Напольная акустика — TIDAL La Assoluta

La Assoluta is a four-way full-range loudspeaker from the German maker TIDAL, assembled from three stacked modules per channel. The project grew from a question put to the company's earlier Sunray of 2003 and Sunray G2 of 2013 - whether those designs could be surpassed - and it was meant to challenge each basic assumption of loudspeaker engineering rather than replace them. The name refers to the title Primadonna Assoluta given to Maria Callas.

Key specs that matter

Each tower carries seven driven units - two 10 inch subwoofers, two 7.5 inch woofers, two 5.0 inch midrange-woofers with pure diamond diaphragms and one 1.2 inch tweeter - plus four 10 inch passive radiators. TIDAL quotes an F3 below 18 Hz without DSP or equalisation. A single tower is 232 cm high, 38 cm wide and 65 cm deep and weighs 485 kg unpacked. The diamond used in the midrange-woofer diaphragms adds up to 27 carats per speaker, or 54 carats for a stereo pair.

Engineering and use context

TIDAL calls the midrange-woofer the first in the world with a diaphragm of pure diamond rather than a coating or composite. It was developed together with Accuton over more than 13 years and reaches 7 mm of linear excursion, about ten times that of earlier diamond diaphragms, which lets it work as a broadband unit from 150 Hz upward. Its voice coil is joined directly from titanium to diamond, and the motor uses a ring magnet. The two midrange-woofers sit symmetrically above and below the central tweeter, and the company developed a new Assoluta-Unopulse crossover to avoid the integration problems of a classic D'Appolito layout and to hold point-source behaviour off axis. Silver is used in the crossover parts and in the binding posts. The tweeter mounts in a fully decoupled chamber, the baskets and rear clamping parts are CNC-milled, and the front assembly is an 18 kg piece of stainless steel alloy. The enclosure is made of TIRALIT-Ultra and contains chambers shielded against RF. The passive radiators are undriven, extending bass and efficiency without extra amplifier channels. Finish, veneer and detail options are chosen freely by the buyer.

Pairing

TIDAL specifies a power range from 20 W to more than 1,000 W, and the system can be run fully passive or part-active. A grounding option is available. For deeper extension the maker offers Assoluta Subtowers, four-module towers of the same footprint with four subwoofers, eight passive radiators and an active mono LPX crossover.

Alternatives

The TIDAL Akira is a far smaller three-way floorstander, 140 cm tall and 158 kg, with one 13-carat diamond midrange-woofer above three woofers.