FRAM MIDI 150P

After the memorable adventure with Fram’s top model, Arte Noire, this time I got a chance to spend quite some time with the brand’s entry-level Fram Midi 150P. Much smaller, not as extravagant in their form, and significantly less expensive – is that another recipe for success? That’s what I plan to find out. Join me, will you? 

Introduction

Every time I begin to listen to some (good!) stand-mounted speakers, I am reminded of all the fantastic qualities they offer. Combined, they make up a unique type of presentation that so many people love, despite some obvious limitations. While using such speakers, you can’t realistically expect as big and powerful a sound as with larger floor-standing counterparts; the bass won’t extend as low, and you won’t feel a powerful slam in your gut with any music genre.

And yet… . And yet, the spatial aspects of the presentation, the brilliant imaging, the coherence (as they are much more of an „ideal point-source” than most floor-standers), the ability to disappear from the room completely, leaving listeners immersed in music – that’s (among other qualities) where such speakers shine, and that’s what we (as I belong to that group too!) love them for (almost) unconditionally.Just as with the Arte Noire (you can find the review HERE), let’s start with an introduction to the Fram Midi 150P speakers by the chief designer, Mr. Jarek Waszczyszyn.

„One may say that Midi 150 P represents an evolution of the Fram company in a nutshell. It all began a long time ago, when, between the spinning mill and the weaving mill, three friends said: “I have nothing, you have nothing, he has nothing. Perfect for starting a factory.” (that’s a reference to a classic Polish novel by Władysław Reymont: „The Promised Land”; ed.). You know what happened next – it’s so ingrained in our culture as dozens of sayings, such as: „sugar gives you strength,” or “we all know, there are no dragons,” etc. That’s why when the three friends got together for real to start a new company not far from the old spinning mill, those very words came to mind.

The first project was about the development of all-purpose loudspeakers for multimedia systems and for audio systems. On the one hand, they were meant to be fairly compact so they could be conveniently placed next to the TV; on the other hand, they would handle large-scale sound with high quality.

After many attempts, we decided on an active design equipped with a Digital Sound Processor, based on a wideband driver and two passive membranes. The passive membrane works similarly to a bass-reflex tunnel; at the resonant frequency, the low-frequency woofer is damped, and its energy is radiated through the passive membranes. We used passive membranes because, in such a small volume, tuning the tunnel and its operation with large amplitudes is impossible. Due to the high acoustic power at resonance, membranes with a larger surface area are used than in the low-frequency driver.The idea proved to be right, and the first Midos were presented at the Audio Video Show in Warsaw. They were based on “Tonsil” drivers and wooden enclosures, with an aluminum front. To skeptics, I patiently explained the drivers’ origins. A torrent of sounds filled the room in “Sobieski Hotel”, surprising those who didn’t expect it from such small speakers.

This debut convinced us to continue our work. We used 10cm SB Acoustic drivers, a company that was just building its reputation. The choice turned out to be spot-on; thanks to its own factory in Indonesia, Danish designers created drivers offered at very reasonable prices, with high sound quality and perfect build quality. Fram remains faithful to this brand to this day.

Consideration of the further use of cabinets made of wood and aluminum was cut short by one of the team members. In civilian life, he designed aircraft fuel systems and had mastered many mechanical solutions we had no idea existed.  He developed fully aluminum enclosures for our speakers. They featured significantly thinner walls than the wooden ones, which mattered given the compact dimensions. Aluminum has low mechanical losses, so the acoustics of the loudspeakers had to be improved. But on the other hand, the look of brushed, anodized metal left no room for doubt. We created something that fit perfectly with Fram’s Scandinavian aesthetic – simple in form, yet refined. It would be hard to make something as refined out of wood. As it turned out later, the loudspeakers also attracted female clients, which, in the audio industry, is quite an achievement, and allowed our speakers to stand out among others.

