Напольная акустика — Vienna Acoustics Beethoven Baby Grand Reference

The Beethoven Baby Grand Reference belongs to the Concert Grand range of Austrian brand Vienna Acoustics and is a tower with three ways. Its ported cabinet has a narrow front baffle, and it is offered in rosewood, cherry, piano black and piano white.

Key specs that matter

The 1.1 inch tweeter is a Vienna Acoustics silk dome coated by hand. Below it, a 6 inch midrange works with two 6 inch woofers, and all three use composite cones with the flat X4P spidercone plus a fabric centre cone set into the middle. Vienna Acoustics quotes a frequency response of 28 to 23,000 Hz, sensitivity of 89 dB and a 4 ohm nominal impedance, with amplifiers of 40 to 300 W recommended. Without its base the cabinet is 182 mm wide, 1025 mm tall and 330 mm deep. Fitting the base raises the height to 1095 mm and widens the footprint to 260 mm, and a pair weighs 52 kg.

Engineering and use context

The reflex tuning follows a QB3, or Quasi-Butterworth, alignment that the maker describes as impulse optimising. Inside, a balanced bracing structure stiffens the walls, and the midrange is housed in a separate airtight enclosure, isolating it from pressure changes created inside the bass volume. The three-way crossover uses 6 dB and 12 dB Bessel slopes. It is built with polypropylene capacitors at 1 percent tolerance and coils at 0.7 percent tolerance, with air-core inductors for the upper two drivers and a powder core inductor for the woofers, plus metal film resistors at 1 percent that are free of inductance. The flat spidercone profile of the X4P drivers keeps the cone surface in one plane rather than using a conventional curved shape. The slim cabinet and modest footprint suit a listening room of about 20 m2, where the speakers can stand clear of the side walls without dominating the space.

Pairing

Any amplifier chosen should be specified for low-impedance loads and should deliver power inside the recommended window, and both a solid state integrated and a separate preamplifier with power amplifier fit that brief. The upper end of the window leaves room for a larger power amplifier if the listening room grows. Owners building a home cinema can add the Theatro Grand centre channel from the same Concert Grand Series, so that the finishes and driver families match across the front of the system.

Alternatives

Vienna Acoustics also builds the Beethoven Concert Grand Reference, a bigger tower in that same range.