Напольная акустика — Piega COAX 811

The Coax 811 is a three-way tower speaker standing 124 cm tall, made by the Swiss company Piega, and the company names it the top model of its Coax Gen2 series, aimed at larger living areas. Its cabinet is made of one-piece extruded aluminium and was styled by designer Stephan Hurlemann.

Key specs that matter

Piega quotes a frequency response of 22 Hz to 50 kHz, a sensitivity of 92 dB at 1 W and 1 m and a nominal impedance of 4 ohm. The recommended amplifier power is 20 to 250 W. Each speaker is 29 cm wide and 42 cm deep and weighs 63 kg. The driver complement consists of one C212+ coaxial ribbon unit, two 220 mm UHQD woofers and two further 220 mm UHQD passive radiators, so four bass units of equal diameter share the low frequencies while only two of them are driven by the amplifier.

Engineering and use context

In the C212+ coaxial driver, the ribbon handling the treble sits at the centre of a larger ribbon membrane that covers the midrange, so both bands leave from the same point and, as Piega states, reach the listener in phase. The foils of this coaxial ribbon have significantly more surface area than those used in the smaller Coax 411 and Coax 611, so the membranes travel less at a given level. The woofers and passive radiators are produced by the Norwegian driver maker SEAS to Piega's specifications. Inside the aluminium enclosure, a Tension Improve Module 2, known as TIM2, places the cabinet under controlled tension in order to calm resonances in the walls. Standard finishes are brushed silver aluminium with a silver grille cloth, brushed black anodised aluminium with a black cloth and a white lacquer finish over aluminium paired with white cloth. Through the Coax Excellence programme, eight special colours are also offered, namely Blue Lagoon, Misty Green, Shiny Ash, Desert Gold, Bordeaux Red, Havanna Tobacco, Autumn Bronze and Alpine Stone. The Coax Gen2 family around it includes the slimmer Coax 611 tower, the Coax 411 bookshelf model and the Coax Center 211 for home cinema use.

Pairing

The low nominal load and the wide recommended power window mean the speaker accepts both modest and high power stereo amplifiers, provided they are specified for low impedance operation. Adding the Coax Center 211 and a pair of Coax 411 models builds a multichannel system in the same aluminium styling.

Alternatives

The Piega Coax 611 is the slimmer floorstanding model of the Coax Gen2 series, also using a coaxial ribbon driver in an extruded aluminium cabinet.