The appetite grows with what it feeds on; hence, the ideas on how to further improve the sound of our speakers. The limiting factor was the wideband driver. The frequency range needed to be split between two different drivers. And that’s where a certain problem arose. Adding a tweeter would have made the speaker larger by almost 7 cm. As has become tradition at Fram, the problem was solved radically by using mechanics. Namely, the passive membrane in principle radiates exclusively the lowest frequencies, which are non-directional. This meant it could be moved to the rear of the cabinet. The idea of a small, good-sounding loudspeaker continued to develop further and further. Everyone was curious about the effect. And it surprised all of us a great deal. The speaker offered not only an excellent timbre and resolution, but also a wonderfully deep sense of space. Its class was eventually confirmed by Srajan Ebaen, the publisher of the 6moons magazine. The full-range Midi 120 speakers (the number originates from the width of the aluminum profile) received the prestigious Blue Moon award.

In the wave of enthusiasm, it quickly became clear that, besides the available 120 x 120 mm aluminum profiles (the mechanical frame supports for the drivers), there were also 150 x 150 mm profiles available. Upsizing the loudspeakers was purely a technical matter; the 13 cm drivers from the larger series fit perfectly. The woofer featured a paper diaphragm with a blend of papyrus. The tweeter was a soft textile dome with a neodymium magnet. One passive diaphragm was used at the front, and the other at the back.

After tuning the speaker’s digital processor, a superb, neat loudspeaker came out, offering sound quality comparable to audiophile-grade designs despite using a simple Class D amplifier rated at a mere 2 x 60 W. Two passive diaphragms, placed on opposite sides of the cabinet, not only offered a serious slam but also a beautiful sense of space.

Midi 150s turned out to be Fram’s best-selling speakers. Considerations for further evolution pointed to a bottleneck, namely electronics. Convenient and compact, it still had its limitations. After attempts with better amplifiers, something that was supposed to be an add-on for a TV turned into a serious device.The old, active version

That’s how the Midi 150 P model was conceived: i.e., a passive design that allows users to drive it with any electronics of their choice, without restrictions. Although the mechanical design was simplified, no one complained about the lack of sockets or buttons. Both speakers are now identical. Unfortunately, the crossover had to be designed from scratch so it could work with any amplifier. For the tweeter, we developed a first-order crossover with a linear phase. The woofer, on the other hand, uses a crossover employing elliptical filters for proper amplitude and phase correction. As a result, the entire speaker is properly balanced in amplitude and phase.”

Design & Features

Most of the key information on the design of the Fram Midi 150Ps have already been presented by the designer, but let me sum it up and add a bit more. These are small, 2-way, passive (that’s what the „P” added to the name stands for) stand-mounted speakers measuring 370 x 150 x 170 mm and weighing around 7kg each. Same as their larger brethren, the smallest model features visually stunning, perfectly made and finished, fully aluminum black cabinets.

The manufacturer claims: „The cabinet, made from recycled aluminum, is precision-machined using CNC technology. This provides the solid block with optimal rigidity and complete acoustic damping, which eliminates unwanted vibrations and delivers exceptional sound clarity. Every detail of the design contributes to the coherence, control, and elegance of the sound.”

As Mr. Waszczyszyn explained, Fram uses Danish SB Acoustic drivers in all their designs. In this case, they decided on two 13 cm paper mid-bass woofers and a 26 mm textile dome tweeter. The former use a crossover employing elliptical filters for proper amplitude and phase correction; the latter uses a first-order crossover with a linear phase. Additionally, instead of bass-reflex, Midi 150Ps use a passive membrane installed in the rear baffle. The crossover uses high-quality Jantzen Audio components. A single pair of connectors is mounted in a small recess on the rear panel. It accepts spades, bananas, and bare wires.The combined sensitivity of 89 dB and a nominal impedance of 4Ω, according to the manufacturer, allows users to pair them with (quality) amplifiers delivering between 8 and 150W. What’s more, Fram Midi 150P can be used directly on some furniture, but they will perform optimally when paired with bespoke, elegant wooden stands. Those feature a clever mounting system allowing users to effortlessly move each speaker in the horizontal plane, thus easily adjusting the toe-in. Another smart solution involving a single screw with a large head per leg allows for a simple height adjustment, which is a rare but useful solution for a speaker stand. Both of these adjustments will allow you to achieve optimal performance without moving the whole speaker/stand set around (although the initial placement is important!).

