Напольная акустика — Unison Research MALIBRAN

The Malibran is a large passive floorstander from Unison Research, the Italian company founded in 1987 by Giovanni Sacchetti, which joined forces with Opera Loudspeakers in 1999. It was the first speaker designed by Opera to carry the Unison Research name, and it is named after the 19th-century soprano Maria Malibran, after whom a Venetian theatre is named. It concentrates the technologies of Opera's top models in a cabinet sized for the home.

Key specs that matter

It is a three-way design with rear radiation and 13 drivers per speaker. The drivers are three 250 mm (10 in) Seas aluminium-cone woofers, four Seas magnesium-cone midranges, one front 25 mm ScanSpeak tweeter from the 9000 series and four rear 25 mm tweeters in a Cross-Linked Dipole array. Crossover frequencies are 160 Hz and 2000 Hz. Frequency response is 20 Hz to 30 kHz, sensitivity is 89 dB, nominal impedance is 4 ohms with a minimum above 3.1 ohms, and the speaker accepts from 10 W up to 750 W RMS. It measures 1360 x 440 x 800 mm tall, wide and deep, and a single speaker weighs 130 kg.

Engineering and use context

The woofers work in parallel with a double 6+6 dB per octave low-pass filter and fire inward, towards the opposite speaker, a sub-bass arrangement developed by Opera. Each woofer sits in its own sealed chamber of about 40 litres, which Opera calls TEB, a totally enclosed box, avoiding port noise and giving each driver an independent air load. The midranges use a progressive low-pass filter and a second-order high-pass, while the front tweeter has a 12 dB per octave high-pass. The four rear tweeters in the Cross-Linked Dipole array radiate into the room behind the speaker. The cabinet combines an inner shell of multi-layer plywood and thick MDF with an outer layer of sculpted, polished real wood, and the standard finish is high-gloss cherry. Tri-wiring terminals allow separate connections for each section. The 800 mm depth and 130 kg weight mean the speaker must be positioned before it is fully set up, and the room needs space for its footprint behind as well as in front.

Pairing

The Malibran works with Unison Research's valve and hybrid amplifiers, while its power handling also allows large solid-state designs. Unison Research specifies at least 30 cm from the rear wall and 1.5 m between speakers, with the woofers facing each other.

Alternatives

Unison Research's Max 2 is the two-way floorstander designed mainly for the company's own valve amplifiers.