Cymatics 6, reviewed by The Ear.
Five stars for the first loudspeaker to carry the Creek name in decades, from a reviewer who went looking for the catch.
Creek Audio has not made a loudspeaker under its own name for a very long time, so the Cymatics 6 carried some weight into its first review. It is the first product in a new line from Creek, the opening move in a range that takes its name from the science of sound made visible, the patterns that form when frequency meets a surface. That idea is not a flourish. It is a reminder that everything we hear comes down to energy, frequency and vibration, and that a loudspeaker’s whole job is to control the vibration it was asked for and suppress the vibration it was not.
What it set out to do.
The 6 is a stand mount, and the usual compromise in that category is bass. Most designs buy a slim front for the price of low frequency extension. The Cymatics 6 takes a different route: a generous radius on the front edges lets the cabinet read as narrow while keeping the internal volume that real bass needs, and the same curves cut edge diffraction, which is what smears detail and unsettles the image. The tweeter sits in a machined waveguide that does two jobs at once, bringing its acoustic centre into line with the mid and bass driver for time coherence through the crossover, and matching its dispersion to the driver below it so that what the walls reflect sounds like what the speaker sends forward. The crossover is simple on purpose, first order on the tweeter, third order below. The cabinet is 25 mm walls and a bracing scheme designed to make it disappear.
None of that was voiced to a flavour. The goal was neutrality, and the only way to get there is the slow way: listen across a wide spread of electronics and music, change one thing, listen again, and keep going for hundreds of hours until the speaker stops drawing attention to itself. It is the same discipline that has run through Creek since 1982, and it is slower than it sounds.
What Dave Berriman found.
The Ear’s Dave Berriman first heard the Cymatics 6 at the Bristol Hi-Fi Show, then took a pair home to his own room, which is the only test that counts. His verdict was five stars, and the reasons he gave are the ones we would have hoped for: a natural, transparent and agile sound that handled every kind of music he threw at it, from Kraftwerk to Puccini, and a soundstage that opened out well beyond the boxes. He had not been a fan of metal dome tweeters and said so, then found this one detailed and gentle on the ear. On the measuring bench the speaker held within a decibel and a half from 300 Hz to 20 kHz, on and off axis, which is the quiet confirmation of what the waveguide was for.
This was not hi-fi, just pure joy!
That line, written about a live James Taylor recording, is the one we would frame. The review is also honest about the other side of neutrality. A speaker that reveals everything is unforgiving of poor recordings and partnering equipment, its bass cannot reach as deep as a floorstander’s, and it needs decent stands. Those are the costs of the choice we made, and we would make it again. A loudspeaker that flatters is hiding something.
The full review is below. Read it for the listening notes, which say more than any specification sheet could.
Read the full review (PDF)