Audio Craftsmen Victoria Speaker Review. Canada’s Finest?
By Steve Huff
Bottom Line: These Made in Canada speakers are built and designed to a high end level with supreme construction not normally seen in this price range. European drivers from SEAS of Norway, Superb quality crossovers and dual cabinet construction are some of the features. These bring a high end refined sound that sits with speakers that cost much more. A bonafide high end bargain and I say grab a set before the prices go up as I am sure they will once the word gets out!
You guys know I try to find HiFi products to talk about here that are unique and special. You know, the really cool products made by passionate folks who LOVE MUSIC. These are products some may miss or never even hear about, yet they are out there just waiting to be discovered. Sometimes these finds are pretty remarkable and at times they may even be a superb deal. With luck, they are a bit of both and we have one of these finds right here. Yes indeed, when a $4k speaker can sound like an $8k+ speaker, then we are onto something very good.
This review right here is gong to focus on a set of speakers that happen to cost $3995 yet are built to a very high standard and sound more like a bigger money audiophile delight than your typical small box speaker.
The speakers that I am talking about here are the Audio Craftsmen Victoria. These start with solid construction that eliminates potential vibrations. The cabinet is double walled, like two boxes in one, and these real wood enclosures are made like this to kill vibrations in their tracks. Pahmer Audio calls this their “Enhanced Mass System” and I was surprised to see this implemented in a $4000 speaker.
Not that $4,000 is cheap, as it is not in any way, at least to me. I have seen some say that I must be rich, loaded, wealthy as I have some nice audio equipment in my space. Nope. Not even close. I am lower/middle class and do not have riches, wealth, bitcoin or even stock. I managed to create the system I have today from years, decades even, of saving money. When I do upgrades I do so by selling what I have to help fund the next. We all go on a journey to find our perfect system but I have realized over 38 years of this that the journey is party of the hobby and part of the fun. We forgo trips, jewelry, fancy clothes and vehicles and just enjoy living this kind of life. We live in seclusion almost, way out in the country hours from any city and music is on every day in our house. The journey though, trying new pieces, hearing new things, experiencing some “wow” now and again…all part of the fun for me.
My Video Review of the Victoria
In fact, the speakers I am writing about today can be “the cure” to the sticker shock in HiFi. Choice is here and choice is good.
The drivers in the Victorias are from SEAS of Norway and these are fantastic drivers. I have experience with SEAS drivers (housed in some pretty exotic speakers) that I have owned in the years and decades past. I have fond memories of those speakers as well so seeing that the Victorias are using these pricey high end drivers from Norway tells me quite a bit about the speakers and the company selling them. Pahmer audio is bringing value here, big value. These even use separate crossovers for bass and treble. Crazy in this price point.
One more thing about speakers in this hobby of ours. Many manufactures strive for big big profit with goals set to make 50-75% profit. Others like Pahmer Audio here make much much less and instead bring that value to the purchaser and this makes me want top support them.
Going back to vibrations and the lack of them with the Victoria speakers. Why do or should we care about vibrations from speaker boxes? Well, the least amount of vibration means the least amount of distortion that creeps into the sound. When we set up a system for critical listening, meaning we have a sweet spot where we sit and experience the music, we should strive for zero vibrations from speakers and zero noise from our electronics.
It’s usually the higher priced speakers that bring features to solidify construction such as this. Cheaper speakers in the $300-$1000 range seem to usually always bring vibrations within the cabinets. This may bring sound that is muddy, disjointed and well, average. While these cheaper boxes use cheap parts it’s also these vibrations from the crappy cabinets that zap some of the life and soul from the music. Stopping these is a great first step to building a great speaker and this is one area that makes the Victoria unique among competitors that sit within their price range.
What I love to see is a product that sits in a gentler price bracket yet is made to the standard of much more expensive products. This means the company making these products will make less profit but the consumer who purchases will get their full moneys worth and then some. When a product is so good and priced right, it’s a win win for all involved. When a $50k product brings 5% improvement over a $5k product, that is when we see very bad value. When we see a product that costs $4k yet is closer to something that cost $10k in performance, well this is when we have remarkable value and this is the smart way to buy audio gear, especially when starting out and trying to figure it all out.
The Victorias are an incredible and very smart value as they offer high end construction and materials. The crosssover parts are all of top quality rather than the cheap stuff used in most $3-4$k speakers. Bottom line is that these are true high end speakers for mid range money.
