Напольная акустика — Charney Audio The Companion Excalibur

The Companion Excalibur is one of two versions of the Companion series from Charney Audio, the tractrix horn specialist of Brian Charney in New Jersey. Charney offers the Companion in two visual treatments with identical acoustic design, and the Excalibur is the more decorative of the pair, with an ornamented front plate and a sculpted plinth. The Companion is presented as the little brother of the Concerto, bringing the same single-driver horn idea into a smaller cabinet and footprint.

Key specs that matter

Charney lists a frequency range of 32 Hz to 22 kHz and a sensitivity of 104 dB into 8 ohm. Each speaker measures about 117 cm high, 30 cm wide and 64 cm deep and weighs roughly 27 kg with its stand. The internal horn path is about 2.7 m long. Pair prices depend on the driver chosen, at USD 13,400 with the Voxativ AC 1.6, USD 16,400 with the Voxativ AC 2.6 and USD 21,400 with the AER bd-3b, which makes the Excalibur the least expensive way into the Companion line.

Engineering and use context

This path length is the same Charney uses in the Lumaca VI, but here it is folded into a far more compact enclosure than that cylindrical model. Against the Concerto, whose horn runs to about 3 m, the Companion gives up only a small part of the bottom octave. One 8 inch wideband driver per side covers the full range, so the signal meets no crossover network and all frequencies leave from a single point. The horn mouth is angled to load into the room at 45 degrees, and Charney specifies free space behind the cabinet and pitches the design at medium to large listening rooms. Internal wiring comes from Jena Labs. Finishes are two-tone veneer combinations, including rosewood with ebony, rosewood with maple, walnut with rosewood, black with rosewood, maple with rosewood, cherry with rosewood, cherry with black and maple with black, and other custom veneers can be ordered.

Pairing

The very high sensitivity means that a single-ended triode amplifier with only a few watts per channel is enough, and Charney builds and has demonstrated its own 300B valve amplifiers for its horns. Buyers choose the driver when ordering, and swapping between the Voxativ and AER options changes the price rather than the cabinet.

Alternatives

The Charney Audio Companion Moderno uses the same horn and acoustic design behind a plainer front plate and an architectural plinth.