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Speakers don't have to come in wooden boxes, as Jamo proves with the mighty R907. A drive unit throws out the same amount of sound backward as it does forwards and the box is there to stop the two interfering.

This interference cancels bass, leaving the sound thin and overly bright. Why build the box out of wood? Well, it's cheap and easy to work with.

Jamo took a different approach with its R909 speakers, and it follows the cabinet less route here. While it's true the cabinet prevents bass cancellation, it also introduces a whole range of distortions that every speaker with an enclosure suffers from to some degree.

No cabinet, no interference Ever touched the side of your speakers when playing something at high volumes? The vibration you feel is the cabinet making a sound, and that sound is added to the drive-unit output.

Making the cabinet rigid, changing to a curved shape or using fancy materials changes the enclosure sound, and may even reduce the level, but it never totally gets rid of the problem.

The only way to do that is to get rid of the cabinet, so that's what Jamo has done.

The R907 uses a 43mm-thick MDF front baffle to mount the drive units and a 23kg cast-iron base to keep the structure stable. To compensate for the bass cancellation, the engineers have used the wrecking-ball solution of two 38cm bass drivers per side.

The tonal balance is slightly rounded at the top end and there's an appealing richness to the midrange. Get past this – and you can easily – and you have a large-scale sound that's very easy to listen to at length.

Most impressive is the speakers' articulation. Notes stop and start with rare precision, making conventional alternatives sound blurred in comparison.

Jamo has taken an innovative approach to speaker design here, and it has paid off.

Hearing is believing we have them set up and running for those who want to listen.