So let’s get to spilling the beans on the sound of these lovely speakers. I’ve lived with them for three months during my evaluation and tested them with various electronics from mid tier to exotic.
Though these arrived a few months ago I placed them in a smaller secondary system first. I was very busy at the time evaluating other some drool worthy exotic gear so I set these up in my second system/room, letting them run 8-10 hours a day while I finished up with my current writings and videos. Oh, these were already burned in but I decided to run them anyway in system #2 just in case.
Every now and again I would stop in the smaller room to sit down and grab a quick listen to the Victoria speakers expecting them to sound like the typical small speaker. In this small secondary system I had an Eversolo DMP A10 powering a set of $1400 Singxer Mono amps. The sound here from this $9k system was somewhat polite in fact with a big rich midband, an extended revealing treble and solid tight controlled very detailed and deep bass. The treble was somewhat smooth sounding and I put that down to the amps, which are a touch soft in the upper registers.
The lighter footed DMP A10 from Eversolo provided the streaming along with the DAC and the mono amps provided the solidity, fluidity and punchy sound. There was an incredible refinement here coming from the speakers as they were smooth, a touch polite and yet they sounded like a much more expensive speaker. These are true higher end speakers for a mid tier price. They could do delicate or even an all out assault on the senses. I will be more detailed on the sound when these go into the big system but for now…
I was impressed. Very.
A couple of weeks later I was able to move these into my main reference system which on this day housed a set of Pure Audio Project Duet 15’s that come in at around $7,000 USD. The Victoria’s are $3995, much smaller and were placed on the Dynaudio Stand 6 which fit them perfectly. Pahmer Audio makes a lovely wooden stand for the Victoria but I did not have these on hand so the Dynaudio stands were the best fit from what I had.
I hooked these up to a powerhouse integrated amp in the form of a T+A PA 3100 HV integrated amplifier which is also in for review. This is one of the finest integrated amps in the world (easy top 5) and comes in at a cool $24,500 retail cost. My review for this gentle giant should be coming in January 2025.
I had a few DACs I rotated during my evaluation of the Victoria speakers that consisted of the Nagra Tube DAC ($48k), Holo Audio May KTE ($7k), Weiss 501 MKII ($12k), Nagra HD DAC X ($70k) and HiFi Rose RD160 ($5k). I used a HiFi Rose RS130 Streamer along with Nagras latest streaming box called “The Streamer”, both of the same cost. Tying everything together were Nordost Valhalla (V1) cabling that is now 13 years old but still sounds incredible. My fave audio cables ever.
Everything was in and it was around 11PM. I sat down to settle in for a two hour listening session and took notes of what I was experiencing with the Victorias.
The First Listen
I expected a smaller sound from the Victorias over my Duet 15’s as those use a large open baffle design and house a large 15″ woofer. The Duets are very big sounding speakers with a warm tilt and their magic lies in the way they do very lifelike vocals along with their life like huge sound. I was curious as to what the Victorias would bring to the table as they are quite a bit smaller (but pretty hefty in weight).
I cued up “Jacintha is her name” from Jacintha (on Tidal) as this album has a clean silky sound with sweet vocals and a real palpable presence. In the right system this album should sound as if you are there with Jacintha as she gives you a personal performance with her band. The instruments should be clean, clear and well separated from each other in the soundstage vs jumbled together. There should also be some weight to the music with body and fullness.
When listening to this album with the big Duet 15’s the sound is warm leaning in the midrange area with an absolutely huge voice, nice instrument separation and just an easy going “oh yea” kind of vibe. The instruments are clean but have a bit of an ever so slightly smokey sound to them, which is part of the character of this speaker. It’s slight but there and it adds some humanity to the sound. I love these speakers due to this natural and yet open sound.
Listening with the Victorias bring a different kind of vibe and one that is equally as impressive but again, different. With the smaller two way speakers the sound was cleaner, more intimate even. The sound shrunk somewhat but this was to be expected. What mattered here is what and how the music was being presented with the Victorias and they did this in a more refined way than the Duets. The sound was cleaner yet still smooth as silk. Details popped and reminded me of Sonus Faber speakers of past, the Guarneri Memento sprang to mind but the Victorias seemed to bring even more refinement than those. The way details emerged was heavenly and these speakers are all about bringing all of the recording out to you. The top end is silky but extended, then mids are clean and clear yet have some richness and body to what lies within this range. The bass is taught, tight and responsive. It’s not huge so will not blow you out of the room with bass but it is the definition of clean, tight, tuneful and it can go deep when called upon. Just not a wall shaker so adding a sub could be beneficial in larger rooms than mine. In my 13X18 space the bass was just right for my tastes.
