Напольная акустика — ProAc Carbon Pro 8 Light Oak

The Carbon Pro 8 is a big three-way tower speaker from the British maker ProAc, and this is the version in a light oak finish. It uses carbon weave cones for its bass and midrange drivers together with the ProAc ribbon tweeter, and it stands on plinths fitted with spikes. The Carbon Pro name refers to the carbon weave material that appears in both cone drivers.

Key specs that matter

ProAc lists 20 Hz to 30 kHz for bandwidth and a sensitivity of 91.5 dB for 1 W at 1 m, which ProAc describes as a linear figure. Nominal impedance is 4 ohm, while ProAc suggests amplifiers delivering 10 to 500 W. Four drivers are fitted per cabinet - two 8-inch bass units, a 3-inch soft dome midrange and a ribbon tweeter. With plinths and spikes fitted, each speaker is 1230 mm high, 240 mm wide and 450 mm deep, and it weighs 66.6 kg.

Engineering and use context

Both woofers are studio professional units whose carbon weave cones are impregnated with pure polymer, polished and lacquered at the rear. The midrange is a 3-inch soft dome with an air coupling of the same polymer impregnated carbon weave. At the top, the ProAc ribbon uses a diaphragm described as lighter than a human hair, driven by an alnico magnet and backed by a damped rear chamber. The cabinet follows the traditional ProAc approach of combining HDF panels of different thicknesses, heavily damped with bitumen, and the carcass is 35 mm thick once that damping is counted. The bass section is tuned by a port that fires towards the floor, through the gap created by the plinth, rather than from the front or rear baffle. This layout moves the port output away from the listener and makes the spacing between plinth and floor part of the bass tuning.

Pairing

The wide recommended range means the speaker is specified for amplifiers from low-powered tube designs up to very large solid-state units, and the high sensitivity helps at the low end of that range. The low nominal load, however, favours output stages that remain stable when the load drops, and tube amplifiers should be connected to their lowest-impedance taps. The weight of each cabinet and the floor-firing port mean the plinths and spikes should sit on a solid, level surface.

Alternatives

The ProAc Response D48R is a slimmer floorstander with two 6.5-inch bass and midrange units and a ribbon tweeter, rated at 90 dB and 10 to 250 W.