November 24, 2016, Armour Group, Woking HQ
Concept 500 prototypes with QED Supremus speaker cables
A good sprinkling of Europe’s audio press assembled to meet audio design guru Karl Heinz Fink and industrial designer Keiron Dunk, each of whom contributed much to this ambitious new loudspeaker. Keiron wanted to design a floor stander of uncomplicated and modern elegance, finding a way to marry this with team Karl Heinz’ skills in advanced sound and engineering.
Armour MD George Dexter proudly set off the proceedings which included a tech presentation and then demonstrations for smaller groups.
 George Dexter | A major theme was the reduction of unwanted self noise which coincidentally was the subject of a feature on loudspeaker Signal to Noise Ratio in the July-Sept 2016 issue of HIFICRITIC. This noise is generated by loudspeakers as they are operating and impairs dynamic range, clouds clarity, reduces image depth and may also add false colour to instrumental timbres. With advanced computer modelling, the new loudspeaker design benefits from improved drivers with flatter frequency responses and lower distortion, both these important components of the noise reducing equation while the largest contributor remains the vibrating enclosure with its relatively huge surface area available for emitting noise, this necessarily coupled to the energised driver chassis. |
The objective was improved stereo imaging, in particular transparency and image depth, this subjectively satisfying aspect of sound quality crucially dependant on the absence of masking noise usually generated by the actions of the working loudspeaker. Karl had pioneered the Gelcore technique with Q Acoustics Gelcore enclosures, where a non setting damping gel cushions the interstice in a double skinned enclosure, but here the new enclosure is now triple skinned and with double gel interfaces.
| Matching the noise reduction for the enclosure, distortion from the drivers, particularly the bass-mid, has been reduced by an order of magnitude thus lowering this correlated noise contribution. Also a truly heroic air core inductor was chosen for the bass section of the crossover to remove possible distortion from this necessary component. The integral, open structure floor coupling frame, is also engineered for low noise radiation and for good floor coupling for the enclosure, while the interior has special tuned pipe acoustic mode absorbers plus a central terminating stuffing of Unicorn hair, actually a trade name for a super fine filament, adding damping without excess thermal mass which could slow rhythms. Even the input terminal and treble level adjustment panels were painstakingly analysed, and here the original metal plates are replaced with an acrylic laminate with reduced coloration. |  |
Under difficult listening conditions the prototypes were thought to be powerful, dynamic and well focused and we look forward to reviewing these promising contenders, available around February 2017 and priced at about £4,000 a pair.
RSS Feed