But if the nuts and bolts are impressive, it’s the way that they arte put together that makes them work so well. As distinctive as they are, the cabinets and components are only a natural extension of the topological concept behind the speaker and it is this thinking that really sets T&T apart.
It’s all very well getting excited about drive units and cabinet materials, but all the technology in the world is still dependent on execution and nothing is more critical to actually realising loudspeaker performance potential than crossover design. It’s a point borne out by the musical advantages displayed by the various Extreme models, where component quality and matching are key considerations. But the crossover topology itself is the bedrock on which these designs rest. Talk to Pierre Faverieux and it soon becomes apparent that he has very clearly defined ideas about just what matters and, perhaps even more importantly, how to achieve it.
“It’s not (just) what you do…”
If I was going to sum up the design goals of the T&T speakers in a single sentence, it would probably be something along the lines of, “time and phase coherent with even energy levels across the range – but especially through the crossover region.” That might not sound too different – although the emphasis on energy levels in a low-ish efficiency design is unusual. What is decidedly different is the way that T&T has set about realising those goals.
The real clues lie in the choice of the bass/mid driver (or the midrange in the Nora) and the crossover point. In the Nel, the 170mm aluminium cone is crossed over at 2kHz, an astonishingly low figure. Focal (for one) have long been banging the drum for lower crossover points, but compare the Nel’s figure to that of the Sopra No1. The focal uses a 165mm, composite-coned driver paired with a 27mm inverted Beryllium dome tweeter, yet its crossover is placed at 2.2kHz, while no other speaker I’m aware of even gets close to that figure. Why the low crossover point in the Nel? To ensure two things: pure pistonic action right through the bass/mid unit’s operating range and a more even match between the dispersion of the two drivers. Run a bass/mid too high and it starts to beam, which is more often than not what we hear as the audible artefacts of crossover frequency.
The crossover topology itself is 2nd order through the pass-band, in keeping with the phase coherent goal. However, outside of that pass-band, the drivers are rolled off, not just quickly but extremely carefully, employing a complex, composite curve, that maintains those all-important energy levels without allowing out-of-band behaviour to impinge on the speaker’s overall linearity and musicality. Apparently, this is only achievable through exhaustive trial and error, incredibly fine-tuning and extensive listening. I couldn’t possibly comment (not having been there to witness the process) but I can comment on the results. Seldom have I heard a speaker at anywhere near this price that is as linear, seamless and musically, dynamically, spatially and time coherent. Listen to the T&T speakers and they’ll shock you, not just with the scale they generate from such svelte dimensions, but with the tactile weight and impact of their low frequencies. As with any speaker, the effectiveness as well as the integration of the bottom end is intimately connected to the cabinet construction and lf loading, so it’s worth looking at both in some detail.
