Emerging Australian wunderkind designer Atlas Gouverneur’s newly-launched Atlas Harmonic design house announces the new Tufnel horn loaded, high power loudspeaker.
Proudly “Born in Bondi”, Atlas Harmonic offers bespoke installation solutions and a trio of standmount speakers entirely engineered and handcrafted in Australia. The line-up now includes the new Tufnel (a cheeky homage to Spinal Tap’s guitarist Nigel Tufnel?) 2-way “large-format” loudspeaker which can be optioned as a passive or a fully active system. The design mandate was to produce a highly dynamic and powerful loudspeaker which could provide the imaging and spatial accuracy of a small standmount.
Tufnel features a horn-loaded 1.4 inch (36 mm) compression driver with neodymium magnet system and a high power 15 inch (380 mm) woofer. The compression driver is augmented via an in-house designed, CAD-modelled cast synthetic polymer resin ‘SK96’ constant directivity horn (so-named after 96 iterations) which features a 360 mm wide rectangular “mouth”. The flare is then shaped into an elliptical midsection which tapers to a rounded 36 mm throat. SK96 has been meticulously engineered for optimal sound dispersion, high efficiency and dynamic precision. Tufnel’s woofer is a high power, high efficiency and extended response design featuring a powerful magnet system and a proprietary coated paper/silk fibre cone.
The drivers are housed in a heavily braced, highly inert cabinet constructed from a combination of solid timbers and a high density composite. A by-request selection of real wood veneers is available for the enclosure’s panels while the front baffle features a high quality leather trim which can be ordered in a variety of custom colours. The Tufnel loudspeakers are provided with a precisely-welded bespoke hot-rolled, plate steel short stand which has been annealed for durability.
Tufnel can be ordered as a either a passive loudspeaker including high quality, precisely tuned crossover networks (96dB sensitivity and 8 ohms impedance), or as a fully active system. The active version features a built-in ultra-low distortion Hypex Ncore amplifier configured to deliver 100 watts for the compression driver and 800 watts to the woofer. The Ncore amplifier features DSP technology and analogue XLR and RCA connectivity in addition to digital S/PDIF coaxial via RCA, AES/EBU via XLR and Toslink optical options. A USB-A port allows computer configuration of a variety of parameters such as filter options, EQ profiles, DSP time alignment, and more.
Designer Atlas Gouverneur told SoundStage! Australia he aimed to create, “… a large-format speaker that could deliver the rich, full sound of a big speaker, but with the imaging and immersion of a smaller one. I wanted it to have the dynamic power that comes with size, yet still offer that "disappearing speaker" effect. It was a tough challenge, but I was determined to make it work.”
Gouverneur went on to say, “After 96 iterations, tweaking every curve and angle, the final design achieved exactly what I was looking for. It delivers incredible clarity and imaging while allowing the soundstage to open up and fill the space naturally.”
Atlas Harmonic speakers can be purchased directly from the company’s website, with pricing dependent on veneer and baffle leather finishes.
Atlas Harmonic Tufnel Loudspeakers
Price: AU$20,300
Atlas Harmonic Direct
www.atlasharmonic.com
