Triangle Capella 2 review

The original Triangle Capella system launched just two years ago, but the company has seen an opportunity to upgrade the specification and the looks at the same time.

The aptly named Capella 2 is the result. It needs more than some fresh finishes to compete in this market, though – so does the second-gen Capella have what it takes?

Price & Availability

The Triangle Capella 2 active wireless standmount stereo speaker system is on sale now, and in the United Kingdom it sells for £2299 – but it’s worth bearing in mind the dedicated S05 speaker stands will set you back another £279.

In the United States you’re looking at $2899, with stands coming in at $329 for a pair, while in Australia it's an AU$6000 buy in – with the stands set at AU$325.

Features & What's New?

The Capella has changed in order to become Capella 2, of course, but not everything has changed. Some aspects of the original system still have what it takes.

Take the driver array, for example. The same 25mm horn-loaded magnesium-aluminium alloy dome tweeter (with phasing piece at the horn outlet for optimal off-axis performance) is positioned above the same 165mm, 100% natural cellulose pulp, mid/bass driver as before.

The larger driver has a vented aluminium chassis and a half-roll suspension of rubber and foam, and each driver features an assertively textured rubber surround that, as with the curve of the cabinet, is designed to refine soundwave dispersion.

Triangle suggests this array delivers a frequency response of 42Hz - 22kHz – the downward-firing bass reflex port contributes to that low-end figure here, of course.

At 100 watts of Class D amplification per speaker, power is the same as before too. Triangle is also persevering with a streaming hub to take care of all wired and wireless connectivity, rather than follow the majority of its competitors and have one of the speakers deal with it.

The hub still uses WiSA technology to stream to the speakers at 24bit/192kHz and offer vanishingly low latency of less than 2.6m/s. Some aspects of the hub, though, have been updated and upgraded – that’s why it’s now called ‘Stereo Hub 2’.

A new Cortex A53 processor means its dual-band Wi-Fi connectivity allows it to support Spotify Lossless, Qobuz Connect and Tidal Connect, UPnP, be Roon Ready, and is compatible with AirPlay and Chromecast too.

Bluetooth 5.2 is available, with codec compatibility up to aptX HD. There’s now an Ethernet port and a pre-out for a subwoofer on the hub, which are obviously both very useful additions. Other physical inputs include a line-level analogue number on stereo RCAs, three digital optical sockets, a digital coaxial input, USB-A and USB-B, and that all-important HDMI eARC.

Performance

Obviously there’s a difference between streaming a 320kbps Spotify file of a tune via Bluetooth and listening to the same song as a 24bit/96kHz Flac file via Tidal Connect - but what’s profoundly gratifying about the Triangle Capella 2 is how unjudgemental it is.

Sure, the Tidal stream has more of everything – but the system does its level best with the Spotify alternative, rather than holding it up for ridicule as some price-comparable systems like to do.

Its fundamental character and attitude always shine through – and that’s a good thing. The Triangle is a direct, organised listen and is capable of generating a soundstage that’s spacious, open and quite carefully organised.

It’s slightly short of the outright scale of sound some rivals can summon, it’s true – but only slightly. Its sound escapes the physical dimensions of the cabinets quite significantly – and its ability with soundstage control means any and all elements in a recording get the breathing space necessary to express themselves.

This spacious character is not at the expense of unity, either, as the Capella 2 collates each element into a convincing whole. Overall tonality is nice and neutral, with the Triangle seemingly happy to let a recording dictate terms rather than sticking its oar in too overtly.

The top of the frequency range balances attack and brilliance against substance well, the transition into the midrange is uneventful, and despite a little drop-off in presence and substance at the bottom of the frequency range, bass sounds are punchy.

They’re also controlled enough to express rhythms with real confidence and, just as with the rest of the frequency range, there’s more than enough detail available to allow the light and shade, the variations in texture and harmonics, to be perfectly apparent.

It’s an impressive facility that extends as far as the harmonic discrepancies and variations in a voice or an instrument, with the under- and overtones that bracket the fundamental. And even though the midrange isn’t above getting just slightly gritty in extremis, it’s an articulate and actually unequivocal listen.

Dynamic headroom is, to understate it somewhat, adequate. The big up- or down-shifts in attack or intensity in a recording are described faithfully and in full. And that’s the case even if you listen to the quieter passages fairly loud – the Capella 2 just gets louder as the volume ramps up, and does so without sounding stressed or altering its overall character.

Design & Usability

Each Capella 2 speaker is an unremarkable 38 x 20 x 32cm (H x W x D), and the nicely built and finished cabinets are mildly curved at their vertical edges.

I’ve already mentioned the sonic benefits Triangle is claiming from this feature – but it also helps to make the speakers look a little less sharp-edged and a little more upmarket than they might otherwise.

The downward-firing bass reflex port at the bottom of each speaker is raised to an appropriate height by the slim little integrated stand/rail/thing the cabinet sits on – whether you used the dedicated S05 stands or not, the speaker will be at an ideal height in terms of a fixed boundary for the port to fire onto.

Mind you, the S05 stands have more going for them than the fact the speaker clips nicely into the top-plate. Triangle has expanded the finishes it’s offering – to the original system’s ‘Space’ white and ‘Astral’ blue there’s now the option of ‘Space’ black, oak or the ‘English’ green of my review sample (with stands are available to match).

The magnetically attached grilles are colour-coded to the finish you’ve selected, as is the Stereo Hub 2.

You can control the system’s headline functions via a redesigned remote control. It’s made mostly from aluminium, it’s rechargeable via USB-C, it’s RF rather than IR (quite helpful when it comes to having, or not having, line-of-sight), and its row of little LEDs ensure it’s easier to understand than the unlit alternatives offered by quite a few rivals.

You get far more input into the way the system performs via the Capella control app, though. It doesn’t allow you to integrate any streaming services, which means having at least two apps open at a time, and it’s hardly the most straightforward in its layout.

That said, it offers plenty of fine-tuning where speaker placement, frequency response, subwoofer integration and so on are concerned. Particularly good is the ability to run an automatic room calibration routine using just an iOS device (Android compatibility is apparently incoming).

Verdict

Extended functionality and some lively new finishes make the Triangle Capella 2 an even more compelling option that the model it replaces.

It’s not quite ready to claim top spot though, as some rivals are even more capable and a little less compromised.

But if you prefer the road less travelled, this Triangle wireless stereo system makes a strong (and, indeed, colourful) case for itself.

Also Consider

In its own way the Technics SC-CX700 system is just as striking and individualistic as the Triangle Capella 2, and in its own way it’s just as accomplished and just as flawed – one person’s ‘neutral’ sound is another’s ‘uninvolving’, after all.

If a neutral sound is the last thing you want, you’re invited to check out the KEF LS50 Wireless II system – it sounds just as assertive and uncompromising as it looks, and it’s been the market leader for quite a while now.