Air Vocé

[Air]

[Hi-Phibian]

I like that. 

A lot. 


"If it sounds good, it IS good."
Duke Ellington

[Nidri]

Beautiful design.

Does the science inspire the shape?

[Trompie67]

Stunning. I find it reminiscent of 70's art deco wooden furniture. In particular the different grain direction between top & side & the pedestal type feet.

Per Nidri - what inspired the design?

[Atjan]

Very nice, not often one sees a completely original looking speaker.

[Air]

I like that. 

A lot. 


"If it sounds good, it IS good."
Duke Ellington

Beautiful design.

Does the science inspire the shape?

Stunning. I find it reminiscent of 70's art deco wooden furniture. In particular the different grain direction between top & side & the pedestal type feet.

Per Nidri - what inspired the design?

Very nice, not often one sees a completely original looking speaker.

Thanks guys for your positive response to the Vocé.

The inspiration for it is 1st of all the tradition of iconic monitor speakers that get the human voice just right. (notably the Sf Guarneri's Homage amongst others)

Secondly, we are inspired by the great artistry in the  industrial design discipline, like the Ant chair by Jacobson and the Japanese Sori Yanagi Butterfly chair.

We love the art deco wooden furniture in general, and Scandinavian use of wood like wood bending and wanted to design something special if we could. Something modern, clean, organic and sensual ins shape.

From a technical view, the design also fell in place with the shape of the baffle coinciding with most likely a 2nd order network which makes use of the benefit of the acoustic centres of the driver being nearly aligned with the tweeter below the midbass and the teardrop shape having a positive influence of dealing with diffraction considerations.

The concept is not new but we  wanted to progress with the Vivace before tackling it. In my initial posts in the Air loudspeaker thread, you might see the defragmented images of the Vocé. We now know have build the capability with our suppliers to be confident with moving ahead with it. We work with Audiotechnology to identify a driver we believe would do the trick, the wood pressing challenge has been solved and we think we can pull it off with the quality that we aim for.  We would use same principles as with Vivace in the cabinet construction, a carbon fibre core, a heavier material to host the drivers and the wood as a dampening element and final aesthetic touch.

Both Alex and I, have a huge passion for this project and see it as an expression of our own signature and ideas, a combination of art and science. We won't rush it, but have started to take the 1st steps last week.

So once again thanks for your positive comments.
Stefan

[Nirvana]

Damn Stefan,together with your prior experience,and studious approach for the upcoming range,it's flowing,sensual aesthetic design like this which ought to put Air spkrs right up there with any competition afa the 'sought after' category is concerned! 
Even non audiophiles/music lovers will be attracted by the unique eye (and ear-) candy,bound to draw envy from visitors to the fortunate owner (who may also be just a lover of design and the X-factor!  )

Superb,and gorgeous,sounds beautiful by just looking at it! 

btw,any concerns about the design being possibly top heavy ito accidently knocked over front to back,or is the base deep enough..?

[El Sid]

Beautiful Stefan!

What sort of size would it be? (both physically and watts  )

[Air]

Damn Stefan,together with your prior experience,and studious approach for the upcoming range,it's flowing,sensual aesthetic design like this which ought to put Air spkrs right up there with any competition afa the 'sought after' category is concerned! 
Even non audiophiles/music lovers will be attracted by the unique eye (and ear-) candy,bound to draw envy from visitors to the fortunate owner (who may also be just a lover of design and the X-factor!  )

Superb,and gorgeous,sounds beautiful by just looking at it! 

btw,any concerns about the design being possibly top heavy ito accidently knocked over front to back,or is the base deep enough..?

Hi Nirvana, as always, thanks for your enthusiastic support 
Your take on the Vocé is spot on. Unashamedly it is an attempt to appeal to the music-lover and design-orientated individual who might or might not be an audiophile. We need products in the hifi game that reach a wider audience and doesn't look as if it something from outer space that has landed. Speakers especially, as the occupy a lot of visual space. It is really our vision to build beautiful pieces without compromising on sound quality. The total experience must give pleasure, from purchasing to just be happy with the speaker in one's life and in one's domestic environment without it making a sound. No excuses for how it looks and a total aesthetic pleasure, sound and looks wise.

It will be stable as it would be heavy and the footprint is around 200mm wide by 270mm deep and just under 960mm in height. This is critical for interior design and optimum listening height. it would be just a little lower than most other furniture in the room which make it blend in better and very importantly put the midbass driver at around the average ear level as established by Stereophile in the past(around 880 to 920mm)

Beautiful Stefan!

What sort of size would it be? (both physically and watts  )

Thanks, EL Sid as well. Besides the dimensions outlined above the other stats is roughly as follows;
12 litre bass reflex
160mm midbass driver
28mm tweeter
19mm tweeter(maybe)
bass extension to 45hz(-3db point) and with a bit more because of room gain to reach upper 30's
150 Watts of music power
4 ohms nominal impedance
90 db sensitivity (2.83V/1m)

It will touch the heart, soul and feet, ie. make music. 








 

[Nirvana]

It will touch the heart, soul and feet, ie. make music. 

^^ Love this summary! 

[Air]

While we are hard at work to bring the Vivacé to life, with the expected delays that come with sorting our the detail(i will have new soon and share a bit under the Vivace thread), we have made some progress with our development of the Vocé as well. We had one big challenge with this design, and it had to do with getting the complete wood part pressed in one piece, which we would have preferred to do but seems unattainable. There is just not press, at least in SA,  big enough to do it. However, we can do it in 2 halves but had to find ways to not erode the flowing and sensual lines. This is what we came up with. The rounding of the edges obviously also further enhance the design and of course it makes sense from a technical perspective. The development cycle with the Voce will definitely be shorter and we are already setting up agreements with the suplliers and working on the technical drawings.

[oradba69]

Looks stunning.
Would like even better if the black was leather.
Leather can be different colours as well.

[Air]

Looks stunning.
Would like even better if the black was leather.
Leather can be different colours as well.

Stunning idea oradba69, something that we will definitely consider. Thank you!  It will solve one of my own niggles as well, as I was thinking how could we make the transition from the baffle to the top(black parts) seamless? Next challenge.. how do we deal with the waveguide for tweeter..