Sound

Fram Midi 150P are rather small in size, yet surprisingly large when it comes to the sound they reproduce. That much was obvious from the start, even though the first album was Marek Dyjak’s very intimate „Moje Fado”. With these tiny speakers, his voice grabbed my full attention just ten seconds in, and kept me involved and immersed until the very last note. The artist’s very… „experienced” (those who are familiar with Marek’s story know why it is a fair description), for lack of a better word, and so incredibly expressive, a voice seemed to be within my reach, almost present in the room, even though actually placed behind the line connecting the speakers.

It was powerful, hoarse when needed, yet gentle and breaking when emotions peaked. The Fram Midi 150P amazingly conveyed either, perfectly communicating the emotional state of the singer and „infecting” me with it accordingly. The accompanying instruments occupied the space behind the vocalist, yet their sound was very clear – it is not an audiophile release, and yet the sound quality is really good. Fram speakers clearly benefited from it, offering good insight into the layer after layer of the recorded material. They nicely revealed the timbre and texture of both the vocals and the instruments, opened up the space between them, and filled it with air, allowing all sound sources to breathe freely and the notes to spread across the soundstage and my room.

The next album was a live one by Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio, entitled „Live at the Misty”. First and foremost, Fram Midi 150P took care of a proper, smooth flow of music. They recreated a relaxed, joyful vibe of the event and rendered the club’s space where the performance took place very convincingly. They nicely conveyed all the noise coming from the audience, including cheering for the musicians, as well as lively conversations and the clinking and clattering of the cutlery, plates, cups, and so on, thus completing the „live club performance vibe”.The smooth flow of the music, the above-average coherence of the presentation, as well as how precisely each and every instrument was rendered on the stage as a 3D image, were as important building blocks of the presentation as was the natural timbre of each of them. Still, it was all those aforementioned non-musical elements of these recordings that enhanced the realism beyond what many other, usually larger speakers, had offered me in my room before.

No wonder that the next item I selected was yet another „live” classic, namely Arne Domnerus’ „Jazz at the Pawnshop”. While the venue’s acoustics and the audience’s participation are also important elements of this recording, the closer capture of all the instruments and the resulting apparent larger size was what attracted my attention in the first place this time. I have mentioned numerous times recently yet another pair of Polish stand-mount speakers, which offers outstanding performance: the latest incarnation of the AudioForm M200. Listening to this particular album, using both interchangeably, I could clearly hear the differences, and yet I was amazed by both interpretations of the same material, and couldn’t decide which one I liked more.

Fram Midi 150P in this comparison was the more precise performer, with a slightly faster, tighter leading edge, more energetic, clearer treble, and upper midrange. AudioForm offered a slightly richer and a little warmer version of the same performance, with the focus shifted more toward sustain and decay rather than the leading edge. Therefore, cymbals and other metal percussion elements sounded clearer and a touch more vibrant with Fram, while the vibes offered a slightly deeper tone with M200. The latter not only extended the decay phase of the sounds a bit longer but also delivered reverb in a more convincing way.

The drum solo seemed tighter and faster, and even more energetic with Fram, even though it was the AudioForm that extended the bass down slightly more. The clarinet and saxophone, while a bit more biting and more contoured with the Midi 150P, descended a touch deeper and sounded richer (and softer) with the counterpart. All those differences were quite small, and yet the perception of the very same album was somewhat different with each of those pairs. With Fram Midi 150P, it was a livelier, more intense presentation, while with M200, it was a bit more relaxed and laid back. Which one was better? I couldn’t really answer that. I loved both for how resolving, dynamic, and coherent they were, how tonally accurate, and, to be honest, I would be happiest if I could just use one pair or the other depending on the mood.In both cases, these were albums that did not require a particularly deep bass that stand-mount speakers, especially small ones, could not offer. I mean, the Fram’s top Arte Noire did deliver excellent low-range performance, quite on par with many small-to-mid-size floor-standers, but the Midi 150P are much smaller (also compared to the AudioForm M200). So the question was: how would they fare if a piano or a double bass played the key roles? And so I turned to one of my favorites, Ray Brown and his Trio’s performance on the „Bassface”.

