Schenker delivery was in two tall wooden crates with clean company branding and helpful 'open 1', 'open 2' tips. After two quick painless sessions with the cordless screwdriver, the lightweight assemblies in their neatly sewn cloth covers with velcro latch had been unpeeled and carried into the listening room. It was time for a close-up visual inspection. After all, this €15'000 sticker buys some very fancy veneers, lacquers or synthetic marble from the boxy competition. Eliminating the box shouldn't imply that whatever structural elements remain be finished to anything less than exquisite standards.


Here reality and expectation still diverged just a bit. The wood quality and stain were Ikea Poang chair grade: solid but not luxurious. On the front, the gap between woofers and their complexly shaped baffle cut-out was neatly hidden behind a thin Ply mask. This made for a reasonably tight if not perfect conceal of the seam. The backside however lacked it to instead openly show black filler. That looked poor and unfinished.


The inset sub baffle for the top seven driver showed four exposed counter nuts and screw ends on the back side. Those would look better concealed entirely. The three exposed spacer bolts between the woofers should be hidden inside black metal sleeves, their end caps be black to downplay this hardware.


The exposed screws for the back brace whose stain didn't match the baffle could be concealed with flush-sanded wood plugs. Finally, the four unstained wooden footers of each xover cylinder were poorly affixed. They felt like a flimsy afterthought. In fairness, all of these were easily addressed items. Most likely, they in fact reflected the realities of a very first production pair to already be on Ecobox's to-do list. Just in case they weren't... at this price they should be!