Epos is to release its long awaited flagship speaker at this week's CES tradeshow. The Epos Encore 50 will set the scene for the company's future speaker development.
Each and every part of the Epos Encore has been developed by the Epos engineers to a standard not achieved before from the company. From the original design concept through to the cabinet construction, to the speaker drive units, to the crossover and to the final voicing, the Encore 50 stands superior in every way. The cabinet is tall and imposing yet exhibits elegance synonymous with Epos. Standing 1.2 metres high, it is deeper rather than wide and is supplied with a strong stylish painted MDF plinth to support its 50 kg weight and spread its footprint for improved stability and mechanical decoupling. Fully adjustable turned aluminum and steel spiked feet can raise or lower the speaker to adjust or tilt the level. The cabinet itself is made from a composite of birch-plywood and MDF which has been extensively strengthened internally using plywood bracing within the mid-range and bass enclosures. To ensure the lowest coloration, the cabinet and bracing have been optimized, following accelerometer measurements and listening tests. Hand selected and book-matched real wood veneer has been chosen give the most luxurious finish on an Epos speaker so far.
Separate Bass, Mid-range and Crossover sections of the cabinet are hermetically sealed and allow the Crossover to be located in a convenient section at the bottom of the cabinet, accessed via the large, ventilated terminal panel on the bottom rear with a letter box opening in the plinth. All drive units are separately wired to the crossover section, using custom Epos solid core wire.
Separate Bass, Mid-range and Crossover sections of the cabinet are hermetically sealed and allow the Crossover to be located in a convenient section at the bottom of the cabinet, accessed via the large, ventilated terminal panel on the bottom rear with a letter box opening in the plinth. All drive units are separately wired to the crossover section, using custom Epos solid core wire.
The bass enclosure has a volume of 43 liters. Two 220mm woofers are bass-reflex loaded by one large diameter 90mm port, positioned mid-way between the woofers and flared at both ends to minimize port turbulence and harmonic distortion. The height and spacing of the woofers has been chosen to minimize the 'floor-bounce' cancellation, optimize bass output and ensure a smooth bass-mid range transition in room. The mid-range unit is in its own, braced, 8 liter sealed-box enclosure.
A custom made MDF plinth helps to extend the footprint of the speaker and decouple mechanical vibrations from the cabinet. This makes the speaker more stable in a domestic environment and improves low frequency performance. It also allows access to the crossover adjustment patch-board. Adjustable metal feet allow the height and angle of the speaker to be adjusted. This enables a custom skateboard to fit underneath so the speaker can be transported on wheels to a different position and then carefully lowered into place. This is supplied with the speakers.
The 2 x 220 mm woofers and 158 mm mid-range cones are made from a Kevlar/carbon fiber/pulp mixture to combine high rigidity, with good inherent damping and feature concave dust caps coupled tightly to the cone. Frequency responses of both woofer and mid-range are inherently very smooth. They each incorporate a copper shorting ring in the magnetic circuit to reduce and linearise inductance and therefore, reduce harmonic and inter-modulation distortions at high sound pressure levels. The two woofer cones couple acoustically at low frequencies and are port loaded for extremely high power handling.
The tweeter is a specially developed version of the Epos Mi tweeter, with anodized aluminum dome, Kapton voice coil former, braided lead-out wires and Ferro-Fluid damping. The centre pole is damped under the dome and vented into a contoured, felt- filled, rear chamber to damp the fundamental resonance frequency.
The crossover design of the Encore 50 is revolutionary. It allows the user unparalleled flexibility to compensate for individual room acoustics, without compromising sound quality in any way. The tonal balance may be increased or decreased in 1dB steps by means of hard-wire links connected by a plug board on the crossover PCB, accessed through the aperture in the bottom of the speaker and plinth. The passive crossovers use a mixture of custom Epos polypropylene and bypassed, non-polarized electrolytic capacitors, air-core inductors, laminated steel-core inductors and metal-oxide resistors.
The high sensitivity mid-range is attenuated by a tapped auto transformer, which doubles as the high-pass crossover inductor. The tweeter network also has variable attenuation via metal-oxide resistors. The maximum sensitivity treble position by-passes all attenuation. Passive components are mounted on a high quality, glass fiber PCB, mechanically isolated from the cabinet.
The crossover PCB's are designed to be completely, or partially, by-passed, to enable the user to configure the speaker in passive or active mode. In the near future Epos will offer a custom DAC with programmable digital crossover to suit any make of amplification system. In short, it has unparalleled flexibility.