As it turned out, the bass with the tested speakers was tight, fast, and colorful (not colored!), but it didn’t quite reach as deep down into the bass range as it should have to reproduce the actual sound of this huge, powerful instrument. However, Fram still managed to surprise me because, one, the bass was deeper (and still tight!) than I expected considering their size, and two, everything except for the ultimate extension was spot on. There was a natural softness to each sound, and good differentiation, allowing them to present the (almost) full scale of this instrument’s capabilities. The leading edge was accurately fast and tight, followed by a nice sustain and decay. The dynamics were excellent, also at the micro level, and the timbre seemed right.

In some recordings, the double bass is played very gently, without presenting its full range, so as not to overshadow other instruments. Here, as it was Ray Brown’s Trio, his instrument was the leading one, but it sounded as if the maestro did his best not to take the spotlight too often. To me, it didn’t feel like the Fram’s presentation was lacking in extension, but rather as if the musician played his instrument a bit more gently than usual. Isao Suzuki’s bass in „Aqua Marine” from „Blow Up” album was a different case, though. In this track, the bass extends so low and with such great energy and „weight” that many big floor-standing speakers can’t truly convey it.With Fram Midi 150P speakers delivering the performance, the limitation was obvious, as they didn’t reach as deep and couldn’t pump as much air into the room to create that heavy „gut” feeling as some other speakers had in my room previously. And yet, if I hadn’t known it by heart, it would have been most likely easy to accept what I heard as a version of musical truth. It told me that Fram Midi 150P were capable performers that did not try to fool me, as some other speakers do, by emphasizing mid-bass to create an impression of extension beyond their capabilities. The tested speakers didn’t do that. They stayed in their lane, so to speak, and did not pretend to be able to do something they couldn’t. It is an important quality, at least for me.

It was already clear to me that the tested speakers could truly shine in acoustic music, so I kept playing it. One of the positions on the list was a collaboration between Bertrand Renaudin and Olivier Cahours on „Douö Live”. Just drums, an acoustic guitar, and what a musical feast that was presented by the Midi 150P! The drums, as is standard in most recordings, were spread widely between the speakers, occupying space that even a man with the longest arms couldn’t possibly cover. It didn’t matter, though, as the clarity of each sound coming from either gently brushed or powerfully stroked cymbals was amazing, and so was their vividness and vibrancy, and the long decay suspended as if in a particularly large venue.

The guitar in the foreground sounded clear and rich, with a nice wooden body supporting the strings. Its sound was open and vibrant, and to my ears, very natural. Live recordings open up yet another opportunity, namely to assess how natural the presentation is, since not that many audio components deliver applause in a way that I easily accept as happening in front of me. Yet, with Fram, I felt like joining in.Following the exceptionally convincing sound of the guitar on the previous album, I cued a track only recently discovered during the presentation of the new Harbeth SHL5plus XD2, namely Bogdan Loebl, Little Axe „Jestem tu – Goree”. Combined presentation of beautiful vocals, guitar, and this time also quite a heavy bass took me by surprise. I mean, Fram Midi are way smaller than SHL5plus XD2 (to be fair, they had a significantly smaller room to fill in with sound than Harbeths in the distributor’s showroom), and yet the lower end sounded as big and powerful as with the British counterparts.

It’s the second time that Fram speakers have clearly proved to me how good a concept a passive membrane is. Because the lowest notes were not only rich and powerful, but also well-controlled, tight, very well differentiated, and had no bass-reflex “umphh…” in them, which I dislike so much. I didn’t hear it with SHL5plus XD2 either, but the bass performance was comparable despite a significant size difference. The bass was „kicking” nicely, and yet, not for a second did it dominate the presentation, leaving the leading role to vocals.

