Everything used to be bigger: Wispas, mobile phones, hi-fi speakers… Now a company is taking it back to the old school with a new speaker inspired by the giants of yesteryear. Say hello to the Stratton Acoustics Elypsis1512.
They are beasts, shadowing less than 40 inches (over three feet) in length. They hark back to classic loudspeakers such as the JBL 4350, Tannoy Buckingham and the Urei 815a and claim to combine their sense of musical involvement and communication with modern driver technology and production techniques.
The three-way passive speakers are built around a complement of dual 380mm bass drivers, a single 300mm midrange driver and a mechanically decoupled 29mm soft dome tweeter with a precision waveguide. The dual 350mm (15in) reinforced paper diaphragm drivers feature a 113mm (4.5in) voice coil, aluminum demodulation ring and dual spider suspension system.
For midrange duties is a driver with a 300mm (12-inch) reinforced paper diaphragm with a 75.6mm (3-inch) voice coil, a neodymium-iron-boron magnet system, and a copper-sleeved polepiece. And the tweeter has a 29mm diameter soft dome device fitted with a CNC machined aluminum waveguide.
The enclosure is constructed from a combination of 24mm and 18mm precision CNC machined birch plywood panels, with a 46mm faceplate.
Stratton claims that all of these give the speakers high efficiency, wide bandwidth, and low coloration and distortion.
According to Amy Richards, one of the founders of Stratton, it is a relative newcomer to the world of hi-fi. The UK-based company wants its speakers to be “stunning pieces of furniture”. A bold claim, but these are certainly daring speakers. And at £69,000 a pair, they’re not for shy, retired types.
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