Напольная акустика — YG Acoustics VANTAGE 3

The Vantage 3 is a compact passive three-way tower in the Reference 3 range of YG Acoustics, positioned by the company between the two-way Carmel and the larger Hailey. It borrows several technologies from the XV and Sonja models, and its aluminium enclosure is machined in-house and assembled by hand in YG's Colorado workshop. The UK price is GBP 51,900 per pair. It follows the first Vantage of 2020, which sold for GBP 39,990 per pair, and an active sister model, the Vantage 3 Live, uses Bel Canto electronics.

Key specs that matter

YG fits a 26 mm Lattice hybrid tweeter on an aerospace alloy airframe. Below it an 18.5 cm BilletCore aluminium cone midrange runs on neodymium motor magnets, and a 22 cm BilletCore aluminium cone woofer uses a motor of ultra-high field strength. YG quotes usable output from 26 Hz to 40 kHz. Sensitivity is 87 dB, and impedance averages 4 ohm with a lowest value of 2.8 ohm. The cabinet is 112 cm high, 33 cm wide and 54 cm deep, and each speaker weighs 85 kg. Silver and black are standard, with further colours to order.

Engineering and use context

Compared with the original Vantage, the third version swaps the ForgeCore fabric dome tweeter, the same unit fitted to the Carmel 2, for the Lattice hybrid design, and moves from the older DualCoherent network to an Ultracoherent circuit. The new crossover hands over at 90 Hz and 1.75 kHz and keeps the relative phase of adjacent drivers within plus or minus 5 degrees where their outputs overlap. Its parts list covers bespoke capacitors, some of them pure metal foil, advanced resistors and a layout arranged by computer to keep parts from interfering with each other. YG says the tuning combined long listening sessions with multi-domain physics and acoustic models run on supercomputer and cloud resources. The first Vantage weighed 72 kg with a 3 ohm minimum, so the current model is heavier and dips slightly lower. The Vantage 3 Live has near-identical dimensions but adds 700 W of class D amplification per driver and weighs 80 kg.

Pairing

As a passive tower that dips well under its average load, the Vantage 3 works best with a solid-state amplifier that has ample current and holds its output into loads well below 4 ohm. Stereo power amplifiers or monoblocks with a 2 ohm rating give a margin for the dips. Owners who would rather skip separate amplification can look at the Live version, which integrates preamp, DAC, streamer and phono inputs.

Alternatives

The YG Acoustics Hailey is the larger three-way floor-standing model placed directly above the Vantage 3 in the Reference range.