When I cued in Chad Wackerman’s „Dreams Nightmares and Improvisations” for a moment there, I started to ask myself a question: why would anybody even need bigger speakers in a room like mine? The sound was big and powerful, the bass did extend really low, and the spatial aspect of the presentation shone again. All I had to do was push the volume up a little more than I usually do, and the sound filled the room and became present and (almost!) visceral. The dichotomy between the size of the tested speakers and the sound they reproduced was stunning. Also, because pushing the volume up (up, but still within reason!) did not harm the clarity and precision of the presentation.

There was no compression, no distortion, no loss in terms of clarity or transparency – everything was exactly the same, only louder. Therefore, Chad Wackerman’s drums sounded convincing and impressive. Yes, the scale of the sound wasn’t quite the same; yes, with my floor-standers (particularly with Ubiq Model One), the sound gets more visceral, more punchy. But again, what the Midi 150P conveyed was dynamic, energetic, powerful, precise, detailed, nuanced (those cymbals!), and I truly liked it!It took a shamelessly digital (it says so on the cover: „Digital Master”) Spyro Gyra’s „Fast Forward” album to clearly hear the tonally neutral character of these speakers. Listening to the previous albums, I got distracted from it by the music and how good it sounded on those small speakers, but this recording is a bit on the bright side (because it’s digital…) and I could hear it. Don’t get me wrong, it is a good recording, and I like it and listen to it quite often, but the fact is that it is not a warm one, and the hi-fi-oriented (meaning high-fidelity) Fram Midi 150P didn’t try to hide it.

They delivered a really good pace and rhythm, built a big space, and gave each sound source a firm location and size. Despite the recording’s slightly bright character, Fram speakers conveyed a deep, punctual pulse set by the bass and crisp, powerful character of the cymbals and other metal percussion elements. To complete the picture, they nicely filled in and saturated everything in between, thus delivering a coherent, vivid, open, and very dynamic performance that was a joy to listen to.

To push Fram speakers to their limits, I reached for „Pictures at an Exhibition”, and again, those little aluminum boxes managed to surprise me. I played the same album with several speakers in my room, and not even all floor-standers, let alone bookshelf speakers, delivered it so effortlessly, with such enthusiasm and energy, so dynamically. Even in terms of momentum and overall power, Midi 150P seemed to match some small-size floor-standing counterparts, thus offering me a chance to also enjoy this type of music without any particular regrets. I mean, I listened to it without thinking about what larger speakers do better, or in a more complete, fuller way. That’s quite an achievement because Fram speakers sound bigger than they are, and yet they sound true; there’s no pretending!Last but not least, I played some good old rock. One of the albums was the double 45 r.p.m. Mobile Fidelity version of the Dire Straits’ „Brothers in Arms”. That’s another album that was recorded a bit on the brighter side, and the Midi 150P let me know that right from the start. I got the message, so to speak, and I could lean back in my chair and relax, enjoying familiar songs. Circling back once more for a moment to my previous comparisons with the AudioForm M200, I’d admit that the latter delivered richer, smoother vocals, and a touch richer guitar. On the other hand, the clarity and transparency of Frams were simply amazing. The guitar had more bite with them, and the rhythm and drive played a more important role in their presentation. Which one was better? Good question! For sure, both did a really good job, a better one than you could expect from any loudspeakers in this price range.

Summary

The top model, Fram Arte Noire, had set expectations quite high. Obviously, I couldn’t expect Midi 150P to be an actual competitor in terms of performance, as the Arte Noire are clearly bigger and more extravagant in form, but also significantly more expensive. And yet… These two apparently so different pairs of loudspeakers do have a lot in common. The smaller siblings do not quite share the scale, the momentum, or the bass extension with the larger ones. But they do share the same approach to music presentation. They are tonally neutral yet still sound very natural. They offer clarity and transparency that my experience with numerous other speakers available on the market taught me to expect from the likes (in terms of a price tag) of Arte Noire rather than a model from the Midi 150P shelf.

