Swiss-made audiophile gear is all the rage these days, especially in the world of electronics. However, speakers from Switzerland are equally as sought after as amps, preamps and digital components. These days, Stenheim is at the top of the list of Swiss-made loudspeakers that appeal to the uber-audiophile crowd, and for good reason. These all-aluminum speakers have the most solid, resonance-free loudspeaker cabinets that I’ve ever experienced at any price, along with an open yet dynamic sound, paired with a very subtle design language that will appeal to art lovers and luxury-goods consumers, as much as they make audiophiles drool in fits of sonic lust.
Have you ever heard the term Bauhaus? It is a school of German art that is steeped in architecture, but also has deep ties into the fine arts community (think: Paul Klee, Piet Mondrian and many others) dating back to the 1920s and 1930s for its start. There are Bauhaus-designed furnishings as well as buildings. Now there are Bauhaus-inspired loudspeakers from Stenheim. They take this architecture-inspired theme and deliver its structured good looks to an audiophile loudspeaker in a way that drips in artistic style. If you’ve ever watched Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, her show’s design themes are not so creatively borrowed from Mondrian. Stenheim will add carefully placed and colored stripes on their speakers (mine didn’t have this, but others at Munich and elsewhere did) that are very subtle and very unique in terms of the overall industrial design of a mostly rectangular speaker.
The Stenheim Alumine Two.Five is a small form factor, $23,500 per pair audiophile loudspeaker, designed to fit into some challenging physical environments. The build quality of the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five takes what I like about Magicos (incredibly ridged, Erector Set-type internal frames) and builds on that. While physically distinctively rectangular, the speakers are anything but boxy-sounding. They are beyond easy to drive and output tremendous dynamics from the first note played. Could these be your next big-time audiophile speakers for your system? Let’s learn more …
What Makes the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five Special?
- I wear a Swiss watch (Frank Muller AKA “The Master of Complications”) and aspire to someday own a Patek Phillipe 3919 in white gold. The movement of these watches, specifically the Patek, is legendary, and they speak to the first concept that makes the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five so special, which is beyond-impressive build quality, paired with exquisite attention to detail. The Stenheim Alumine Two.Five is built to physical standards that border on the absurd. The cabinets are made from thick sheets of aluminum that make these low-profile speakers produce bass that others close in size couldn’t dream of providing.
- The driver configuration of the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five consists of two 6.5-inch woofers and a one-inch soft dome tweeter with a front port. This isn’t revolutionary but, when paired with such a robust cabinet, you get magic, especially in the low end.
- The Stenheim Alumine Two.Five speakers are rated at 93 dB efficiency. They can be driven with anything from a flea-watt single-ended triode tube amp to a pure Class-A amp, like my Pass Labs XA-25. For small or auxiliary room applications, today’s all-in-one integrated amps (think: NAD Master Series or the Cambridge Audio EVO 150 DeLorean Edition) would make for sublime performance and even more sexy system simplicity.
- The Stenheim Alumine Two.Five are 100 pounds each. That’s insane when you consider that they are only 37.2 inches tall, nine inches wide and 10.8 inches deep.
- The bass performance from a small speaker is likely going to be beyond your expectations.The reported performance of the speakers is 35 Hz, which is pretty low. Would they benefit from a subwoofer? Yes, but so would bigger and even more expensive speakers in this class or category.
- The warranty on the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five is five years, which is generous.
- There are some nice stock colors for the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five speakers, including Metallic Light Grey as I reviewed. Other stock colors include All Black (front and sides). Custom colors include Ivory and Mocha. I am sure if you wanted the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five in Bugatti Blue or Fly Yellow (a PPG color for Lamborghinis) that Stenheim will get it done for you. It might take some time and cost you a few bucks, but this is an ultra-premium speaker product that we are talking about.
- The front port on the Stenheim Alumine Two.Fives makes them easy to place in a room, and they don’t load up the corners of your room the way that rear-ported speakers often can. Getting the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five to image is easy, too. I used almost no toe-in and they made a wide image, extending well outside the physical boundaries of the speakers.
Why Should You Care About the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five Speakers?
Have you ever seen some of those consumer audiophile system installation photos from Japan? The systems are badass in terms of the gear that is used, but often the rooms are so-so-so small that the idea of shoe-horning $750,000 Wilson reference speakers into a listening room that is less than 200 square feet sort of makes such a lofty audiophile system into, in effect, a pair of headphones or at least a nearfield listening experience.
