Напольная акустика — Pylon Audio Amber mkII

The Amber mkII is the second generation of Pylon Audio's large horn-loaded floorstander. Pylon was set up in 2011 by two childhood friends, Mateusz and Mikolaj, whose families had worked in the furniture trade, and the company still builds its cabinets in Jarocin, Poland. The mkII was announced for Europe in October 2023 at EUR 4,500 per pair, and it keeps a plain two-way layout built around a compression driver.

Key specs that matter

Two Pylon Audio PSW 32.8 CS woofers of 12 inches handle the bass and lower midrange, one mounted above and one below the horn. Everything above about 1,200 Hz goes to a Pylon Audio PST 25P.8 compression driver, supplied by the German maker BMS. Pylon states a frequency response of 32 Hz to 20 kHz, 4 ohm nominal impedance and 97 dB efficiency, with power handling of 300 W nominal and 400 W maximum. Each cabinet is 500 mm wide, 1,241 mm tall and 430 mm deep, and weighs 65 kg. The dedicated room size is given as 20 to 100 m2.

Engineering and use context

The woofers use high-efficiency cellulose cones, and their large diameter lets the pair move a lot of air before excursion limits are reached. The BMS driver is loaded by a short horn with a Tractrix profile, built into the middle of the cabinet between the two bass units. A horn of this kind raises the acoustic output of the driver for a given input and narrows its dispersion, which is how the system reaches its high efficiency with only two ways. Crossing over as low as 1.2 kHz asks the compression driver to cover the upper midrange as well as the treble, leaving the 12 inch cones to work only in the range where they are most at ease. Pylon's stated aim is high acoustic pressure even when the speaker is driven by a low-power amplifier. Finishes include black in matt or gloss lacquer, black-lacquered oak veneer at 25 percent gloss, dark oak under an oil-wax coating and matt white, and a magnetic grille comes with each speaker. Floor spikes are supplied.

Pairing

The high efficiency lets amplifiers of modest output drive the Amber mkII to high levels, in line with Pylon's stated goal for the design. The choice of amplifier still has to take the low nominal impedance into account, so an output stage that stays stable into low loads is the safer route, whatever its wattage.

Alternatives

The Pylon Audio Opal 30 mkII is a three-way floorstander with a graphene-reinforced textile dome tweeter, a dedicated midrange and two woofers in a 23.5 kg cabinet.