a limited extent.
As mentioned above, most of the listening tests were conducted on Soulnote’s flagship A-3 – a fantastic integrated amplifier. We streamed from the Lumin U2 and converted from the Soulnote D-2, and when we got a hankering for analog, we fired up the Technics SP-10. Against the background of the Peak Consult superboxes, this was certainly not an exaggerated effort. And yet it sounded incredibly beautiful.
The listening impression…
…was simply stunning. I had already heard the Dragon Legacy at the HIGH END 2023 and thought it was pretty good. But their performance in the FinkTeam listening room topped the Munich experience by far. First of all, the bass: I have rarely heard such a firm and rich bass tone, even in difficult passages. After just a few minutes, I asked Fink to turn the volume control on the A-3 a little more generously. Fink had chosen a piece in which a huge Kodo drum is maltreated. Frightening. It was not only the explosive force of the beats that was frightening, but also how menacingly real and large the instrument seemed to stand in the room.
Which brings us to a second art of the Dragon Legacy: This unusually stable spatiality. Normally, speakers of this size tend to have problems with imaging; compact 2-way speakers are usually better in this respect. But the Legacy’s depth staggering was impressively accurate. It was also capable – if required – of painting very large sound images in the room that ended far above the baffle. On his latest work “Resonance”, the Swiss sound inventor Boris Blank (the creative head of Yello) manages to make individual sound events run almost under the ceiling. The Dragon Legacy was able to trace it. Only very few loudspeakers can match their accuracy in terms of presentation and, above all, at this level.
Or the exact opposite: if you need to be focused on the small details, it simply produces more compact images. In the Allan Taylor piece “I am Going Home” (Stockfisch SACD “The Road Well Travelled”), for example, she succeeded in more or less limiting all the action to the (sharply defined) guitar and the bard’s voice. Obviously, the phase behavior of this speaker is exemplary.
What also became clear with Allan Taylor: The Dragon Legacy can also be really beautiful. The voice of Allan Taylor had so much charm and timbre… We had already tested the Peak Consult and admired its elegance and subtlety in the mid-range. But the Dragon Legacy sounds even finer, livelier and – if necessary – much more powerful.
After many hours of analytical listening as to what makes this speaker so special, and whether all the effort put into it actually makes it stand out above most others (which it does), we eventually entered a phase of relaxed enjoyment where everyone was allowed to listen to their favorite tracks to their heart’s content.
That was a party! Everyone present testified that they had never heard this or that before and were looking forward to the next piece. Perhaps the special thing about this loudspeaker is that it operates with a high degree of naturalness, but predominantly with calm restraint. There are many super speakers that virtually overrun the listener with overpowering dynamics or incredible low bass. The Dragon Legacy can produce deep bass, can be brutally loud, but only calls on these qualities when it is really challenged. That’s what makes listening to her so pleasant.
Conclusion Peak Consult Dragon Legacy
In recent years, there has been a trend towards monstrous super loudspeakers that is difficult to understand, with alleged rocket technology and absurd expense to justify prices that cannot be justified at all. I had a pleasantly different impression of the Dragon Legacy. You can literally hear the experience of people who have spent a large part of their lives searching for the best sound – without spectacle.
The Dragon Legacy is a total work of art, built in the old-fashioned way and with extreme mechanics, which is undoubtedly one of the best-sounding transducers of its time. It is a loudspeaker that performs impressively large and dynamically with large orchestras and sounds like an outstandingly well-made 2-way design with small ensembles. I don’t know that from any other outstanding loudspeaker.
The usual assessments of quality in relation to price are out of the question for six-figure sums anyway. These are collector’s items, which at their best – like the Dragon Legacy – are beautifully crafted and sound absolutely superb. If the Dragon Legacy ever comes to a dealer near you, I urge you to go there. Because it doesn’t get much better than this at the moment.
| | Enormously fine, musically natural tuning, grandiose dynamics |
| | Amazingly realistic reproduction |
| | Electrically undemanding, suitable for any amplifier |
| | Outstanding housing quality |
Distribution:
Peak Consult,
Langelandsvej 12
DK-5500 Middelfart
www.peak-consult.dk
Price (manufacturer’s recommendation):
Peak Consult Dragon Legacy: 185,000 euros
Technical data
| Peak Consult Dragon Legacy | |
|---|---|
| Concept: | Passive 3-way floorstanding speaker, bass reflex |
| Fitting: | TT: 2 x 28 cm, MT: 2 x 15 cm, HT: 1 x 29 mm |
| Nominal impedance: | 4 Ohm |
| efficiency (2.83 V/m): | 89 dB |
| Special feature: | Sand-filled crossover chamber |
| Dimensions (W x H x D): | 172.0 x 40.0 x 58.5 cm |
| Weight: | 225.4 kilogram |
| All technical data | |
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