Напольная акустика — Kaiser Acoustics Kawero! Grande

The Kawero! Grande is a four-way floorstander made by Kaiser Acoustics, the audio arm of Kaiser GmbH, a family-run wood engineering company founded in 1948 near Untergriesbach in south-eastern Germany. Kaiser also fits out recording studios, lecture halls and home cinemas, and its Kawero! range includes the compact Chiara, the Vivace and the Classic. The Grande grew out of the Classic, with larger drivers throughout and an extra bass unit that the bigger cone area made necessary.

Key specs that matter

Each speaker stands 180 cm tall, 62 cm wide and 78 cm deep, and weighs 235 kg. It is built from two separate enclosures. A rear-firing 15 inch AudioTechnology woofer with a sandwich cone and a 4 inch hybrid voice coil works in a ported box. On the front, a 12 inch AudioTechnology low-midrange and upper-bass unit with a sandwich cone and 3 inch voice coil sits in a closed box. The midrange is an 8 inch Scan-Speak Ellipticor with a paper cone, and two custom RAAL 70-20XR ribbon tweeters cover the top. All woofers are made to order by AudioTechnology in Denmark and use a carbon-paper sandwich cone. The crossover is optimised for time and phase.

Engineering and use context

For comparison, the Classic uses a 10 inch woofer and a 6.5 inch AudioTechnology midrange with a custom coated polypropylene cone, so the Grande moves up on every driver size. Kaiser chose a sealed enclosure for the low-midrange unit to suit its upper-bass duty. The RAAL tweeters use an amorphous core in their transformers, and a partnership with Audio Note Kondo of Japan allows Kaiser to wind the primary of each transformer with Kondo silver wire. The cabinet is a sandwich of tankwood and rubber, which Kaiser says matches aluminium for stiffness while damping better. Tankwood, sold as Panzerholz, is a dense beech-based laminate that Kaiser machines in-house on CNC equipment. The upper section is separated from the lower one and the two are joined on site, and the speaker stands on Stillpoint Ultra 5 stainless steel feet. Development takes place in a listening room in Regensburg run by technical director Rainer Weber, who also works as an acoustician at Continental AG.

Pairing

Kaiser publishes no impedance, sensitivity, bandwidth or amplifier power figures for the Grande. For the electronics, Kaiser offers LeadingEdge racks developed with Vertex AQ of Wales, which combine the Vertex damping technology with craftsman-built frames.

Alternatives

The Kawero! Classic is the smaller three-way floorstander in the range at 121 cm tall and 99 kg per speaker.