Floorstanding loudspeakers — Mordaunt-Short Alumni 8

The Alumni 8 is the tower model of the Alumni series from Mordaunt-Short, a British speaker maker founded in 1967 and part of Audio Partnership. The Alumni family was built around very small cabinets for home cinema and stereo, with the Alumni 2 bookshelf speaker, the Alumni 3 LCR, the Alumni 5 centre and the Alumni 9 subwoofer. The Alumni 8 joined the range in October 2008 and was added to give the system a floorstanding option with deeper bass while keeping the slim footprint of the smaller models. It was sold in piano black and high-gloss white.

Key specs that matter

Seven drive units share the cabinet. A 1 inch aluminium dome tweeter sits with two 3.5 inch long-throw woofers that use neodymium magnets and CPC cones, and four passive acoustic bass radiators, abbreviated ABR, extend the low end. Mordaunt-Short rates the frequency response at 49 Hz to 20 kHz and the sensitivity at 86 dB for a 1 W input, with a nominal impedance of 4 to 8 ohm. A second-order filter splits the signal, and amplifiers of 15 to 100 W are recommended. The column is 800 mm tall, 118 mm wide and 122 mm deep, and it weighs 4.5 kg.

Engineering and use context

Each passive radiator is a cone without a motor, and these units follow the air pressure inside the box. Using four of them lets two small woofers reach lower frequencies than their size would otherwise allow, without a port opening in such a narrow enclosure. The long-throw design of the woofers gives them the extra travel needed at low frequencies. The aluminium tweeter dome is light and stiff, which Mordaunt-Short links to lower distortion. The cabinet walls are curved, a shape the company uses across the Alumni line for stiffer panels and fewer internal standing waves. Despite its height, the maker notes that the tower can be mounted on a dedicated stand or a wall bracket. The range was designed with Omnimount-ready fittings, and Mordaunt-Short states that the bass reach of the Alumni 8 means some installations can run without a subwoofer.

Pairing

Its modest efficiency and a load that can dip toward 4 ohm suit AV receivers and integrated amplifiers with some current reserve. In a surround system the tower takes the front channels alongside the Alumni 5 centre and Alumni 2 rears, and the Alumni 9, fitted with an 8 inch long-throw woofer and 120 W amplifier, can be added in a 2.1 or multichannel setup.

Alternatives

The Mordaunt-Short Aviano 6 is a larger floorstander from the Aviano line with two 6.5 inch CPC mid/bass units in a 950 mm column.