Reviewing the NOLA Baby Grand Reference loudspeakers might seem like déjà vu -- after all, I visited Dr. Vinyl in 2023 and spent the entire weekend, three all-day marathons, evaluating these very loudspeakers. But that was intended to be a prologue to an actual formal review, and I've been working with Dr. Vinyl and Carl and Marilyn Marchisotto to get them to my house. Sorting out the logistics has been difficult, and that's why we all decided I would return to Maryland, and spend enough time with the Baby Grands until I felt I had a handle on their true personalities.

I wasn't sold on the idea at first. I still remember, with a proper measure of disdain, a certain defunct audio website that would send its reviewers to high-end audio shows and dealer events to cover product introductions, and the very next day there'd be a review online, touting WORLD'S FIRST REVIEW. I always thought that was cheesy and amateurish. But there are a handful of cogent reasons why I flew across the country to spend some more time with the NOLA Baby Grand Reference speakers and conduct a formal review.

   

First, I was assured by many of my colleagues that this is becoming a more common practice, especially with big, heavy or expensive products. If your business involves domestic shipping, you'll know the sad condition of that industry ever since the pandemic, or maybe long before. While Carl was more than happy to pay for the considerable cost to ship the Baby Grands, I'd still have to get these beasts from the nearest big town to my secluded home -- remember, the last 1.5 miles to my front door is a dirt road that requires all-wheel drive throughout the year. I'd hate to have the Marchisottos spend considerable time and resources to ship a pair of $150,000/pr loudspeakers to me and have something bad happen to them along the way.

Second, my listening room renovation this summer has become more comprehensive as well as downright problematic. Leveling the listening room floor was a major priority for me, and that required work on the foundation. The work on the foundation revealed a carpenter ant infestation, and then the fireplace was deemed unsafe and removed -- which required the removal of an entire wall. Finally, in an unrelated incident, the septic tank decided to retire for good. So I had to skip town. That's why I spent the month of September attending the Pacific Audio Fest, then flying to New Jersey to attend the GTT Audio event, and then heading to Pennsylvania to cover the Acoustical Systems event at The Voice That Is, and then driving to Virginia to visit the Fern and Roby factory. In the spaces in between, I listened to the NOLA Baby Grand Reference loudspeakers, and with every minute of listening I felt the tension from all the travel drain from my body.

Inside the NOLA Baby Grand Reference Loudspeakers

The moniker "Baby Grand Reference" has perplexed a few audiophiles that crossed my path while I listened to these loudspeakers. You look at them, and they look every bit the NOLA flagship. (They are 67″ tall and weigh a relatively sane 200 lbs. per side.) But as Carl is quick to point out, there are two larger models in the NOLA line -- the four-tower Grand Reference VII Gold and the Concert Grand Reference VI Gold. That's where Baby Grand terminology comes in. A Baby Grand piano, of course, is a Grand Piano on a slightly smaller scale -- but it still looks pretty much the same when it's alone in a room without the larger sibling. But the Baby Grand Reference is a big, tall loudspeaker with many drivers, and the open baffle on top can make it seem ever taller. That has been an important consideration every time I've listened to them -- it's important to have a larger listening room so that you can scoot further away from the speakers so that the sound integrates perfectly from top to bottom. Sit too close to the Baby Grands and you'll have the impression that the music is coming from slightly different directions -- and not in a good "pinpoint imaging" way.

The NOLA Baby Grand Reference Gold 3 utilizes the new crossover technology used in those two larger models, with three 3½-way, hand-wired Unison crossovers that are created from the latest exotic passive components. For maximum quality, no PC boards are used in the crossovers. The open baffle top section exposes the backs of four new midrange drivers, which employ massive Alnico ring magnets which are said to provide a "lifelike attack" and improved transient response as well as a more dynamic presentation. The midrange drivers now use the same gold-plated phase plugs as the bass drivers. They cover the frequencies between 400 and 3500 Hz.

The two 220m bass drivers are also new. As explained on the NOLA website:

"These magnesium cone bass drivers are driven by massive Alnico ring magnets for lowest distortion and improved clarity over the whole range. These two bass drivers incorporate gold-plated solid copper phase plugs — the soft 24K gold plating damps the copper plug to eliminate any vestige of coloration from these drivers. These bass drivers are now twin ported to the rear in separate chambers, to provide deeper, smoother bass with improved dynamics. A 25% increase in lower chamber volume from 40L to 50 L results in an even more "open" bass reproduction."

