If you have had dalliances with previous YG Acoustics loudspeakers, you may have come away with the feeling that getting the most out of them was something of a dark art. However, in 2020 the company announced an exclusive partnership with Cambridge Acoustic Sciences (CAS), supporting its technology development and product design. The idea was to leverage the latter's knowledge of physics and materials science all the way through to how the human ear hears music. This partnership saw the swift development of the six-model Peaks line and Vantage Live.

The Reference 3 series was previewed at 2023's Munich Show, with their release following in early 2024. The Carmel 3 we have before us is the entry to that range. However, do not confuse the word 'entry' with 'inexpensive'. Behold, for example, the carefully designed machined aerospace-grade aluminium cabinets – especially with our review sample finished in a StereoNET-friendly metallic orange with its polished front baffle. Cheap-looking, it is not.

The tall, sealed, in-house milled enclosure is made of precision-machined aluminium alloy up to 35mm thick in places, as per the previous iteration. Internally, the cabinet is braced and damped to minimise resonances. It would be unkind to dismiss the work that goes into that front baffle when you start recognising the revised waveguide around the tweeter and the gentle curves across its surface. Especially once you discover that each cabinet takes around a day and a half to make.

This 1,030x230x310mm [HxWxD] speaker tips the scales at a not inconsiderable 39kg, and you are offered two standard finish options of black and silver. However, if you're tempted by the glorious orange of our review model or any other such custom colour, you must be prepared to add the price equivalent of a decent condition decade-old Range Rover (£8,800). This exquisite finish is achieved by a specialised, multi-layer anodising process – and thus far more than just a few squirts of a spray paint can!

Compared to the previous generation, the Carmel 3 is blessed with a new tweeter and a revised crossover network. The new 26mm high-frequency driver is cleverly engineered using a bonded alloy airframe to reinforce its fabric dome, adding rigidity without being penalised by undue mass as, after starting as an 80g billet, it is machined into a lattice structure that weighs just 0.03g. 

This clever design apparently reduces distortion and improves dispersion, giving a larger sweet spot. YGA is rightly proud that all machining is done in-house to a precision which is claimed to be better than 0.001mm.

This loudspeaker's 185mm mid/bass unit is a refined version of the previous generation, with further attention being paid to the cone and motor system. The driver is, of course, one of YG's famous BilletCore units, which means that each 0.2mm thick, 10g diaphragm is machined from a solid 2kg billet of aircraft-grade aluminium. The company says that its method avoids the microscopic stresses and irregularities of stamping and yields greater uniformity and structural integrity.

The third-gen Carmel features YG Acoustics' revised 'Ultracoherent' crossover design, with optimised transient response, phase alignment and phase slopes between the two drive units. It sports high-quality parts, including custom-made metal foil capacitors, copper manganin foil resistors and resonance-damped inductors. The layout of the printed circuit board is computer-optimised to minimise unwanted component interactions. The crossover point is set at a lowish 1.75kHz, suggesting the tweeter has an impressive bandwidth. Usable output is said to be from 32Hz to 40kHz. Claimed sensitivity is 87dB/W/m, with a nominal impedance of 6 ohms, and a minimum of 3.2 ohms.

This speaker isn't the hardest thing to drive, but rewards a powerful amplifier all the same; my Gryphon Essence pre/power combo made it boogie with the best of them. It proved relatively easy to position in my listening room, with only some incremental toe-in tweaks once my review pair had acclimatised from being in storage. The optimal place for me was a metre from the boundary walls with a judicial amount of toe-in. Moving each speaker closer to the rear wall didn't overly affect the bass response, although soundstaging suffered slightly.

THE LISTENING

Transparency is the name of the game with this compact tower loudspeaker, in no small part due to the beautifully seamless integration between the drive units. This can be a double-edged sword as it can highlight shortcomings in your source material or components, but that's high-end hi-fi for you! For example, every facet of the very lo-fi recording and production that is Nite Klub by The Specials is laid bare for all to hear, warts and all. Depending on your sensibilities, this could go either way.

The sound is stark compared to my reference Audiovector R 6 Arreté; the latter smoothes off some of the recording's rough edges. The YGA, on the other hand, takes you right to the coalface with Terry Hall's half-shouted, acerbic vocals and the machine-gunning drum work of John Bradbury. The 'spit and sawdust' production of Elvis Costello drops me right into a sticky, smoky Coventry working men's club. It's a visceral and compelling sound to my ears, but I understand that not everyone will agree. Some would doubtless prefer this recording to have a thick coat of satin lacquer sprayed on it, so to speak.

Considering the relatively slender size of the Carmel 3, its bass is remarkable. This is evidenced by the tasteful dub of Until The Morning on Thievery Corporation's remix album Babylon Rewound. Here, the bassline is big and bouncy with a laid-back, rhythmic smoothness. However, switching things up a gear to the electronica of The Black Queen's Thrown Into The Dark, the immediacy of the kick drum and the robustness of the sub-bass synth lines really impress me. This track, performed by the group formed from members of Telefon Tel Aviv and The Dillinger Escape Plan, including the vocals of the latter's Greg Puciato. The authority, ease and punch of the sound are a testament to the speaker's ultra-rigid aluminium cabinet, carefully calibrated crossover, and deft drivers.

Tempting as it is to constantly drive the Carmel 3 hard, playing music through it at lower levels only goes to demonstrate its even-handedness. This means if you are unwinding to the likes of Arvo Pärt's Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten performed by the English Chamber Orchestra under Nigel Short, you never feel you are missing out on any of the details. Instead, the gradual swell of the piece is powerfully evocative, the strings are rich with harmonic content, and the striking of a bell is as clear as day. 

The cohesiveness throughout the frequency range has to be heard to be believed. The acoustic guitar intro of The Regulator by Clutch shows that this speaker can handle multiple genres happily; by the time this track fully kicks in, my head was already bobbing.

THE VERDICT

YG Acoustics' new Carmel 3 floorstander is compact enough to fit comfortably in small to medium spaces, yet still has the authority to fill larger rooms. While many loudspeakers at this level are fussy regarding placement, this one cannot be more accommodating. Ultimately though, its sheer musical ability, superlative dynamics, soundstaging and tonal balance all justify its not inconsiderable cost. Just don't spend too much time with crude recordings, as you won't know what you're missing.

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