High End Speakers
Evolution
Inspired by the past, formed by the present. Our high end Evolution speakers were created with the intent of delivering faithful stereo sound. Their sound is characterised by full details, precise instrument localization and spatiality. They contain only one high sensitivity driver, complemented by a unique horn cabinet.
Precise solution without any construction compromises. Art Deco style design in symbiosis with functionality.
Beauty and functionality in simplicity.
Parameters
- Sensitivity: 98 dB
- No crossover ensures outstanding spatiality and instrument localization.
- Connection terminals next to the driver for the shortest possible signal path
- The cabinet is cut from a 25 mm thick Ultra-HDF board using a 5D CNC milling cutter—the only way to ensure the very high rigidity and precise shape of the baffle.
- Exponentiality of the baffle is attained in all its axes.
- The front and rear walls are padded with cushioning material which absorbs any unwanted vibrations of the horn.
- Thanks to a coherent design, the driver can be easily demounted. Customers who wish to experiment with different drivers are not limited by the construction of the horn baffle.
Dimensions
- Height: 180 cm
- Width: 45 cm
- Depth: 50 cm
- Weight: 2x 75 kg
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Finish: Natural. Price: €11 200.
Made to order: please allow up to two months for production. (A shorter time is usually needed.)
If you are interested in a different finish, or have any other special requests, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Patented design
The design of the Evolution speakers is patented and protected under the European industrial design no. 003028331-0001.
Accessories
Front Horn Oris500
The Evolution speakers can be accessorized with a front horn, which optimizes the resulting acoustic effect in a given listening space. The Oris500 intensifies frequencies above 500 Hz by as much as 3 dB and directs the sound even more to the listener.
The front horn can partially compensate for proper acoustics of the listening space. It improves the sound in overly subdued rooms with minimal reverberation.
Made of solid oak wood for its hardness and ideal acoustic properties.
Phase Stabilisers
Another option for further tweaking of the sound is a phase stabiliser. It equalizes the acoustic pressure in the centre of the speaker driver, prevents acoustic reflections between the walls of the membrane and directs the acoustic pressure to the listener. The effect of the phase stabiliser is audible in the localization of heights.
One can experiment with the length of the stabiliser (we offer lengths between 40 and 80 mm). They are made of dried oak wood for its hardness and excellent reflectivity. All the extensions are easily mounted thanks to a magnetic base, which is held in place by the centre magnet of the driver.
Gold-plated WBT Terminals
can replace the standard terminals we use. They are gold-plated and provide higher contact pressure. Doing so, they are minimizing undesired effects in the audio chain (during signal transmission) even more.
Front Horn Oris500
The Evolution speakers can be accessorized with a front horn, which optimizes the resulting acoustic effect in a given listening space. The Oris500 intensifies frequencies above 500 Hz by as much as 3 dB and directs the sound even more to the listener.
The front horn can partially compensate for proper acoustics of the listening space. It improves the sound in overly subdued rooms with minimal reverberation.
Made of solid oak wood for its hardness and ideal acoustic properties.
Phase Stabilisers
Another option for further tweaking of the sound is a phase stabiliser. It equalizes the acoustic pressure in the centre of the speaker driver, prevents acoustic reflections between the walls of the membrane and directs the acoustic pressure to the listener. The effect of the phase stabiliser is audible in the localization of heights.
One can experiment with the length of the stabiliser (we offer lengths between 40 and 80 mm). They are made of dried oak wood for its hardness and excellent reflectivity. All the extensions are easily mounted thanks to a magnetic base, which is held in place by the centre magnet of the driver.
Gold-plated WBT Terminals
can replace the standard terminals we use. They are gold-plated and provide higher contact pressure. Doing so, they are minimizing undesired effects in the audio chain (during signal transmission) even more.
