Acoustic Energy CORINIUM

Acoustic Energy writes: “The culmination of a three-year project for our in-house design team, this brand-new, next-generation floor-standing loudspeaker is set to elevate the brand to a new level whilst setting new benchmarks for performance, design and value within the higher-end audiophile sector.

MD and Designer Mat Spandl commented “The new CORINIUM is a loudspeaker that’s markedly more dynamic, more live sounding and more musically involving than any previous generation of product we’ve designed before. This has been achieved by developing brand new drive units, careful selection of crossover components and creating an enclosure that’s both acoustically and aesthetically stunning.”

The tweeter design is a new and unique soft dome material that’s lighter than carbon fibre and proven to lower coloration, increase delicate high-speed transients and reproduce the very finest detail and refinement.

Derived from the same carbon fibre mid and bass drivers used in our 500 Series, a brand-new drive unit design was specially developed with an ultra-rigid version of the carbon fibre cone, driven by a long throw voice coil in a low hysteresis motor structure, to provide the best efficiency and greatest possible performance… the second generation of our carbon fibre drivers was born.

At the heart of the speaker is the mid-range driver where the new carbon fibre cone and surround helps provide specific tonal qualities, offering the most natural sound and realistic musical performance. For the twin bass only drivers, the extra cabinet width allowed development of a brand new 165mm driver to deliver a bass alignment that combines weight, speed and slam to produce a big, powerful, controlled and natural low frequency response.

Optimised for best transient performance, the 3-way crossover features high quality components connected to the drive units using audiophile grade internal wiring which features a patented arrangement of conductors to give the best possible musical detail and dynamic expression.

All these groundbreaking new drive unit and crossover developments are housed in a beautifully curved, exquisitely finished inert enclosure. The hybrid ‘Resonance Suppression Composite’ (RSC) cabinets boast a thickness up to 45mm for optimal performance. The 4-degree tilt improves the time alignment of sound to listener, whilst the 6mm ultra rigid aluminium front baffle firmly houses the drivers and isolates any cabinet resonances from the listening environment.

And finally, why the name? Cirencester in the beautiful Cotswolds, Acoustic Energy’s hometown for more than 25 years, was an important outpost in Roman Britain. In fact, it was the most important town outside of London. The Romans named it ‘CORINIUM’ and AE’s design team are proud to name their most significant and impressive loudspeaker to-date after their namesake.

The new CORINIUM loudspeaker is suitable for medium to large sized listening environments and will be available in real wood veneer, matt black, matt white and metallic British Racing Green cabinet finishes at authorised retailers from November, from £6,000 per pair.

Tweeter

Building on the success of our carbon fibre dome on the 500 series, we identified the need to use an even lighter dome for the Corinium to maximise the transient response of the system. So, we searched for a material lighter than carbon fibre and subsequently sourced a new soft dome material. This newly developed tweeter design has now proven to lower coloration, increase delicate high-speed transients and reproduce the very finest detail and refinement.

Mid and Bass Drivers

At the heart of the Corinium is the midrange drive unit. Covering 5 octaves it’s the key element which produces most of the sound from the loudspeaker system. The new carbon fibre cone and surround helps provide specific tonal qualities we were targeting for this speaker… offering the most natural sound and realistic musical performance. The extra width of the Corinium cabinet allowed us to house a slightly larger bass driver. We went back to basics to develop a brand-new bass alignment that combines weight, speed and slam to produce a natural, realistic sound from what’s still a fairly compact loudspeaker system. In conjunction, we developed a brand new 165mm bass driver to produce a big, powerful, controlled and natural bass sound.

Crossover

Optimised for best transient performance, our 3-way crossover blends the power output of each transducer to provide a rich, tonally balanced sound. High quality components are used throughout including air core inductors, metalized polypropylene film capacitors and metal oxide resistors. The crossover is connected to the drive units using audiophile grade internal wiring which features a patented arrangement of conductors to give the best possible musical detail and dynamic expression.

Cabinet

All these ground-breaking new drive unit and crossover developments are housed in a beautifully curved, exquisitely finished inert enclosure. The hybrid ‘Resonance Suppression Composite’ (RSC) cabinets have a minimum thickness of 22mm and vary up to 50mm for optimal performance. The 4° tilt improves the time alignment of sound to listener, whilst the 6mm ultra rigid aluminium front baffle firmly houses the drivers and isolates any cabinet resonances from the listening environment.

Technical Specifications

  • Mid-Range Driver | 120mm Carbon Fibre cone
  • Bass Drivers | 2 x 140mm Carbon Fibre cones
  • Tweeter | 29mm Soft dome
  • Design | 3-way reflex loaded with curved RSC cabinet and aluminium baffle
  • Frequency Range | 32Hz – 30kHz (- 6dB) / 38Hz – 25kHz (-3dB)
  • Sensitivity | 92dB/m/2.83v
  • Power Handling | 200w
  • Crossover Frequency | 260Hz / 3400Hz
  • Impedance | 4ohms
  • Dimensions | 1100mm (inc. spikes) x 235mm x 385mm (HxWxD)
  • Weight | 40kg (per speaker)