Finally, each NOLA Baby Grand Reference sports four "true ribbon" tweeters from RAAL that can extend to 100kHz. No, that's not a typo. My longtime reference monitors, the custom-made Serhan/Swift BA2s, use RAAL ribbon tweeters that can extend up to 100kHz. The first time I heard that figure, I asked why that was necessary. The answer, of course, is complex, and it has a lot to do with frequencies that are no longer audible to humans still having an effect on the frequencies we can hear. As Carl says, these tweeters can capture "an increased sense of reality from recordings." In addition, Carl explains that "This is a proprietary version [of the RAAL] and we also build part of it at NOLA."

The NOLA Baby Grand Reference Gold 3 loudspeakers, despite their enormous size, are relatively easy to drive. Sensitivity is rated at 91 dB with a nominal 8 ohm impedance. While the Thrax Audio amps in the system had plenty of tube power on tap, Dr. Vinyl has paired the NOLAs with a wide variety of amps, including a couple of tube amps that definitely qualified as "low-powered." But here's the number you've been waiting for -- the Baby Grands do get down to 20 Hz. That's a total frequency response of 20Hz-100kHz, and I'm not sure if I've seen/heard a transducer with a wider response.

      

Set-Up

The NOLA Baby Grand Reference Gold 3 loudspeakers were placed in a very different system than last time I visited Dr. Vinyl. Thrax Audio dominated the electronics side, with the $97,500 Thrax Spartacus 300B monoblock amplifiers squeezing 50wpc from six 300B tubes per channel, accompanied by the $27,500 Thrax Dionysos preamplifier, and the $38,500 Thrax Maximinus MK II DAC. The music server was the 432 Evo Aeon ($8,000).

The analog rig included the new Pear Audio Blue Aras turntable ($14,000, review hopefully forthcoming), the Integrity Hifi Tru-glider 5.5 brass tonearm ($9,400, review currently underway), the DS Audio Grandmaster EX optical phono cartridge ($22,500) and the DS Audio W3 phono stage EQ ($10,000).

Cabling included Albedo Metamorphosis MK II Monocrystal speaker cables (3m- $21,500), Albedo Monolith Monocrystal RCA interconnects (2m -- $2,350), Albedo Metamorphosis MK II Reference XLR interconnects (2m -- $10,000) and Albedo Gravity II Monocrystal 2m power cables at $9,250 each. CAD supplied their fabulous USB cable, the same one I use at home, along with a bank of Ground Control GC1.1 earthing boxes. Finally, the system was routed through a Torus RM Series power conditioner ($1,999). This system stayed intact throughout the testing period.

NOLA Baby Grand Sound

The first three days I spent with the NOLA Baby Grand Reference, back in 2023, I didn't have a clear grasp of what they were doing within the context of the system. We made a few changes in amplification along the way, and our musical selections could best be described as "deliriously eclectic." That made the Baby Grands sound different each time we played a track. It didn't make a Baby Grand-sized imprint on everything it produced. It played each piece of music as intended. That led me, on my first encounter, to declare the NOLAs as neutral. Or, as Dr. Vinyl stated, "they play everything I throw at them, and they make it sound like music." If you're a seasoned audiophile, you'll know there's plenty of subtext to that statement.

Here's Carl's take on the same point:

"One of our goals is to be sure the new design reveals the emotional aspect of the music. This requires listening as I know of no way to measure it. We do want our speakers to be neutral so that you hear the music instead of the speaker -- yet without compromising the dynamics of 'live music.'"

Here's my initial impression of the sound of the NOLA Baby Grands from my first round of listening sessions back in 2023:

"What I found most intriguing about the Nola Baby Grand Reference Gold 3 was its ability to melt into the music and not dominate the system -- like most six-figure loudspeaker systems do. The Baby Grands are able to step back and let you listen to what the amplifiers and the sources are doing."

I still largely agree with this assessment. The Baby Grands are masters of disguise, and it's not always obvious what they can do when they're always in complete service to the music. A recording consisting of unamplified solo instruments will stay a recording of unamplified solo instruments, retaining all of the intimacy and focus of the original performance. Then you can switch it up and put on something big, something that makes you leap out of your seat, startled, with your heart racing. If you want deep bass, it's obviously there -- I heard superb renderings of the deepest synthesizer notes during the title track of Radiohead's Kid A, and that soft drum thwack on "Yulunga" from Dead Can Dance's Into the Labyrinth, my usual low frequency tests. The NOLAs dug deep into those subtle textures and pulled out a wealth of musical information that was based in materials science -- the sound of wood striking a loose drum head, the bouncing sounds I hear on their return from the rear and side walls, the sensation of low frequencies pushing your sternum back into the listening chair.

On the other end of the spectrum, the NOLA Baby Grand reference speakers sound incredibly light and extended. You'd expect no less from an open baffle speaker, of course. There's a simple way to investigate this -- simply affix the small window-like grilles that cover up the open baffle and the Baby Grands will sound like a more…well, ordinary speaker when it comes to high frequency performance.