The diminutive size of the Stenheim Alumine Two.Fives allows them to thrive in a smaller space, even for very demanding listeners. If you’ve got more money and more space, Stenheim makes more grandiose speakers, but that’s not the draw of the Stenheim Alumine Two.Fives. Their slim and short form factor and their no-compromise audiophile performance is what separates them from the other strong competition in the $20,000 to $30,000 speaker category.
Some Things You May Not Like About the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five Speakers…
- While solid on their feet, the Stenheim Alumine Two.Fives are not as stable (even with the feet installed) as my reference Bowers & Wilkins 802 D4 speakers (read the review) at $28,000. The Bowers & Wilkins speakers have not just a base or plinth on the bottom. but they come with feet, as well as outriggers that meet EU standards for tip-over. With that said, my 802 D4s are still inelegantly strapped to the wall by my professional baby proofer, which looks awful, but provides even more protection for my two-year-old.
- While in development now, the Stenheim Alumine Two.Fives don’t come with grilles. I reviewed Tekton Design speakers that were the same size (nowhere close in terms of price and especially performance), and they too have no grilles, because their designer just doesn’t like to make them. The Stenheim Alumine Two.Fives look cool with no grilles, but I can see my son Giovanni driving a Lighting McQueen car over the one-inch soft dome tweeter and destroying it.
Listening to the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five Audiophile Loudspeakers…
You gotta give Queen B some credit for doing a cover of a tricky Beatles song in “Blackbird.” The recording from Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter album should be on your short list to check out as a a great demo. This track isn’t shy on overdubbed vocals and, on the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five speakers, you get to hear these wonderful musical layers in ways that are just striking. Beyonce’s voice is iconic. The recording is what you get with a cost-no-object recording budget in 2023-24, and that is a very good thing. With the Stenheim Alumine Two.Fives playing, you never get any harshness or annoying sibilance. These speakers image like few others on this track with a laser focus. The slight percussive element (a pick tapping on an acoustic guitar, I would guess) has an amazing level of detail on the Stenheim Alumine Two.Fives.
Dating back to my last publications that I sold right before the pandemic, I have made it clear that, if your audiophile speakers can’t play Jimi Hendrix in a way that gives you the chills, your speakers might just suck. For $23,500, allow me to report the news that the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five speakers deliver on The Jimi Standard – and in spades. While I love the three progressively better studio albums from The Jimi Hendrix Experience, I like the live recording of (the) Band of Gypsies best for audiophile purposes. “Who Knows,” the opening track from this all-star band’s live performance at The Filmore East is a specific example from January 1, 1970. On the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five speakers, the recording sounds anything but dated, but what is so fantastic is, when Jimi lays into his Strat, with the distortion giving his thick strings (his huge and ultra-strong hands allowed him to play thicker strings that gave him a very unique sound that few others ever have achieved) that is just, as the kids say, pure fire. The call-and-response vocals extend, in terms of imaging, well beyond the width of the speaker by many feet. The subtle burn of Hendrix’s first solo at around 1:45 in the track has immense space in it, with a funky-rhythmic outro that is pure ear candy. Even at very high (think: concert) levels, the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five speakers simply deliver a musical experience capable of lining your arms with goosebumps.
Do you like music in HD? I know I sure do and Buena Vista Social Club is a stunningly fantastic, RIAA-certified platinum recording that is amazingly now 25 years old. This Grammy-winning recording is an acoustical gem, with perhaps the best Cuban musicians that have ever lived playing jam after jam. The track “Dos Gardinias” has some striking moments. The muted horns have a three-dimensionality and bite that you will only hear when played back on the best speakers the world has to offer. Normally, that level of that musical energy is reserved for the live experience. The Stenheim Alumine Two.Five speakers allow you to close your eyes and musically travel to exotic places, which is their true superpower. I’ve never been to Cuba, but I feel like I have after having the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five speakers in my listening room for a few weeks.
I found myself spending a lot of time getting deep into some of my favorite music with the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five speakers installed in my reference audiophile system. “Echoes” from Pink Floyd’s Meddle was an epic 20-plus-minute jam, but “When The Music Is Over” from Strange Days by The Doors was what really caught my attention. The swings in terms of the dynamic window from quiet to full musical rage was what was most impressive with the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five speakers in play. Robby Krieger is a golf buddy of mine and member at the same local golf club. His solo is way out there on this track and, when it really kicks in, you can hear the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five speakers open up like giving the gas to a growling V12 Ferrari on a lonely, open stretch of California desert highway. Jim Morrison’s voice has a raspy and sexy sound and, when he yelps at the top of his lungs as he will do on this track, the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five speakers just laugh at the challenge. When the music is actually over (about 11 minutes later), you are left with your jaw on the floor when you consider how sucked into the musical experience these Stenheim speakers can take you.
