Напольная акустика — Kyron Audio KRONOS

The Kronos is a complete active music system from Kyron Audio, the Australian company that builds open-baffle loudspeakers with integrated digital signal processing and amplification. Kyron positions it for lofts and small apartments, where it says the dipole radiation of an open baffle does not carry through walls the way the output of a box speaker does. Above it in the range sits the Phoenix for dedicated listening rooms, and the Gaia system is also offered. An optional Mercury subwoofer can be added.

Key specs that matter

Per side, Kyron fits two 12 inch long-throw dipole woofers, one 7 inch low-distortion midwoofer driven by Kyron's patented SD-3 symmetrical-drive motor, and two ring-dome tweeters of 1 inch and 3/4 inch with SD-2 motors. The system is powered by six Halcro Lyrus amplifiers rated at 500 W peak each, 3,000 W peak in total, housed in three dual-mono units with a separate regulated buffer stage. Signal processing is by DEQX, running at 96 kHz. The control unit accepts analogue signals through one XLR and one RCA input and digital signals through AES/EBU on XLR, RCA and BNC S/PDIF, Toslink and asynchronous USB.

Engineering and use context

In an open-baffle design the drivers are mounted without a box behind them, so they radiate to the front and rear in opposite phase. The two outputs cancel towards the sides, which gives the figure-of-eight dipole pattern Kyron relies on in small rooms. An open baffle loses efficiency in the bass, where front and rear waves cancel, and Kyron restores it with an analogue compensation filter ahead of the woofers. The DEQX processor provides linear-phase FIR crossovers, which divide the signal between drivers without phase shift, together with anechoic frequency response correction of each driver and correction of group delay, so that sound from all drivers arrives at the listener in time. The symmetrical-drive motors on the midrange and tweeters are designed to apply force evenly in both directions of cone travel. The Halcro units feed the driver groups directly, with no passive network in between. Finishes can include real gold or silver highlights, custom paint or carbon fibre.

Pairing

With processing and amplifiers already included, the Kronos needs only sources, which connect to its analogue or digital inputs, such as a streamer, CD transport or computer. The Mercury subwoofer extends the bass.

Alternatives

The Kyron Audio Phoenix is the larger system for dedicated rooms, with three 15 inch and one 12 inch dipole bass drivers per side.