Serene Audio Pebbles

I’ve been looking for desktop speakers for near field listening at my computer forever. I finally read enough reviews of the new Serene Audio Pebbles self-powered speakers to give them a whirl and am quite happy with them so far. I love my Grado 225 cans, but there are times when I want to work and not be strapped into headphones. Thus, the desire for desktop speakers.

The Pebbles are, as the name implies, pretty tiny. When I unboxed them I was immediately concerned with the size of the drivers. I’m not a bass-head, but I do like some bottom end in my music. The pebbles are about 5” high by 4” wide. The driver itself is exposed - no grill

• and is maybe 2” across. I set them up and gave them an extended listen the first night and have since listened on several occasions to everything from Gently Disturbed by the Avishal Cohen Trio to today’s Music for 18 Muscians by Steve Reich. For reference, I’m using output from my MacBook Pro run through a NuForce mini-DAC. My setup is not quite what I want yet with the speakers about 3’ away and about 2’ apart. I’ll work on that later.

Right now I am exceptionally pleased with my purchase. The sound is not huge, but I’ve got my big system for huge. The sound is quite detailed - wonderful for classical and jazz - and very quick. The latter always being huge for me. There is definitely more bass than I expected, but not boomy or otherwise out-of-control. Listening to Music for 18 Musicians I’ve heard some detail that has not come out with headphone listening, I believe due to driver size. Some very subtle bass work. Part of this I’m sure is paying attention to the music and that this album is somewhat new to me, but I’m really enjoying it. This is my first foray into self-powered speakers - a decision that I did not make lightly. I’m quite happy with that decision as well. My desk is not huge and I didn’t want to spend another $500 on a stand-alone amplifier. I’m noticing zero noise in the amp and it definitely will drive the speakers hard if I ask it to.

Do the Pebbles perform as well as my Snells? Of course not. Do they perform as well as my Grado cans? Most definitely, but in a different way. There are still times I want to listen to headphones. This is definitely a purchase I would make again and highly recommend these speakers for near field listening. I’d still go for something bigger to fill a room, but for my desk I don’t know how I could have done better than this - particularly at the $500 price point I set.