Напольная акустика — Acapella HIGH CECILIA

The High Cecilia is a floorstanding horn system made by Acapella Audio Arts in the German city of Duisburg. It grew out of the older High Violoncello, keeping that model's woofer section and adding the newer central high-frequency assembly first used in the Cellini. The result places an ion tweeter and a hyperspherical broadband horn on top of a heavier bass cabinet, and Acapella notes that the case became even more massive than before. The company claims to have invented the spherical horn, with work on the shape dating back to its founding in 1978.

Key specs that matter

Three 10-inch drivers look after the low end - two fire forward from the front baffle and a third works inside the cabinet as an isobaric subwoofer. The midrange uses a 1-inch driver on a 620 mm hyperspherical wideband horn, and the plasma tweeter covers the treble. Acapella rates the system at 25 Hz to 40 kHz, 93 dB at 1 W and 1 m and 8 ohm. Load capacity is 100 W to 1,000 W over a 10 ms impulse. The cabinet alone is 1,560 x 350 x 560 mm, and the complete speaker with horn is 1,780 mm high, 620 mm wide and 700 mm deep. Weight is about 140 kg per speaker. In the US the High Cecilia was priced at USD 70,000 in black or white acrylic or a veneer of choice, with ceramic silver bi-wiring and the Sub Octave feature included and a lead time of about three months.

Engineering and use context

The bass foundation doubles as the mounting structure for the horn and the ion tweeter, which gives the upper drivers a rigid base and keeps the whole assembly in one piece. Placing the third woofer internally in isobaric loading lets it add low-frequency output without taking up more baffle area, so the front view stays limited to two cones. The ION TW 1 tweeter has no moving diaphragm. An arc held inside the unit by high voltage is modulated with the audio signal, and the changing electron density pushes on the air around it. Rated on its own, the tweeter handles up to 110 dB at 1 m, has an input impedance of 600 ohm and a sensitivity of 1.5 V for 0 dB. Internal wiring is ceramic silver throughout.

Pairing

Acapella states that amplifier output from 15 W upward is enough, and the high efficiency suits single-ended and push-pull valve designs as well as solid-state amplifiers. The bi-wire terminals allow two cable runs per side or bi-amping with separate amplifiers for bass and upper range.

Alternatives

For a taller Acapella floorstander, the Campanile 2 steps up to four 10-inch woofers in a 2.36 m column with the same horn.