While playing music, even powerful rock or symphonic pieces, you will, at least initially, feel the dichotomy when looking at these speakers while trying somehow to comprehend how such a huge sound filling the room effortlessly, so detailed, transparent, open, spatial, well-balanced, highly energetic, and dynamic, and powerful, comes from their small bodies. What’s more, it comes with such good control and is so internally well-organized (as long as you pair them with a proper, capable amplifier) that it may seem that the manufacturer managed to somehow trick us, that it can’t be true.

It’s not a trick, though; it’s hours upon hours upon hours of hard work, effort, and talent put into this design that led to these amazing results. If you’re looking for speakers for a small to medium room that offer exceptional sound quality at an exceptional price/performance ratio, Fram Midi 150P should make it to the top of your list of models to audition! Plus, despite their simpler form than that of Arte Noire, they still look amazing in the room, especially on the bespoke wooden stands.

Prices (when reviewed):

• FRAM MIDI 150P:  3.000 EUR (+VAT) / pair

Manufacturer: Digital Speakers Manufacture

Technical specifications (according to the manufacturer):

• Type: Two-way, passive
• Drivers: Satori, by the Danish company SB Acoustics (13 cm paper mid-woofer, 26 mm textile dome tweeter)
• Sensitivity: 89 dB / 2.83 Vrms/m
• Impedance: 4 ohms
• Rated power: 75 W
• Recommended amplifier power: 8 – 150 W
• Crossover components: High-Quality Jantzen Audio
• Terminals: single pair
• Cabinets: Aluminum
• Dimensions: 370 x 150 x 170 mm
• Stands: Detachable wooden
• Weight: 13 kg

Associated equipment:

• Digital source:  a custom passive server with WIN10, Roon, Fidelizer Pro 7.10, JCAT NET XE, and JCAT USB XE cards with FERRUM HYPSOS Signature power supply, KECES P8 (mono) linear power supply for the server, JCAT USB Isolator
• D/A Converter: LampizatOr Poseidon + Ideon Audio 3R Master Time (USB signal regenerator)
• Analog front end: J.Sikora Standard MAX turntable, J.Sikora KV12 & J.Sikora KV12 MAX tonearms, AirTight PC-3, Audio Technica PTG33 Prestige & LE SON LS10 MKII cartridges, Grandinote Celio MK IV & ESE Lab Nibiru V 5 phono stages.
• Power amplifiers: GrandiNote Shinai, Circle Labs M200, Art Audio Symphony II (modified)
• Preamplifier: Circle Labs P300
• Loudspeakers: GrandiNote MACH4, Ubiq Audio Model ONE Duelund Edition.
• Interconnects: Bastanis Imperial RCA x2, Soyaton Benchmark RCA, Hijiri Million Kiwami RCA, Hijiri HCI-20 RCA, TelluriumQ Ultra Black RCA, KBL Sound Himalaya 2 XLR, NxLT Ether XLR, David Laboga Custom Audio AKOYA USB, David Laboga Custom Audio Digital Sound Wave Sapphire Ethernet
• Speaker cables: Soyaton Benchmark Mk2, WK Audio TheRAY Exclusive
• Power cables: DL Custom Audio 3D-S-AC Connect, LessLoss DFPC Signature, Gigawatt LC-3
• Power: Gigawatt PF-2 MK2 and Gigawatt PC-3 SE Evo+; a custom power line with Gigawatt LC-Y in-wall cable; Gigawatt G-044 Schuko and Furutech FT-SWS-D (R)
• Network: Silent Angel Bonn N8 + Silent Angel Forester F1 + optical LAN isolator
• Racks: Base VI, Rogoz Audio 3RP3/BBS
• Anti-vibration accessories: ROGOZ-AUDIO SMO40 and CPPB16 platforms and ROGOZ AUDIO BW40MKII feet, OMEX Symphony 3S, Franc Accessories Ceramic Disc Slim Feet and Wood Block Platform