Reviews
Hifi Pig Magazine
“(…) the more I listen to this recording the more enamoured I become of this speaker’s ability to make you feel you are listening to real musicians playing in real space before you… the vocal is truly stunning!” “The guitar solo [from Deep Purple’s live version of Smoke On The Water] (…) is presented as realistically as I’ve heard on any speaker at any price.” “(…) the whispered nursery rhyme over the main mix at the start [in Induologue’s Day By Day] and the detail that it is presented with (…) is as good as I’ve heard at any price… again.”Hi-Fi Voice
“You feel like sitting in the first row at a concert. (…) [The listening] gives you an amazing insight into the recording—you know exactly where each musician is standing, instruments have real size and most importantly, very accurate spatial anchoring including, for example, reverberation of the cymbal, realistically depicting the entire recording room.” “You will sense the liveliness of music when listening to piano solos, for example. To this day, I have not heard such sound when listening to reproduced music. (…) A surprising advantage is that this impression persists not only with normal, but also with very low volume. Even in such case, the sketching is preserved, nothing is smudged or missing, as would the listener expect.” “I have been considering whether to state this for a long time: “It’s a best-buy of the decade!” And here it is.”HiFi Knights
“With wooden ears on [note: the Oris 500 front horn], the outcome is quite horn-alike, which for many enthusiasts is something to die for.” “David Brubeck’s “Take Five” (…) was a real eye-opener. All the instruments were sketched precisely, yet not clinical at all, and had a very vivid appearance in a remarkably convincing, big and open soundstage.” “This kind of an easygoing experience is something to behold. When one simply enjoys it to a degree when it’s rather difficult to switch to a precise evaluation mode… that’s perfectly fine and desirable scenario.”6moons.com
“Instead of sounding tied down hard with comealong winches whilst sucking air through a narrow port tube (…), the Evolution with its large horn mouth and single driver behaved like an enormous heaving organism blessed with huge lungs.” “The payback fun of not using a xover and multiple sound sources was the huge scale and easeful gush.”Videos
Questions And Answers
Why not use a crossover?
In standard multi band speaker constructions, crossovers divide the signal to individual drivers, so that a tweeter reproduces the heights only, a mid-range driver only the mids, a woofer only the bass component. The entire bandwidth is therefore separated into individual bands, between which some phase shift always occurs. This, to some extent, limits the possible perception of details in the sound and spatial localization of musical instruments.
Capacitors are used in the crossover. Because of their capacitance, they delay the signal phase at the dividing frequency by as much as 90°. Conversely, coils, which are used as well, shift the signal phase forward by as much as 90°, because of their inductance. Physically, the driver membranes move against each other at the dividing frequency and their acoustic pressure is being subtracted. The human ear is most sensitive to the dividing frequency between the mid-range driver and the tweeter. Human hearing localizes spatiality according to the difference in volume and phase shift of the signal the right and the left ear perceives.
Full-range speakers do not use a crossover and they do not shift the signal phase.
How does the horn cabinet work?
The basis of a speaker with a full-range driver is a horn baffle. Quite a long time has passed since people first took notice of the acoustic properties an expanding animal horn has. Edison’s famous invention of the phonograph (1877) and ten years later the first gramophone, both used the same principle of an exponential horn baffle.
Our Evolution speakers are equipped with a fine-tuned type of a horn cabinet which uses the energy of the rear part of the driver membrane. The horn is designed in such a way, so that it amplifies the bass component of the signal where the driver itself is starting to lose efficiency. The baffle also serves as a dynamic brake to the vibrational system of the driver membrane. Standing waves, which often occur with horn constructions, are minimalized by a very precise tilting of the side walls. The first compression chamber of the baffle is precisely shaped, so that only the bass component progresses to the horn itself, exactly in phase with its exciter, the driver.
The physical principle of the exponential horn baffle
The exponential horn baffle provides for an improved efficiency of the contact between the driver membrane and the surrounding air. It can be thought of as an “acoustical transformer,” which provides for an impedance adaptation between the dense material of the driver membrane (paper, metal, wood) and the less dense air all around. This results in higher efficiency of the acoustic power transfer from the driver. Angular coverage (or the radiation pattern) of the horn baffle is determined by the baffle’s shape, length and the length of the rounding at its end. The angular coverage also depends on the radiated frequency.
You can read about the history and theory on the horn baffle on our Audio blog.
Why are the Evolution speakers so tall?
The lowest achievable frequency of the horn baffle is limited by its length. The longer the baffle, the lower the achievable frequency. The surface size of the driver membrane, its density, and the overall dynamics of the system are also important. These systems have to be balanced—a baffle which is too long (against the driver membrane surface size) loses dynamics in low frequencies.
Following a long time development (or evolution, if you will) and a range of tests, we arrived to this precise size and shape of the baffle, ideal for the highly sensitive 8″ full-range drivers we use.
Evolution’s platform takes only 45 x 50 cm—not too much space on the floor in comparison with conventional loudspeakers.