ProAc Studio 140

By Brent Burmester

June 2006

ProAc Studio 140 loudspeakers. $4695

ProAc Studio 140 loudspeakers (click for larger image)

The Studio 140s include twin 165mm woofers below a 25mm silk dome tweeter

They don't read the magazines at ProAc. The likelihood of this British manufacturer launching a plastic-moulded, day-glow green, active multimedia speaker retailing for under $200 is exactly zero. For ProAc, a loudspeaker is an expensive wood-veneered box for wiring to your amplifiers and gramophone, because high fidelity sound reproduction for the discerning music-lover is what it's all about. Long may it be so.

What you see

In this noble tradition, we have the Studio 140, a bi-wirable, floorstanding, two-and-a half-way speaker. Standing over a metre tall and weighing 20kg a piece, this big fella is a fine example of the ProAc ethos. Nominal impedance is rated at 8 ohms, with sensitivity at 91dB, so these won't frighten your amplifier. ProAc suggest you pair them with anything between 15 and 250 watts per channel, and the 100 watts I drove them with proved ample. Frequency response is cited at 25Hz at the bottom end – although that would be at minus many dB and with a tailwind – and up to 30kHz at the other, so SACD users will need to buy a set of super-tweeters to feel all the benefit of that format. I told you they don't read the magazines.

The tweeter is a new 25mm silk dome, while the midrange is delivered by one of two new 165mm coated-paper coned drivers. The second of these units augments the bass, and the down-firing reflex port in the speaker’s underside helps both out. They come in a handsome wood finish such as black ash, mahogany, cherry or maple, and feature long black grilles that need to be removed because (1) they are not acoustically transparent, despite what the brochure may claim, and (2) the speakers look the business when uncovered.

What you get

The Studio 140s immediately made themselves at home by exhibiting absolutely no bad-behaviour. I was worried about that down-firing port, but when it came to positioning them in my room, I've never encountered such a troublefree floorstander. The result was very even and impressively extended bass response, as attested by artists who place a great deal of emphasis on that sort of thing: Massive Attack, Leftfield, and Nils Petter Molvaer among them. However tuneful and timely the low end, I couldn't shake the impression that it lacked a little elasticity, the snap and twang that make bass lines wiggle and groove. Mind you, this foible was easily forgiven given how well bass was handled in other respects, and it might not be an issue to those able to bi-amp, or with more watts on tap.

Further up the 140s play with characteristic English neutrality, and have a winning way with voices, even male. Treble was very good, and rightly so, because an aggressive treble can total undermine a fine loudspeaker. I tried them with jazz, rock, and classical, and they came up trumps every time. Soundstaging was exemplary, and the 140s played with tremendous coherence, with a very strong sense of rightness about the sound they impart to each different style and performer. Where drama is needed, there it is, and where subtlety is demanded the Studio 140s sink to the occasion.

Dynamism is certainly no issue here – the 140s start and stop with great speed, and swing from loud to soft in an instant, remaining articulate at both extremes of the volume scale. These are speakers that welcome you into the music venue, rather than standing in the way like bouncers.

And if it's important to you, they play mighty loud too – my Plinius started sweating before they did. Home theatre fans will not be disappointed.

The Big Finish

I'm impressed by the Studio 140 – they never aggravated (and almost everything I review manages to annoy me at some point), and if they were only 99% of all I hoped for, I can't lay the blame at the feet of the speakers themselves – another amp, or even a different set of cables might have cured the very slight 'boing' deficit. Reviewing the 140 has whetted my appetite for ProAc's Studio 130, which is a very similar design with only one mid-bass driver.

But while I suspect ProAc's less ambitious speaker would be more me, it's the 140 that demands a verdict here. I strongly recommend you take a listen if you're thinking about similarly sized transducers from Naim, KEF, Linn or B&W. Given how accomplished they are, I'd rate them four and half stars out of five, if we did things like that around here.

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