Broadband speaker Lange YOCTO: Swiss precision
Creating a good box-shaped loudspeaker on your own is no longer rocket science. All of the essentially necessary computations can be completed in record time using customized software. To put it another way: there is an app for it. However, if you want to push the boundaries of what is feasible in terms of sound, you will need to devote a significant amount of time, money, and intellectual capacity.
At first glance, the YOCTO appears to be the midrange chamber of a B&W 800 series speaker. A streamlined teardrop-shaped creature with a single membrane in the front.
The core concept is not altogether original. Manufacturers such as Eclipse have long used this design, which offers the least amount of diffraction while also avoiding other unwanted housing qualities and minimizing room effects.
The Lange company, on the other hand, is exceptionally consistent in its approach. The housing is milled from a solid block of aluminum, closed, and equipped with a complicated internal dampening structure.
The driver, which is also largely CNC-manufactured, including the membrane, is not a coaxial structure made up of a tweeter in the center plus a surrounding woofer/midrange driver (as with KEF's Uni-Q), but a true full-range driver, which means a crossover in the critical listening range between middle - and treble can be avoided.
Because such broadband approaches can never completely manage to balance the lowest and highest frequencies, the YOCTO is purposefully limited to a lower limit frequency of roughly 100 Hz via a high-pass filter and is designed for interaction with the in-house subwoofer TERA. Or, even better, for the collaboration of two TERAs.
The YOCTO is designed to reduce cabinet influences as much as possible, to achieve maximum radiation uniformity so that the listener does not have to be in a tiny sweet spot, and to exclude sound-degrading impacts from crossovers in the important listening area.
However, the finest high-frequency resolution should not be lacking. Lange has meticulously documented his vast measurements in this regard.
This is likewise true with the TERA subwoofer. Although it has a standard box shape, it also includes a highly sturdy aluminum housing as well as self-developed drivers and circuitry. The TERA can also be used with closed housing.
Another, the completely different loudspeaker will be introduced to the inventory in the near future. The FEMTO, which has a housing totally milled from an aluminum block, is intended to avoid the YOCTO's construction-related constraints in output power while only making modest compromises in terms of sound staging, precision, and resonance-free reproduction.
The sweet spot for the listener isn't as large as it is with the YOCTO, but it is suitably broadened thanks to a low crossover point, a custom-made high-frequency driver, and a horn.
FEMTO will be bi-amp capable and should be used in conjunction with two TERA subwoofers. Furthermore, the range will be expanded to include two more loudspeakers that have not yet been fully defined.