The detail was intimate and yet not in my face. The treble was all there but also had a slight smooth vibe to it and never hard or harsh. The midrange here with the Canadian made speakers is super silky and sweet, with vocals being ever present and close to real as a speaker can get really. They weren’t as large or life-sized as the larger speakers but they were doing something here that was different. The vocals here were so clean yet they had life, bloom and body.
When listening to the new Art Garfunkel album with his son Art Jr., I felt as if was in a corner of the recording studio while they were singing live. The realism with the Nagra Tube DAC was all out scary and brought on the goosebumps with the reproduction of the vocals here. I heard the texture and age in the older and yet still smooth voice of Mr. Garfunkel. Mr. Garfunkel Jr sounded ever present and like a younger version of his father. This is a great recording that can showcase a system very nicely. It sounded so so good.
Moving to the Weiss 501 MKII DAC the sound got beefier, bass was hitting harder and the vocals were even more fleshed out and rich. The details were more out in to the room and exposed as well. The Weiss 501 MKII is a superb DAC that is very analog tape like to these ears.
Another fantastic pairing with these speakers was the new HiFi Rose RD160 DAC powered by the HiFi Rose RS130 Streamer (Thx John @LoneCrowAudio) with a set of $1400 mono amps, the Singxer SA90’s. Wow, this setup brought some punch, dynamics and slam to the Victorias. Where they were really impressing with way they did vocals, with some setups they can really kick. The HiFi Rose RD160 has a solid bit punch to the sound, all while being super refined. It works as a preamp as well for the amps and is an almost perfect all digital source setup. The Rose RS 130, the Rose RD 160, Singxer Mono amps and the Victoria’s were making gorgeous music together, and at a cost that saves big over the T+A and Nagra setups.
The RD160 pre function is stellar with drive, punch and energy along with warmth and a big foundation.
One night I had the big stack in just to see what these speakers could do with big power driving them along with one of the finest DACs in the world, the Nagra HD DAC X.
This means I had $100k of electronics running the Victorias and yes it improved over the $1400 mono amps, sure, by a lot. This setup almost seemed as if it were recreating the atmosphere in the studio or venue in addition to all of the things we like. Ultra 3D, ultra immersive, beauty, earth, flow.
With that said, this $100k system is way overkill for 99% of music lovers and in no way needed to power the Victorias. Even a very nice integrated such as the Advance Paris A12 would work wonders with these speakers for much much less.
I was still listening…..and listening….
As the clock struck 2 I realized my two hour session was turning into a 4 hour session but I kept listening, even as the entire house was in bed and asleep. This leads me to lower volume listening. When listening at low levels, using just under 1 watt of power on the T+A 3100 HV 500 WPC beast, the sound from the Victorias was the same as when loud, but the bass was less prevalent so there was a slightly thinner sound. Even so, they sounded lovely and the details were popping even more and while not lean the details/instruments still had a roundness to them that was very pleasing. Overall these sound great at low volume but will reward you when you turn up the volume dial just a little bit more. It is in the mid volume area and above where these start to sound a bit special, and addictive. Especially for their price of under $4k.
Placement
I experimented with set up as well. I placed them 8 ft apart and then 6 feet apart. I toed them in slightly, then a lot. The best setup I found in my 13X18 room was with the speakers sitting about 8 feet apart, and toed in direct to my ears. This allowed the details to be more noticeable and brought more immediacy to the midrange, meaning it sounded more present in the room. This added to the realism. When toed out the sound smoothed out some and details were not aimed at my head but behind it. This is also a nice way to listen to these Victorias so always experiment.
If your system/amp leans bright, toe them in only slightly. If your system leans warm, toe them in to your ears. This is how you tune speakers to your space and your tastes.
Going to some ambient style music that can immerse you into it I chose to listen to an album by Carbon Based Lifeforms….
Here the music starts to really suck me in. The driving bass beats, the explosion of sounds coming from all directions, the quietness and then the bombastic boom…it’s all here and the Victorias presented this album in such a clean saturated way, meaning it was rich yet clean.
