Напольная акустика — Chario ACADEMY SERENDIPITY

The Academy Serendipity is a five-way tower speaker made by Chario, the Italian company founded in 1975, and heads its Academy S series. Chario presents it as a synthesis of the studies that have shaped its design work since that founding year, and the cabinet is built only from natural walnut solid wood combined with HDF. The design brief pairs psychoacoustic research with high-tech materials across six drivers split between two separate enclosures.

Key specs that matter

Chario fits a 32 mm Silversoft dome tweeter, a 130 mm Rohacell Poly-Ring midrange, a 130 mm and a 170 mm Rohacell Full-Apex Poly-Ring woofer, all with NeFeB motors, plus two 320 mm subwoofers with natural fibre cones, two-wave surrounds and HF motors. Crossover overlap points sit at 240, 500, 1,250 and 1,850 Hz. Chario rates sensitivity at 93 dB SPL referenced to 2.83 Vrms at 1 m, using uncorrelated left and right pink noise in a room built to IEC 268-1. Bass reaches down to 23 Hz at the -3 dB point. The rated 4 ohm modulus dips no lower than 3.0 ohm, with phase held within 36 degrees either way. Each speaker measures 1,610 mm high, 400 mm wide and 580 mm deep and weighs 100 kg.

Engineering and use context

The lower cabinet holds the two subwoofers, while the upper one carries the two woofers, the midrange and the tweeter. Four cylindrical elastomeric puffers of Chario's own design separate the two wooden cases and act as vibration decouplers that dissipate mechanical energy by orthogonal elongation. The subwoofers work in a proprietary NRS isobaric configuration described as a 2 pi sr vented isobaric compound load, venting through a two-dimensional hyper-exponential hourglass port. The driver layout follows a reversed vertical alignment, and Chario lists its WMT alignment, SoundCap parts and overlapping crossover points among the concepts applied here. The pair is delivered as two pieces per speaker. Chario explains that solid wood in dovetailed staves gives a rigid structure, while the wood-fibre composite loses energy in all directions inside its fibres, so panels of both materials are paired on orthogonal planes to damp woofer vibration and confine it within the enclosure. The walnut comes from plantations in north-eastern Italy, from trees at least 20 years old, and the boards dry for at least six months, the first three in open air.

Pairing

For normal single-amplifier use Chario suggests 400 W of maximum average power, or 200 W per section when the speaker is bi-amped.

Alternatives

Within the same Academy S series, Chario also offers the Academy Sovran, a three-way floorstander.