Напольная акустика — Apertura Audio ARMONIA Evolution

The ARMONIA Evolution is a two-way floorstanding loudspeaker designed and made by Stentor SAS, the Puceul-based company behind the Apertura name, which marked its 35th anniversary in 2018. It is the fourth of nine current Apertura models, ranked after the SWING, SENSA and STELA, with the FORTE and larger designs above it. It revises the original Armonia, and the main change is a new ribbon tweeter. In the Dutch market the pair was listed at EUR 6,500 with 21% VAT included.

Key specs that matter

An 18 cm mid/woofer is joined at 2.8 kHz by a new generation ribbon tweeter with a flat metallised polymer diaphragm of 8 x 120 mm, whose emissive area is twice that of the tweeter in the earlier Armonia. Apertura rates the frequency range at 37 Hz to 30,000 Hz within 3 dB, sensitivity at 87 dB at 2.83 V and 1 m and nominal impedance at 8 ohm, with bass reflex loading. The cabinet is 205 mm wide, 291 mm deep and 1030 mm high, or 292 x 291 x 1069 mm on its stands, and weighs 22.2 kg net. Single-wire binding posts are pure copper plated with silver and take spades or bananas.

Engineering and use context

Its woofer cone is an isotactic matrix of woven polypropylene composite, driven by a long voice coil for high linear excursion. The DRIM crossover uses triple attenuation slopes with phase control, and the low-pass and high-pass sections sit on two independent boards. It uses high-end capacitors and is hand-wired on 140 micron copper, and each set is built after measuring its own drive units so the values can be adjusted. The cabinet has the signature Apertura shape, with curved sides of different lengths and front and back panels that are not parallel. It is a laminar structure of pressure-moulded thin layers with an internal multi-cavity frame and three types of damping material. A central cone grounding mechanism sits on the vertical line through the gravity centre, and new aluminium stands with spikes come in black or silver anodised finishes. Cabinet finishes are satin light oak and American walnut, or high gloss rosewood, figured maple, piano black and white.

Pairing

The easy nominal load with moderate sensitivity leaves room for many integrated amplifiers, tube designs of reasonable power among them. The slim front suits smaller living rooms.

Alternatives

The Apertura EDENA Evolution is the next floorstanding model up, using the same ribbon tweeter with a larger woofer.