Напольная акустика — Kaiser Acoustics Kawero Minal

The Kawero! Minal is a large floorstanding loudspeaker from Kaiser Acoustics of Germany. It is a 3-way system with four drivers, built with a sandwich cabinet of German-made Panzerholz and a ribbon tweeter developed with Ypsilon Electronics. The listed price is EUR 150,000.

Key specs that matter

Kaiser quotes 30 Hz to 30 kHz, a nominal impedance of 4 ohm and a sensitivity of about 93 dB at 2.83 V and 1 m. The front baffle carries a 12 inch woofer in a ported enclosure, a 10 inch woofer in a closed box, a 6.5 inch midrange and a proprietary ribbon tweeter, with all cone drivers custom made by Audiotechnology. Each cabinet is 141.3 cm tall, 52.8 cm wide and 74 cm deep and weighs 286 kg.

Engineering and use context

The two bass units are loaded differently - the larger woofer works into a vented volume while the smaller one sits in a sealed chamber - so the low range combines the output of both alignments. The midrange has its own closed cabinet with an absorbing chamber behind it, keeping it separate from the air pressure the bass units create. The ribbon tweeter sits in a waveguide shaped with the help of FEM calculations and is fed through a silver transformer made by Ypsilon Electronics. Kaiser uses Panzerholz in a proprietary mix to form a sandwich construction, and a special heavy foil applies constrained layer damping to the panels to control vibration. The crossover is built with Duelund CAST Cu components and uses a flat layout that Kaiser optimised for time-domain as well as frequency-domain behaviour. At this mass, positioning in the room is a job for several people or suitable handling equipment, and a stereo pair puts 572 kg on the floor. The cabinet size suits larger rooms rather than a space of 20 m2. Splitting the low range between a ported and a sealed woofer is a way to combine the extension of a vented alignment with the gentler roll-off of a closed box, and giving the midrange its own enclosure means it only has to handle the band above the woofers. The ribbon tweeter's transformer steps up the low impedance of the ribbon element to a load the crossover and amplifier can handle.

Pairing

The high sensitivity figure lets the Minal reach normal levels with modest power, so low-powered valve amplifiers and single-ended designs become sensible partners. The low nominal impedance still demands output stages that cope with a low load, so transformer taps or output stages rated for 4 ohm should be checked before choosing one.

Alternatives

The Kaiser Acoustics Kawero! Classic is another floorstanding model in the Kawero! loudspeaker range.