It's tough to characterize a sound that is doing what it's supposed to do. Neutral transducers such as the NOLAs can remind a reviewer that when it comes to attaching fancy descriptors to the sound, it's usually due to a marked departure from absolute neutrality. I don't want to exit the "sound" portion of this review by stating "the NOLA does everything it's supposed to do." But it does. As I spend seat time with so-called ultra hi-fi, I have to be honest about the ultimate goal. The NOLA Baby Grand Reference stays out of the way of the music, even more than most other six-figure loudspeakers. That's exactly what audiophiles need when they spend this much money.

Listening Sessions

Here's an important lesson for novice audiophiles -- never try to listen to a high-end audio system right after you hop off an airplane. We went straight from BWI to Dr. Vinyl's house and started listening to the NOLA Baby Grand speakers, and my first thought was uh-oh. The sound was two-dimensional and the antithesis of dynamic. I knew the problem wasn't the speakers because I have heard them on three separate occasions, and they never sounded like this. Was it the Thrax Audio amplification? Did the system need more break-in? Or was it just me?

Yep, it was all in my head. After a few frustrating hours of listening, the clouds started to break up and by Day Two I knew we were back on track with the review.

The first time I listened to the NOLA Baby Grands, I was surprised at just how neutral and passive they seemed. I was hearing just the music, and I couldn't assign specific words to describe my experience with them. That sensation returned, by it was tempered with additional experience. In a little over a week, I've heard several outstanding high-end audio systems that featured loudspeakers such as the Vivid Audio Moya M1s, the TIDAL Audio Piano G3s, and now the Baby Grands. (I'm not even counting all the great systems I heard at the Pacific Audio Fest.) All of these systems had one thing in common.

The speakers were all designed to stay out of the way of the music, not enhance it.

I could talk about specific tracks we played during the second weekend, but when Dr. Vinyl and I get together, the musical choices tend to be spontaneous and unexpected. It's like telling jokes to a bunch of friends -- they tell a joke, which reminds you of a joke, which reminds them of another joke. After three days of this, from morning until late at night (Dr. Vinyl is more of a night owl than I am), we played everything we could think of, all of our favorite demo tracks, weird stuff designed to test the open-mindedness of the other person and more.

Finally, I made Dr. Vinyl sit through Double Nickles on the Dime from the Minutemen from beginning to end, all 45 songs that last between one and two minutes each -- which is quite the undertaking for someone who didn't grow up in the early '80s punk scene in LA as I did. I've always found my original SST LP to be quite live and realistic for an indie punk label, and streaming this monumental album is somewhat compromised in comparison. (Where's my 37 second cover of Van Halen's "Ain't Talkin' About Love"?) With the Dr. Vinyl system, however, I could feel the emotion behind D. Boon's familiar voice, how he wasn't just reciting his intriguing and somewhat political poetry. D's guitar should also sound like what it is -- a guitar with little or no effects, just a guitar and an amp playing it straight. I also heard deeper into George Hurley's awesome drum fills, pleasingly sloppy and quick, and of course Mike Watt's always musical and complex bass lines.

Am I the only high-end audio reviewer to use Double Nickels as a sonic reference, especially a $150,000 pair of loudspeakers? Perhaps, but that is an oversimplification. The NOLA Baby Grands inspired me to be adventurous, to listen to everything whether it the sound quality is stellar or not. What were those SST record engineers hearing in that studio way back in 1984? This, I think. This right here. It's raw and real, this jam econo, and it was the most exciting playing of this album since I first heard it 40 years ago.

NOLA Baby Grand Conclusions

There's a quiet undercurrent in this review, and it's all about recognizing Carl Marchisotto's work in the world of loudspeakers. The NOLA Baby Grand isn't Carl's flagship, hence the name "Baby" in the title, but it's the speaker that should cement his status in the pantheon of great speaker designers. These loudspeakers are big in stature, but they aren't flashy or overbearing when it comes to sound. The Baby Grands accomplish greatness by NOT drawing attention to themselves every moment there's music playing -- they are in complete service to the music, all music, whether it is loud or soft or big or small or electric or acoustic.

Are the Marchisottos and their speaker designs still relevant in 2024? When I first met them a few years ago at a high-end audio show and agreed to a review of their Champ3 loudspeakers, it did feel like the proverbial blast from the past, and I was honored to meet them. But ever since that review I've had countless NOLA fans thank me for recognizing these durable and reliable products. Now is the time to remember that Carl and Marilyn Marchisotto are still out there, making their best speakers yet.