Bandor Loudspeakers is a company based in rural England specializing in the manufacture of high quality drive-units.  The drive-units are designed for top-range hi-fi systems where life-like music is the primary objective.  The cones are precession spun from a special aluminium alloy and anodised giving a unique blend of properties.  These properties along with high quality music output give the driver a very stable base for a wide range of applications from large concert halls and theatres to home hi-fi.

BANDOR TRIDENT II - Latest Review

"HOLISTIC TRANSPARENCY AND DELICACY IS UNMATCHED IN THIS GROUP TEST."

Bandor, run by Doreen Jordan, is a small but long established company that has long pioneered the use of small, full-range metal cone drivers. These are often found in multiple arrays from other specialist speaker builders, but the company makes its own packages too, amongst them this pretty little Trident II. Simplicity is the keynote with this all-passive (unpowered) three-box combo. The base price with most of the system painted black is £775.50, though real wood fans can add an extra £60 for their favourite surface. The satellites are small cuboid affairs, each fitted with one of Bandor's familiar gilt-finish two-inch aluminium drivers, plus a pair of three-way terminals. A slight tilt to the front panel will spread internal standing waves, and also provides flexibility in directing the drive unit towards listeners. The subwoofer looks quite small, 30cm in section but 46cm tall, and cleverly styled so it makes a realistic occasional table, the inset glass top ensuring you won't get coffee mug rings embedded into the surface. Neither drive unit nor port can be seen as the solitary driver is hidden inside the box, and the sound output comes from a port in the recessed base. This is known as a 'bandpass' arrangement, in which the internal driver is loaded on one side by a small sealed box, and on the other by a reflex-ported enclosure. Such an arrangement requires no low pass crossover to roll off the higher frequencies, as this is done acoustically.

The subwoofer sides are shaped to provide little feet at each corner, and these keep the port and terminals clear of the ground. The hidden drive unit is unusual, indeed controversial, incorporating separate voice coils for each channel, and therefore creates what is effectively a summed monophonic bass. This is no problem when both channels are carrying the same signal, but left/right differences will presumably lead to one amplifier channel 'fighting' the other.

One might argue that there's limited flexibility here compared to packages with active (powered) subwoofers, but in hi-fi simplicity is its own reward, and there's absolutely nothing here to mar the purity of the signal feeding the drive units.

Sound Quality
You do have to treat the Trident II with a certain amount of caution. This is not the speaker system for those who like their music loud and heavy, but if that's not a problem, there are some very real strengths, with a clearly superior overall sub/sat homogeneity.

Take care to sit directly on the satellite axes, or you'll lose out on the treble - the reward is considerable musical delicacy, precise focus and well developed stereo images with impressive depth perspectives.

Although dynamic expression is a little muted, the simplicity of this speaker system results in fine timing and convincing coherence, especially through the crossover-less voice band. There's a touch of pinched nasality here, and the bass end also sounds a little imprecise, but it integrates well and adds plenty of weight.

Conclusion
Loudness is limited, it's hardly inexpensive, and the twin voice-coil bass driver approach remains controversial, but the bottom line is the homogeneous coherence of this intriguing speaker system. Despite reservations over the bass, the Trident II's holistic transparency and delicacy is unmatched in this group test.