They brought body and life but I was also able to hear deep into the recordings quiet easily, especially with the Nagra DACs which have a knack for delivering details out into a space beyond the speakers. As this happens the notes even hang in the air as they fade into the ether. The Nagra HD DAC X is one serious DAC that costs a fortune but damn does it sound amazing and is the last DAC anyone could ever want.
I have heard a ton of speakers in my lifetime and these Victorias remind me (as hinted at above) the most, in sound quality, to the Sonus Faber Guarneri Memento’s I owned many many years ago. Back then I paid $12,000 for those Guarneri and while the Victorias are nothing like those Sonus Faber Memento’s in looks they sure do remind me of that sound which is again, solidified, rich, sweet, detailed and with nice tight controlled bass.
Speaking of the bass, these have no boom. No rumble. They are more of the solid and tight variety meaning the bass here is very controlled and while it can be explosive, the bass here will never sound loose or flabby due to the quality of the driver here. Mids are clean vs beefy yet again, there is a richness there that ensures nothing ever sounds ragged, lean or rough. Turn these up to loud levels and they still sound the same, refined and sweet. They do seem to like some volume to open up in the bass dept though.
All in all these sound balanced top to bottom and bring a clean yet “soulful kind of clean” to my system. They are never lean or clinical but have a little bit of soul that makes music just sound so right. Of course your music selection will matter as old thin 80’s recordings will still sound like thin old 80’s recordings. These Victorias are not adding color but are rather reproducing quite faithfully what they are fed.
Going back to the construction, these are truly fine looking speakers in the flesh as well. They are truly some of the most well made and attractive bookshelf speakers I have experienced in this price range. Also, seeing those two drivers placed so close to each other tells me those who created these knew what they were doing.
These made in Canada speakers are a treat indeed and surprised me by performing much better than I expected. By the end of my evaluation I thought about buying this review set but then remembered I blew my whole 2025 budget on a couple of Nagra pieces (Streamer, DAC and now Preamp). So no go this time but I will say that if I had the extra dough, I would have bought these for those nights or mornings when I wanted to just dig a little deeper into the recordings vs what the Duet 15’s bring in this area. All while being rich, sweet and full bodied, yet clean and with all details exposed.
These sounded great with the big T+A PA 3100 HV running the show but they also did well, a bit more subdued in the energy, with the $1400 Singxer mono amps paired with a HiFi Rose RD160 preamp and DAC. They sounded great with a Denafrips Pontus 15th DAC and stupendous with a Nagra HD DAC X.
I will be honest though. If I were setting up a system and was in the market for a set of very high quality bookshelf speakers under $5,000 then I would probably buy the Victoria and pair them with a very good integrated amplifier, maybe the HiFi Rose RA180 at $3k and then add the Rose RD160 DAC at $5300. This would create a killer system for around $12-$13k once you add stands and cables. I believe this setup would sound close to a $20k system and provide years of audio pleasure. I’d also recommend the Advance Paris A12 Classic, even with its built in DAC. No need to spend a fortune to enjoy music at deep levels my friends and these Audio Craftsmen Victoria speakers from Pahmer Audio prove this quite easily.
WHERE TO LEARN MORE or BUY?
The Audio Craftsman Victoria can be purchased from Pahmer Audio and they even come in different finishes. See them HERE.
From the Pahmer Website on the Victorias:
“The VICTORIA’s are a premium two way stand mount speaker utilizing high end European components configured in a rear ported cabinet for extended bass and efficiency. Utilizing our signature split and angled design, real wood veneer, two separate crossovers for the woofer and tweeter, gold plated wire terminals, ENHANCED MASS SYSTEM and additional internal bracing combine to create one of the best sounding small speakers in human history
The components that create the sound along with the controlling crossover have a great deal to do with the sound quality. By blending these woofers and tweeters, supplied to us by SEAS of Norway, into our extraordinary cabinets we have created exceptionally detailed speakers that partner very well to a wide variety of high quality electronics. A true ultra high end experience.
Enhanced mass works to anchor the speaker in place so that the components can work without interference from a vibrating cabinet. Adding EMS to each cabinet creates clarity, deeper base and really helps the speaker “sing”.”
A great integrated for the Victoria’s, the Advance Paris A12 Classic can be seen HERE
Singer Mono Amps can be found HERE
HiFi Rose RD160 DAC/STREAMER and the RA280 Integrated amp can be found HERE
My fave Nagra Dealer as of 2025 is HERE
Be the first to comment