Do the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five Loudspeakers Have Any Resale Value?
I would call this question a stupid one, but I am the one who wrote it in the first place. Of course, one of the world’s most high-performance and lauded speakers will have good resale value over time, because there are tens of thousands of possible buyers for a speaker this resolute, this detailed and this dynamic. They are a reasonable value at $23,500 but, with a little money off on the used market (good luck finding a pair before somebody else snatches them up), they’re just too tempting to resist for so many audiophiles with good taste in top-performing speakers.
What Is the Competition for the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five Speakers?
My reference speakers these days are Bowers & Wilkins 802 D4s, which are larger than the Stenheim Alumine Two.Fives by a good margin and more expensive. At $20,000 per pair, the Bowers & Wilkins 804 D4s are a more on-point comparison. I like the custom colors and organic shapes of the Bowers & Wilkins speakers better than the Bauhaus look of the Stenheims, but that is a fully personal take on aesthetics. Sonically, the Bowers have the same type of open sound that is really engaging. Their 800 Series Diamond tweeter is a design tour de force, and the overall sound of the 800 Series of their speakers are less harsh than previous versions. Both the Stenheim Alumine Two.Fives and the Bowers & Wilkins 804 D4s are open-sounding, dynamic and engaging. I loved the punchy bass on the Stenheims in comparison. Both speakers would benefit from a subwoofer, but neither “needs” it per se – I just like having the lowest of low notes covered, and the cost to do that well is relatively low in comparison to either loudspeaker.
Magico’s A3 speakers at $15,400 are a good comparison for the Stenheim Alumine Two.Fives. They are also made of aluminum and come with a world-class cabinet. The Magicos have comparable (perhaps the Stenheims are a small increment better) dynamics. The Magico A3s are significantly less money overall, but also are a small form factor, which makes them even more comparable. Some people say Magicos sound “dark,” but I don’t hear that. Both the Stenheims and the A-Series Magicos sound open and dynamic to me, with no real coloration. I am sensitive to speakers imparting their own sound, and I don’t dig that. Neither of these transducers do that much at all, which is good.
Estelon Aura Speakers at $19,900 per pair are reportedly coming to my home in two weeks after T.H.E. Show in Orange County, California, a few weeks from now. These speakers are strikingly modern, but not visually off-putting like the Vivid Audio gear (great-sounding speakers from the former head designer at Bowers & Wilkins, but they look a little too much like Teletubbies – especially in colors). These thin audiophile speakers fit into difficult spaces better than most because of their model-like skinny-and-tall industrial design. They image perhaps even better than the Stenheims, and that is really saying something. I like the base and spike system on the Estelons, too, as well as the staggeringly beautiful colors that they paint these speakers. I’ll have more thoughts on these speakers for you soon.
Final Thoughts on the Stenheim Alumine Two.Five Loudspeakers…
One thing that is nice about white truffles from Italy is that, at $8,000 a pound, you don’t need a lot of them to get the most exotic and tasty flavor on top of your pasta, pizza or cornflakes (don’t knock it until you’ve tried it). The Stenheim Alumine Two.Fives remind me of white truffles, not because they are seasonal or exceedingly rare, but more that they pack a whole lot of flavor (or musical performance, in this case) into a small package.
You can absolutely find bigger and more dynamic speakers for less money than the Stenheim Alumine Two.Fives. What you can’t find is more evolved musical resolution when it comes to your loudspeakers playing back your favorite music. If you want a window on your musical world that is punchy, powerful, resolute and truly engaging – then you need to find yourself a Stenheim dealer. There are more and more of them these days but, take it from me, this is an audiophile experience that you must have if you are in the market for $20,000-ish, small format speakers. The Stenheim Alumine Two.Fives are audiophile gems. They might not be bigger than life, but they deliver at each and every level that a speaker possibly can at this price. I am getting sad just thinking of loading them into their (factory optional) road cases, as if my favorite band is done playing and now heading to another city to rock out for other fans. They are worthy of being missed.
