Напольная акустика — Vandersteen Audio Quatro Wood CT

The Quatro Wood CT is a Vandersteen Audio floorstander with a powered bass section built into each cabinet and a passive upper range. CT stands for Carbon Tweeter, the tweeter coming from the Model 5A Carbon, and the design draws on the research behind the patented carbon-fibre Perfect-Piston drivers of the Model 7. The starting price is USD 20,150 for two speakers excluding duty, taxes and freight, and production is in the USA.

Key specs that matter

Per side the driver count is five. The 1 inch carbon dome tweeter sits in an aerodynamic dual-chamber, transmission-line loaded housing with ferrofluid voice-coil cooling. Midrange duty falls to a patented 4.5 inch Reflection-Free driver with a tri-woven composite cone and die-cast aerodynamic basket, and the 6.5 inch mid-woofer pairs a woven-fibre cone with a precision-formed magnet and copper Faraday ring. Below them two 8 inch carbon-loaded cellulose-cone subwoofers with long-throw motors are driven by a 250 watt high-current, power-factor corrected amplifier. First-order crossovers at 6 dB per octave divide the range at 100 Hz, 900 Hz and 5 kHz. Response is quoted as 24 Hz to 40 kHz within plus or minus 2 dB, sensitivity as 87 dB at 1 metre with 2.83 volts, and impedance as 8 ohms plus or minus 3 ohms. Each speaker measures 254 by 1092 by 483 mm and weighs 50 kg net.

Engineering and use context

Like every Vandersteen model, the Quatro Wood CT is designed to be time and phase correct, with all drivers in positive phase. The company chose carbon for the tweeter because carbon cones give the pistonic linearity of metal drivers. The Reflection-Free midrange is designed to break up energy from behind the cone before it can return straight into the room. Passive first-order high-pass filters at the lowest crossover point relieve the main amplifier of deep bass, which Vandersteen says is also the only way to keep response flat across the handover to the powered subwoofers. Crossovers are impedance compensated and individually tuned in an anechoic chamber, and the Minimum Baffle enclosures are built for rigidity with low reflection and diffraction. Nine veneers are listed - walnut, mahogany walnut, light walnut, oak, dark oak, maple, cherry, faux ebony and black.

Pairing

Vandersteen rates the speaker for 40 to 200 watts into 8 ohms from the main amplifier. Signal enters through barrier strips accepting spades up to 11 mm wide. For home theatre Vandersteen names the VCC-2 on-wall three-way centre model as the partner.

Alternatives

Vandersteen's floorstanding line also offers the Quatro Wood CT Evo, which internalises the high-pass filtering so that it works with integrated amplifiers and home theatre receivers.