Acoustic Energy Announces Flagship AE520

Acoustic Energy has announced their new flagship speaker, the AE520. In March last year, the English loudspeaker manufacturer announced the new Acoustic Energy 500 Series. This product line has been given the responsible task of building a new reference class among the wide range of products already in production. In keeping with the company’s philosophy of offering superb value, they made the promise of offering a reference-level solution at an attainable price.

The Acoustic Energy 500 Series has so far consisted of two loudspeaker systems, one of the best floorstanding speakers in its price range and a compact speaker, in the form of the AE 509 and AE 500 models.

Acoustic Energy is now extending the 500 Series with a model that is positioned at the top end in the form of the new AE 520, thus taking on the role of the new flagship within this product series and is designed as a reference speaker. The innovative features of the smaller siblings AE 500 and AE 509 are naturally adopted here, but is intended to form the basis for a further increase in performance.

DESIGN

The baffle presents itself amply equipped with drivers, no less than six of them are used here, all of which have been specially developed for the 500 Series and optimized for the respective models.

The D’Appolito arrangement is immediately noticeable, with the tweeter flanked by the mid-range drivers as in the AE 509 by a mid tweeter / mid bass driver layout called MTM.

The tweeter is designed as a 25 mm carbon fibre dome tweeter and as a special feature has a so-called waveguide, specifically an aluminium die-cast WDT waveguide, which is supposed to guarantee an optimal radiation. It starts already at 2.8 kHz and is flanked, as already described, by the two midrange drivers with a diameter of 125 mm each. The developers used drivers equipped with carbon-fibre reinforced diaphragms, which are supposed to cover the frequency range between 373 Hz and 2.8 kHz. Three additional 125 mm drivers with reinforced cones are responsible for the low frequency range.

VOICE COIL

A particularly important feature of the midrange and bass drivers is an oversized voice coil with a diameter of 35 mm. This is intended to make a significant contribution to ensuring very low thermal compression and thus very high dynamics.

All the essential details were also taken into account in the design of the cabinet, for example, the new Acoustic Energy AE 520 is equipped with specially sealed chambers in the mid-range drivers for optimum acoustic insulation, especially from the woofers. 

CABINET    

A great deal of attention was paid to the construction of the cabinet, for example by using a special sandwich construction, known as the RCS resonance suppression composite material. In practice, this means that an outer wall made of 9 mm MDF and an inner wall made of 6 mm MDF are used and connected by a 3 mm bitumen layer. As a result, one speaker weighs in at an impressive 30 kg.

As mentioned, this is a deliberately slim and thus elegant design, but this also means that a correspondingly solid base is required. For this purpose, the designers rely on metal struts and aluminium spikes on which the housing stands securely.

The crossovers are also assembled using only high-quality components such as polypropylene film wound capacitors, which are mounted on two separate boards. A separate board for the low-frequency drivers should minimize crosstalk between the components.

PERFORMANCE

Finally, a few key data: The new Acoustic Energy AE 520 has a frequency response from 30 Hz up to 28 kHz, an impedance of 6 ohms and an efficiency of 90 dB. It should be capable of handling up to 300 Watts and achieve a peak level of 113 dB.

The new Acoustic Energy AE 520 is available in high-gloss white and high-gloss black, with an additional version in American walnut veneer.

As already mentioned in the introduction, this new flagship of the Acoustic Energy AE 500 Series will unfortunately require a little more patience. The recommended retail price in Canada is $5999.

Getting to the point

Acoustic Energy Loudspeakers Ltd. is now expanding the Acoustic Energy AE 500 Series with a model that ranks at the top end, taking on the role of the new flagship within this product series designed as a reference line. The innovative features of the smaller siblings Acoustic Energy AE 500 and Acoustic Energy AE 509 are of course adopted here, but are presented here in a form that is intended to form the basis for a further increase in performance.

According to the manufacturer, the new Acoustic Energy AE 520 is a floor-standing speaker system which, although quite powerful and imposing in appearance, has been deliberately designed to be integrated into the living space in the best possible way. It is therefore a very tall and slim construction. After all, the height is 1,130 mm, the width is only 185 mm and the depth is 320 mm.

Canadian Distributor: Nation Imports 

Reference: hifi.blog