Напольная акустика — Wlm Franz

The Franz, an active floorstander, comes from WLM, the Wiener Lautsprecher Manufaktur of Austria, whose speakers are developed and produced in Vienna. WLM built it to fit the largest possible membrane area onto a small footprint while staying acceptable in a living room, with no restrictions on materials, cabinet work or electronic parts. A smaller Franz S and the Franz Ferdinand sit next to it at the ambitious end of a catalogue that reached its 25th year in 2026.

Key specs that matter

Every Franz carries eleven drivers. Two air motion transformer (AMT) tweeters of 20 or 25 cm handle the treble, four 8-inch woofer/midrange units with alnico magnets and papyrus membranes cover the midband, a 6-inch unit fires upward, and four 12-inch bass drivers with hard-suspended paper cones reach down to the low end. Amplification inside each speaker totals 3,300 W. WLM quotes a range of 20 Hz to 29 kHz. The cabinet is 145 cm tall and 64 cm deep, 21 cm across its front and rear faces and 38 cm at its widest point in the middle, and one speaker weighs 190 kg.

Engineering and use context

The tweeters radiate as dipoles, sending output both forward and backward, and the upper bass driver and the extra midrange unit face the ceiling. WLM combines these features so the speaker spreads its output into the room in a way that stays stable even for a listener walking around it or standing behind it. Separate amplifiers drive the low, mid and high frequency branches, and the signal is divided by analogue input filters before it reaches them. These filters can be adapted individually to the owner's preferences. The enclosure is about 90 percent solid wood in a multi-layer build that moves from spruce on the inside through birch and oak to beech, so the hardness of the layers changes from inside to outside. Wall thickness ranges from 7 to 17 cm, and the four 12-inch units work into two closed bass chambers per speaker rather than a vented alignment.

Pairing

With amplification built in, the Franz needs only a line-level source or preamplifier, plus interconnects and mains cables. WLM also makes the Anton preamplifier, which fits this role within its own range. Moving and positioning a cabinet of this mass is a job for several people.

Alternatives

The Franz S is the smaller active WLM floorstander, with 1,850 W per speaker and a weight of 90 kg.