Floorstanding loudspeakers — Wolf von Langa SON AUDIO FRAME WVL 23216 LONDON

The WVL 23216 London is a floorstanding loudspeaker in the Audio Frame range made by the German company Wolf von Langa, listed at USD 56,995 in the North American market. Its defining feature is a field-coil full-range driver in the style of 1930s Voigt designs, with twin cones mounted as a dipole, so the whole midrange and treble band comes from one diaphragm assembly. Below it sit field-coil dipole bass-midrange units, and the maker describes the goal as a point source in which the electromagnetic bass and the full-range unit combine into a single coherent radiator.

Key specs that matter

Wolf von Langa quotes a frequency response of 25 to 20,000 Hz and an efficiency of 95 dB at 1 W and 1 m. Maximum power handling is 150 W. The bass section offers a total cone area of 1,608 cm2. Each cabinet measures 571 mm wide, 1,147 mm high and 419 mm deep and weighs 82 kg with its bass acoustic grilles fitted. The standard finish is ultra gloss black. Width and depth are shared with the three-way Chicago, which stands 150 mm taller and weighs 2 kg more per side.

Engineering and use context

Unlike a conventional speaker, the London has no permanent magnets in its main drivers. Their magnetic field is created by coils fed from an external current-source power management unit, which connects through two 3 m cables and needs no mains lead on the speaker itself. The Audio Frame construction is an open frame rather than a sealed box, so the drivers emit backward with the same energy as forward, which means the distance to the front wall affects the bass. A split crossover network allows true bi-amplification or bi-wiring, and the connections are WBT nextgen terminals. With no separate tweeter and no crossover point in the treble, the London is the simpler of the two Audio Frame designs.

Pairing

The high efficiency lets the London reach useful levels with modest power, which makes it a candidate for low-output valve amplifiers, while the power rating caps the size of any transistor amplifier used with it. Owners who use the split network can assign separate amplifiers to the bass modules and to the full-range section. The field coils draw power from the supplied unit, so no extra supply is needed.

Alternatives

For a three-way layout with a dedicated tweeter, Wolf von Langa builds the Audio Frame WVL 23239 Chicago, which pairs the same bass modules with a field-coil midrange and an air motion transformer.