Mandolin Ceramik %equipamentos high end%

Mandolin Ceramik

A musical instrument

Audiopax is known for the unique musicality of its products, something that brings its listeners closer to the real musical event. It is such a striking characteristic of our products that Srajan Ebaen, editor of the prestigious website 6Moons, recommended the following motto to better define us: “Uniquely Real“.

This is because all of Audiopax’s projects are based on a seemingly simple concept that completely affects their implementation: we believe that one of the most important parameters of sound reproduction is the control of distortion variations as a function of frequency, power and impedance. In addition to being a unique concept – we don’t know of any other company in the market that uses it as its basic development reference – it is also so conceptually sound that it can be applied to our entire product line, from innovative valve circuits to the design of our loudspeakers.

The Mandolin Ceramik II is the pinnacle of the implementation of these concepts in acoustic boxes, revealing, like all Audiopax products, the true character of music, uniting musicality, transparency, fidelity and precision. Its breathtaking macro dynamics are accompanied by incredible transparency in micro-details, bringing listeners, more than just sound, the pulse and intentions of the musicians.

These are three-way speakers with a unique design, using superlative drivers, a unique crossover not only in the design but also in the high-level components used, and an exquisite construction, using the finest luthiery techniques.

The Mandolin Ceramik II is the combination of Engineering and Art, with a perfect balance between technique and emotion. These are the ultimate acoustic boxes.

The Drivers

Our intention in developing the Mandolin Ceramik II was to create a captivating and realistic emotional experience, combining dynamics, timbral precision, resolution, micro-dynamics and musicality as in the real world. To achieve this, one of the fundamental decisions was to choose the best speakers available on the market that could combine all these factors in a superlative way.

As a brief history, in 1984, Bernhard Thiel invented a process for producing very thin sheets of corundum, an aluminum oxide mineral (Al2O3). This process made it possible to create extremely rigid, lightweight and highly damped speaker cones, expanding the response band and drastically reducing distortion compared to traditional methods, thus achieving sound reproduction with a purity never before achieved. When combined with neodymium magnets, the most perfect alloy for speaker control, the result achieves distortion characteristics as low as 0.07%, something unheard of for these components that, until then, had always represented the “weak link” in all audio systems.

The Mandolin Ceramik II uses in its tweeters and midrange the best ceramic drivers produced by the German company Accuton, founded by Bernhard Thiel.

For the woofers, we selected drivers from the “Satori” series from the Danish company SB Acoustics. These drivers are made with EGYPTIAN PAPYRUS™, a material manufactured in-house that simultaneously combines the best characteristics of paper and aluminum cones, ensuring bass with excellent transient response but extremely musical, in yet another association within the Audiopax universe of precision and musicality. The use of two 6.5” speakers in parallel guarantees in this case the equivalent surface area of a 10″ unit, with a demand for half the excursion and consequently obtaining half the intermodulation distortion. With this, we were able to create an extremely elegant and small speaker but with all the bass power of much larger speakers.

Crossover

The term “State of the Art” is what best describes the Mandolin Ceramik II crossover, not only because of its unusual series-parallel design (a topology rarely used because it requires, as a premise, the use of spectacular components in its execution – exactly what we find here) but also because of the quality of its components: copper-wax capacitors from Jupiter Condensers, one of the most renowned manufacturers of capacitors for the high-end audio market, non-magnetic coils and resistors from Mundorf, special copper and silver wiring and Furutech binding posts with built-in torque meter. All of these components were chosen to have a perfect match with the speakers used, creating a system in complete synergy.

In addition to the extreme care taken in choosing the components, we also opted for a point-to-point construction, a much more laborious technique but which brings numerous advantages in performance due to the significant reduction of capacitances and resistances in the audio flow (it is common to find, even in high-end segment boxes, printed circuit boards in the crossovers – cheaper and simpler to produce but with numerous disadvantages from a performance point of view).

The Construction

In addition to the incredible number of features created specifically for maximum final performance, it also adds elements that make it one of the most beautiful speakers on the market. Its back follows the perfect contour of a quarter ellipse and harmonizes perfectly with its inclined sides, creating the impression of a small, delicate, feminine speaker. Its finish is made with epoxy resin and automotive paint in seven layers and its baffle has marquetry details similar to those used in the iconic D28 series from the beginning of the 20th century by Martin Guitars – a classic!