Forget everything you think you know about Audiovector speakers. If you’ve heard the R or M series models before, or the very budget-friendly QR series speakers, you’re not prepared for what’s in store until the music starts with a pair of Trapeze. They actually play quite differently to a pair of R6 Arreté, which is probably the model they are most closely related to, but Trapeze is actually a much older design.
In 1979, Ole Klifoth thought he should make a speaker that he liked. One that could recreate the atmosphere from the 13th row of the concert hall in Tivoli in Copenhagen. Or the space three or four metres from the stage in the jazz house.
The result was Trapez (Danish for “Trapeze”). A rather unusual speaker with a slanted cabinet, a crossover of 6 dB per octave and (in the follwing versions) a tweeter in an open baffle.
For et par år siden viste Ole Klifoth mig en prototype på det, der kunne blive en ny Trapeze. Siden da har designet udviklet sig fra det oprindelige koncept til noget, der ligner originalen, og som klart adskiller sig fra Audiovectors andre højttalerserier.
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Isobaric cabinet
The new Trapeze Reimagined is of course similar to the original, blending the original concept with the technology of today’s Audiovector models. The speakers use a so-called compound enclosure principle, or isobaric, as it is also known. A customised 12-inch woofer (30 cm) operates in a separate chamber, while a downward-facing 8-inch subwoofer (20 cm) operates in a cabinet with a bass reflex port at the end. The lower cut-off frequency is specified at 32 Hz.
A 5-inch midrange (12.5 cm) with an open pole piece takes over at 500 Hz. After 3 kHz, a new AMT tweeter with stronger magnets and a larger opening than the AMT element we know from the R6 Arreté takes over. The AMT driver is located in a separate chamber with a ventilated opening at the back of the cabinet. To “set the music free”, you could say.
Freedom
The cabinet, which can be supplied painted in the desired colour or in wood veneer, rests on two aluminium plates that are sandwiched together. Circles are milled into the plates to create grooves for carbon steel balls, which form a kind of ball bearing and act as damping.
The speakers feature Audiovector’s Freedom grounding with a terminal on the back that grounds the drivers and chassis and reduces distortion. This requires a Freedom cable, which is not included with the speakers and must be purchased separately.
Damping
Trapeze Reimagined has a unique feature on the back. A three-stage switch adjusts the attenuation to the amplifier’s damping factor. Step 1 is normal and is adapted to most amplifiers, while step 2 is adapted to amplifiers with a particularly high damping factor. Step 3 is adapted to valve amplifiers with a low damping factor.
The technique works, I’ve tried it, and you can actually hear a difference. You can also hear a difference if the vent behind the AMT elements is covered. Vocals lose some of their top end and cymbals lose their edge, so there’s no doubt that Ole Klifoth knows what he’s doing.
The speakers play with a power and dynamics in the bass that I wasn’t prepared for. I have rarely heard the Isobaric principle so well-integrated, and it contributes to a deep bass dynamic that is reminiscent of a lightning-fast subwoofer. The ability to play loud without either obvious distortion or ear-splitting music is formidable.
The pre-production units we listened to sounded finished to my ears, but there are hints of some fine-tuning ahead of the big launch at the high-end Munich show in the second week of May.
Trapeze Reimagined should be ready for demo at selected retailers not long after, and the first customers may get their speakers in the coming weeks after that again.
Trapeze Reimagined:
- Frequency range: 23 Hz – 53 kHz
- Nominal impedance: 8 Ohm
- Minimum impedance: 6.5 Ohm @20 kHz
- Sensitivity: 88 dB @1 m/2.83 V
- Distortion: <0.2% THD @90 dB
- Crossover frequencies: 500 and 3000 Hz
- Woofer: 12-inch, 4-inch voice coil
- Midrange: 5-inch
- Tweeter: 3,800 mm2 Audiovector SEC AMT
- Isobaric compound driver: 8-inch, bass reflex
- Dimensions/weight: 87.5 x 42 x 43.5 cm/25 kg
- Colours: Nordic Oak, Italian Walnut, Black Ash, White Satin, other colours on request.
- Estimated price: 17,000 euros
Audiovector's (somewhat) cheaper version of the flagships R11 and R8 is as fantastic as we hoped.