Acoustic Energy Corinium

The Acoustic Energy CORINIUM is the latest addition to our award-winning line up of loudspeakers. The culmination of a three-year project for our in-house design team, this brand-new, next-generation floor-standing model is set to establish further new standards in performance, design and value.

The tweeter is an all-new design. Having used carbon fibre in the 500 Series, my team and I decided the moving mass of the tweeter should be reduced to offer the fastest possible high frequencies. So we started to search for a material lighter than carbon fibre and subsequently sourced something highly suitable. This newly developed tweeter design has now proven to lower coloration, increase delicate high-speed transients and reproduce the very finest detail and refinement.

Our carbon fibre tweeter dome weighed the same mass as our aluminium dome and although much stronger, didn’t need a mesh grille for protection. It also had improved damping compared to aluminium. We looked again at soft dome tweeters and had discounted these for the 500 Series as colouration was too high. Nevertheless we started experimenting with different materials, initially we found a natural silk sourced from Japan, which projected a natural sound and was very light and semi-transparent in appearance. We developed a new motor structure using powerful neodymium magnets, a copper shield on the pole piece to reduce distortion, a profiled pole vent and a rear chamber to control rear radiation with the minimum of damping material that could slow the sound. As with all AE tweeters, we didn’t use ferrofluid in the magnet gap, as it adds unwanted damping and moving mass, which slows the tweeter and obscures detail as well as adding long term reliability issues from the fluid drying over time.

Mat Spandl Acoustic Energy MD and Designer

TECHNICAL INFORMATION

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 140mm 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. 

SPECIFICATIONS