"I have a dream." Martin Luther King Jr.'s fiery speech that opened with these words is one of the most famous in history. Yet Anthony Gallo doesn't write speeches. He doesn't even write memorable press releases. But he does have a dream. And he builds memorable speakers that become very famous.

His dream has been the state-of-the-art affordable loudspeaker. That's what started him with a colossal prototype which never saw the light of day but informed his subsequent designs. His original Nucleus Reference did see production but underwent numerous cosmetic redesigns to win commercial favor outside of reviewers who universally praised it.


Then Gallo regrouped. He abandonded the high end of the market for years to write real numbers both in terms of items sold and business done with his micro spheres and matching subwoofers. That cemented Gallo Acoustics' foundation to prosper as a company. Then Anthony revisited his dream. Still, he remained careful lest he push retail pricing too hard now that his name had become synonymous with extreme value. The Reference 3 -- now the 3.1 -- was the result. Cheaper than its predecessor, better all around and, most importantly, cosmetically fully acceptable, few speakers have garnered acclaim as unambiguous and universal as the accoladed Reference 3.


Still, Anthony's dream kept nagging. By now he had the technology, the reputation and the market share. As good as the Reference 3 was, it still was restrained by budget. There's only so much even the most frugal of designers can bestow on a brick-and-mortar speaker that retails for $3,000/pr.


Had the time finally come to grab the bull by the horns and revisit the ambitious dream that had set him on his speaker design journey in the first place those many years ago in a Brooklyn basement?

With the pending launch of his new all-out statement model, the answer is a resounding and unequivocal "Yes!" The gleaming Gallo Reference 5LS is the culmination of everything Anthony has learned during a lifetime of speaker design. It represents what he can do when he's not looking over his shoulder anxiously watching the parts calculator tally up build costs to start furiously blinking red. With the 5LS, Anthony went for the gold and turned off the calculator. Accordingly, this design will be about four to five times as expensive as the Reference 3.1. At 78" tall, the Reference 5LS is blessed with a negligible footprint of a mere 7" wide by 11" deep to create a very slender profile. As a line source array, it mates seven of Gallo's patented CDTII tweeters with eight carbon fiber midranges each housed in their own spherical enclosure.


While most line sources must horizontally offset their tweeters and mids, Gallo employs his drivers alternating in a single line to eliminate the phase and dispersion problems otherwise caused. Twelve custom aluminum 4" woofers then fire out the back to equal the cone surface of a 15" subwoofer while offering speed and transparency a single large driver cannot match. The tubular stainless-steel bass enclosure is stuffed with Gallo's patented S2 acoustic fill to further enhance the quality and quantity of low-frequency output.


Capable of being driven by a single quality amplifier, the 5LS offers the options of bi- or tri-wiring as well as bi- or tri-amping. Although capable of massive power handling, the crossoverless high-efficiency frontal array is perfectly matched for low-powered, high-performance amplifiers. The 60Hz first-order low-pass filter used for the rear array -- the speaker's sole electrical network -- can be bypassed to be driven from a home theater processor's LFE output or Anthony Gallo's optional Reference SA amplifier featuring volume, phase and crossover adjustments.


I have a dream. Kudos and major congratulations to Anthony Gallo for holding on to his like a drowning man when for many many years, commercial realities forced him to be patient and slowly build up the necessary momentum and favorable conditions. It's far easier to give up than suffer ambition's tireless nagging. It's far harder to negotiate the endless demands of reality that stand between your dream and its fulfillment and persist no matter what.


For Anthony Gallo, patience and discipline have finally paid of. His new Reference 5LS embodies everything he's hoped to accomplish - an efficient, slender full-range speaker that's crossoverless over eight octaves, offers wide dispersion, phase integrity, speed and dynamics and integrates elegantly with domestic decors. The protective grill elements are similar to bicycle wheel spokes and tensioned between top and bottom plates (final production will use an enlarged base for increased stability - the photos are of prototypes).


Further details will be announced on the Anthony Gallo Acoustics website in due time. But the cat's out of the bag now: Anthony's dream has come full circle. If he wrote famous speeches, the next one would begin with a thunderous "and I had a dream".
Gallo Acoustics website