Emotiva’s New Nostala LB12 Speakers: An Homage to Vintage
Emotiva’s always about hitting a price/performance sweet spot that appeals to performance-minded hobbyists. And what the market was surely telling the company is that big, boxy wood-grained speakers made a comeback and did not go away. JBL has ’em. KLH has ’em. Klipsch has ’em, and McIntosh has ’em. But unlike those companies, Emotiva has no “original” model to harken back to. Still, the Nostala LB12 is very much an homage to such designs.
With a $2999/pair price tag, we’re not talking about inexpensive. But it’s “bang for the buck” that butters an audio enthusiast’s bread. A 3-way tower with this capability and finish quality (hand-applied walnut veneer, 10-year warranty, high-quality parts) can certainly cost something similar, and it’s certainly less that the JBL L100 Classic that currently costs roughly $5,280/pair. The KLH Model 5 is the same price but uses a 10″ instead of 12″ woofer and is an acoustic-suspension design with a cone midrange and aluminum dome tweeter, while the Nostala is ported and sports a soft dome midrange and soft dome tweeter, a significant difference in operating principle.
The point is Nostala carves out a niche. It surely looks the part, and with Emotiva’s track record there’s a strong chance it’ll deliver sound to match those looks.
According to the Emotiva website there’s only one pair of the first batch left, with more arriving in 2026. Certainly interesting enough to be worth a listen, the trick is figuring our how to demo a pair.
Core details: 150W continuous and 350W peak power handling. The 12″ paper-cone woofer uses a 50mm voice coil motor featuring a shorting ring. The midrange is a 5.25″ soft dome with a 75mm aluminum voice coil and copper shorting ring. And the tweeter is a 28mm (1″) dome with a Neo magnet and copper shorting ring. That’s all good for a 91dB rated sensitivity with 8 ohms impedance. Rated response is 40 Hz – 32 kHz (+/-3dB). Crossover points are 200 Hz and 2 kHz. Oh, and each speaker weighs 71 pounds!
On the real panel, 3-way switches to adjust the highs and the mids, to help tune the speaker to the room and to taste.
You do not need a stand for the Nostalas. They come with built-in wooden feet. You also get two grills, one beige and one grey, although with that veneered front baffle, using a grill seems like such a shame.
Find out more at Emotiva.com
