Ruark Audio Sabre-R

Beautiful with voices - charmingly musical and agile small speakers

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Ruark Audio has, in the past two decades, become well known for its stylish, great-sounding internet radios, powered speakers and one-box wireless music systems. The brand's history, however, harks back to the mid 1980s, with the launch of its very first stereo speaker, the Sabre.

Forty years after that first passive speaker - and 20 years since the Essex-based brand last made a pair of passive speakers - it has gone back to its origins with the new Ruark Sabre-R, a two-way, compact standmounter.

The Ruark Sabre-R costs £699 per pair, and as these pages show we're not short of strong rivals in this mid-range price bracket. The 606 S3 are our main price comparison here, then, but we also have a new pair of Acoustic Energy AE300 MKII standmounters at hand that we are currently testing, also at a similar price of £649 per pair.

Nicely made speakers

Ruark’s Sabre-R speakers are smart-looking speakers, and nicely made. From the cabinet to the fabric grilles, the overall fit and finish is neat, of good quality and well designed.

We like the detail of the wooden slats on the front of the speaker - a design element borrowed from Ruark’s excellent five-star R1S smart radio and R410 all-in-one system. It's an understated but elegant effect in our review sample's charcoal (black) lacquer finish; there is a walnut veneer finish if you prefer to lean into the all-wood effect.

The speakers are on the compact side - measuring 29 x 17.5 x 21.5cm - and are ideally suited to smaller and medium-sized rooms.

The Sabre-R are designed to be used with Ruark's R610 streaming amplifier as a complete system, but they can stand on their own as well.

The Sabre-R standmounters are a two-way design, with a 26mm silk-dome tweeter and 15cm mid/bass long-throw driver that has a treated paper cone.